Bork Slowly Borking

 Went to see a friend yesterday for a cup of tea and a chat. Was difficult to get my shit sorted and get out, but I did it. Whilst there felt pretty much ok. Was nice. Had some lovely tea ( Green Rooibos, Peach & Cherry for the record, was yum ) . It came up during conversation that I was circling the drain - you've been saying that for sometime she said. Yeah. The issue is I can report how I feel, but what I can't predict is just how tenacious my bodies will to live is. Which is. Apparently. Fairly robust and bloody minded. I did say however, that I can do short periods of normality, almost like on adrenaline before I then crash and inevitably pay for it. You should see me when I wake up for instance. No sooner had I got home I ended up paying for my afternoon. A migraine thundered in, dragging nausea along behind it. I tried - very briefly - ignoring it, always the most stupid fucking idea before chomping some aspirin ( a gout trigger, oh boy ) and heading for bed. I man...

 Exhausted. Eyes feel full of sand. I have started using my oxy tracking device again when I sleep because, it's bad again. I reviewed my results, not great, not exactly horrific either. I now have my doubts whether my sleep issues are apnea or not. I definitely have apnea at times but I think it rises and falls, like everything else with me. Sometimes it's a major issue. Sometimes it's a background issue. Which kinda circles me back round to - my sleep and why do I have black eyes and stinging red eyes when I wake up and always feel super tired. Allergies ? Shit circulation ? A failing heart ? Meh. I will keep monitoring the oxy and see how it does. Based on that I will make a final call on getting a CPAP. I suppose I should just get one anyway and see if it makes a difference. There's nothing quite like just fucking testing something in actuality to figure out if it works or not. Rather than dithering around with theoreticals and monitoring. Right foot doing better. L...

Work was, for the first week since... I'm going to say August 2023... sane. No major panics. No major screw ups. At least, none that demanded my immediate attention. No one desperately wailing at me to save them. Which. Was nice. Work resembled what work should be. I helped one of the devs out with something he was stuck on. Took my time to get a release right. And generally could take a breath to make sure things were done correctly all round and start pointing out where they weren't and also, gasp, noting things to be done in the future. There were some rage inducing moments - particulaly when I found our senior dev had gone and done exactly what I told him not to do, and introduced a whole bunch of extra work and maintenance issues because of it. Annoying. Fucking mutinous at worst. I talked with Andy about everything at the end of the day. And. I wont go into it. But yeah. An issue. But the usual shit. Hard to find anyone with half a brain these days. So. Half a brain win...

 I am keeping a very close eye on Athena for signs of any worsening of condition or even ripple in behaviour. None at the moment. Despite a lowering of drug regime. And she seems more stable in her movements. Currently I have cut her gabapentin down to 2 instead of 3, and also halved her paracetamol intake. I am very hesitant to take it as a slam dunk oh she's getting better. I'm not sure I believe it. Or want to hope that far. But the signs are good. But in another good sign. First time today in a long while. She happily wagged her tail at a back scratch. Tail up. Waggity wag. Wow. Holy shit. Her eye however is a mess. If it wasn't for all the other issues and her age, at this point, it should have been pulled. But. Here's my absolute hope. I can continue to slowly ween her off painkillers until we get down to a librella and gabapentin dose. Which is long term sustainable - no clocks running on that one of burning out your liver and kidneys. Is that feasible ? I have n...

  Slightly better sleep last night. I mean. Horrible. But. At least my eye is not bruised to the touch today. Rolling nausea and constantly dizzy, and, of course, pains all over. But the pains are down half a notch. I think I managed to get a couple of hours of genuinely recuperative sleep last night amongst the hours of bullshit. The nausea and dizzy I have today is not good. Sigh. Just. Ignore it. As minor as it is in the scale of things, the nausea is a real bitch to deal with because it saps any little enthusiasm or concentration you have and leaves you feeling ill. Eh well. As of last night I stuck myself on the "fast" required for another private health test. They call it a fast. To me it's just a limited diet. It kinda starts a month out, no antibiotics, no this that or the other. Then more restrictions the week prior until finally the last 24 hours. Nothing but plain chicken, white rice, eggs, white bread, plain tea and water. And in the last 12 hours. Nothing at...

 Hazel has left under a cloud of rage. I got up yesterday not super wanting to go downstairs and walk into a snarl. The coin flip of whether Hazel was approachable or in a quiet bubbling rage. Not a big deal. But. I just didn't want to stick my head into that mangler. So I avoided her. Got some breakfast and very slowly woke up from an awful sleep. Two black eyes, and my right one, bruised and hurting to the touch. Ibuprofen over night seems to take a real edge off of any swelling in the right foot and also helps out the pains in the left foot ( which have got worse, can't tell if this is gout related or just general squealing in line with the rest of my body ). Walking about on my feet is painful. Middle of the afternoon I figured it was time to get moving and get Hazel back home so she could spend some time there, sort stuff out, yada. We had agreed to do it mid afternoon the previous day. I discovered her unmoved from the sofa. Stuck to a device. Are you ready to go ? No sh...

 Mixed bag today. In the morning after giving Athena her morning meds I hacked my hair off. I've been growing it out ( for the second time in my life ) the last 4 years or so. And as per the last time. I have got fed up with its maintenance. And with my shitty health I super struggle to even do the basics. So. I lopped it all off. Like some scene of a lunatic hacking their hair in the bathroom mirror. Bit of a relief honestly. Zero maintenance hair suits my life at the moment. But this is me all over. I shift slowly between really liking long hair - always true - and the reality of having to deal with its snarly bullshit once it gets to an "interesting" length. Afterwards. Girded my loins and took the car to get the battery changed. I belatedly realised this wasn't going to be easy for me because my feet are so fucked at the moment I can't walk any distance - so, whilst I could drop the car off, getting back home and then back out again would not be so easy. I dec...

 A successful couple of days of work. Andy was most pleased and that he couldn't thank me enough for getting shit sorted and done. Uh huh. But, coincidence or not, it has taken its toll. I am exhausted. Full of pain. And if I am sitting up, or doing shit, I feel sick, nauseous. Without a doubt shit has got worse this week. A lot worse. The gout refuses to shift. It's back again. My feet in general hurt like a mother fucker. Painful to stand on for any time at all. And the rest of me also squeals in pain. I get this from time to time in prolonged periods. Sometimes for many months if not years. Where every single muscle and joint hurts, a sharp, squealing pain if you move, an ache when you don't. And it particularly sets in around the upper torso. A ring of pain. It's one of the symptoms I had in the past pondered if it were MS. I don't know what it is. But it is breath stealing. And it's *always* worse after sleeping for a while. Waking up after sleep has return...

 Annnddd the gout is back again. That's on. Off. On. Off. On. For those keeping count. I think basically it's just one long on for the last month +, which, is not good. It's supposed to shift in 2 weeks. Having it stick around like this means almost certainly my uric levels are running continually high. Almost like I needed the meds I said I needed which the NHS didn't give me 3 weeks ago. Piss ups in breweries. No surprise there then. Hazel's mood has continued to bounce around. From snarly lows, to contented jokey highs. Tricky. I am beginning to get a bit gun shy with it - avoiding her sometimes and at other times getting a bump in anxiety when she floats by ( like waiting for the other shoe to drop ). I had this exact same pattern of existence with my mom when I was younger. That same air of anxiety whenever she approached - the whole, what now, what horrible thing is going to unfold, what fight, what nastiness. You end up flinching before something happens, li...

The same patterns in IT repeat themselves. Not a technical thing. But a human thing. Wherever you go, there you are. As the saying goes. Recently I had a discussion shared with me by the charity director with one of his staff about the system that's being developed. Very keen on working from home she has argued that an online system would be more secure than an offline one. Argued. Repeatedly. Dan, poor lad, does not know enough about IT to argue it, other than to say, we had been through it all a couple of years ago, pros and cons, use case, constraints of budget and hardware and so on, and had settled on an offline solution being best fit. The member of his staff arguing for this online system ( because she very badly wants to work at home ) has : Zero experience in IT Has never had an IT job Has no IT training And yet feels confident enough to venture forth an opinion about systems security . Amazing. Dan, again, poor lad that he is, is utterly shit at putting down boundaries ...

 Hazel's mood has shifted significantly for the better. The snarl has gone. The continual search for a fight has gone. She is back to being more balanced. 12 hours was what it took. A shift from one thing to another. A dramatic change. She literally goes from pillar to post. The moodswings are challenging. In other news, Athena took a tumble down half the stairs. Nothing screamingly bad. But still. She bumped a lumpa thumped down the bottom half. Not good. Ares did that too on his last day. And ended up lying at the bottom of the stairs. A bit stunned. Worried. Poor baby. It was at that point. Crouched over him. Tears in my eyes, I realised, his time was up. A very, very bad day. And that day for Athena which I thought was a month ago, hovers again, ominously, awfully, right there. It's hard. It cuts me deep. Athena cuddles up to me. Still soft. Still so pretty. And I stuggle not to be sad at the slowly dimming light in her. Still my baby girl. Sigh. And my gout has started to ...

 Sister came up yesterday, it was nice. I think her plan was to drive up, drop off the ninja she was giving up ( and giving to Hazel ), then drive back home again. Seemed pretty miserable to me. But I know what me and my siblings are like. Self sacrifice and suffering is in our DNA and is Situation Normal. Also. Fuck that shit. So I was able to do two things, hobbling around on my crutches. The first was to pick up a new slow cooker for her to take back with her - because to me, if she was going to give me a ninja, she had sadly noted both her slow cooker and bread maker had gone tits up, so, I would get her something new as a "trade" which meant that her "misfortune" of buying a ninja and then deciding to give it up was not a misfortune at all, and she could just swap it for something she did want. Which. Is nice. If you ask me. The second was to take her out for a nice slow lunch by the river a mile or so down from my place. Thus a nicer afternoon. So that's w...

 The foot pain has eased. At last. It's far from right and I still can't put my weight on it, but, it's finally moving in the right direction as opposed to just getting worse and being extremely painful overnight. I have largely stopped taking painkillers and - gasp - am not waking up due to a shortage of pain relief. So all downhill ( or is that uphill ? somewhere other on the hill ? ) from here I think. Albeit the crutches are still a massive pain in the ass, and if I try to walk without them, the foot quickly lets me know that that's a really shit idea, and how about we zing some nerves for a while. Ok then. I guess that recovery is going to be slow. Next week I have the GP scheduled appointment with a physio. Who I guess will get to address the crap going on. I have been trying to gently move it around a little since it has been easing off as I know this kind of stuff you can seize up pretty bad and it can heal with less flexibility. Again, I guess this is a physio ...

 As inconceivable as it is, my foot has gone from bad to worse. Awesome. The gout, as far as I can tell, has now left the building entirely, albeit my foot and toes remain swollen and awkward. What definitely remains however is the alleged tendonitis. Which to be clear, hurts like a mother fucker. It has made a steady progression from, hurts when you put weight on it. To blindingly hurts when you put weight on it. To hurts regardless of what you do. To hurts blindingly regardless of what you do. Sleep, that thing I have a difficult relationship with in the first place, has become disastrous. I cannot sleep without the effects of a painkiller. And like clockwork. When the pain wakes me up. My leg starts jumping because the restless leg syndrome is kicking off tickled by the pain, it is inevitably bang on the time that a painkiller dose wears off. I did a little snootling about it yesterday, because, it was bad, and, jesus christ, what I am supposed to be doing about this ? Not a lot...

Cutting this one short. Just in case. Sometimes, much to my dismay, people do read shit on here that maybe they shouldn't read. So. I've backtracked this. And edited it. Which generally goes against my whole - this is my honest headspace. But. For once. I will err on the side of caution at the expense of brutal honesty. Vet with Athena went well today. Vets agreed she was in a better condition. I have been considering over the last couple of weeks whether I was going mad or losing perspective because I thought she was slowly improving. Hazel would constantly tell me, she's not. And neg hard. But as it turns out the vets agree with me. She's doing a bit better. Within the parameters of her being older and yada and blah. But. She is much further away from deaths door than she was a month ago. So. Good stuff. Of course she is on that final timer. But. She's stabilised and doing a bit better. I will take that as a goddamn win, because one month ago, I thought I was putt...