Bork Slowly Borking

 Surprise call from the hospital today. Bucking the trend they have actually set me up for surgery in June - which is something they said they would do in December, but, by this point, I figured they had forgot or postponed it. Not so. I have been pencilled in for June 10th surgery, same as December, with a pre-op assessment some time before that - so, next week. This. Is tricky. 1) I am really fucking ill. 2) I can't walk. Nevertheless I agreed to the June 10th date. We will see how I am I guess. It could well be that they will take a look at me at the pre-op and just reject me. I nearly had that last time. Today my ex sister in law came for a visit. We had a chat. It was nice to see her even though the conversations were not happy on both ends. Despite me absolutely doing my best, after 2 hours I slumped. I could feel it creeping up on me, and excused myself to try and make myself a small snack to perhaps offset it. It didn't work. I slumped hard. And 15 minutes later was str...

 In and out of bed yesterday, or rather I should say, in and out of sleep. I'm not moving much from my bed - can't. Dips of exhaustion and ill feeling. I don't know. It seems to be pretty much all the time now, I get a few hours perhaps of relief, then I will feel ill. Or exhausted. Or both. Foot has been hurting a lot. As this is the third time I've been through this same stuff, I can say that it seems to be just about normal to what has gone before. The overnight pain is the killer for some reason. Starts up around 11pm. Carries on until the morning. Those times shift if your sleep patterns are screwy. Seems to be much more indicative of one of those fucky rhythm things than an outright injury. But who knows. I am well versed in it at this point. Ibuprofen take a lot of the sting out of it, I would guess it's the anti-inflammatory doing a very good job of taking the swelling down. The co-codamol has less of an impact but, definitely takes the final sting out of th...

 Still alive. Slept long. The whole near passing out feeling stayed with me in bed, through dozing. Wasn't going away. I felt very rough, the cold sweat that broke out made me chill down very quickly and I got super cold after being in bed for sometime. Honestly thought that was it again. That my heart had finally thrown in the towel. When I was in bed. It wasn't good. But. Also. To be honest. It wasn't terrible as in, a terrible way to go. I wasn't in a huge amount of pain compared to what I have had. I felt wrapped up in cotton wool. I suspect. It's the codeine again. I also suspect. It's the heart. This is a similar ( but much worse ) effect to what I experimented with before. Codeine makes my heart slow, and that, with where I am, means it really makes my cardio very iffy indeed. I think that's what it was this morning. Heart unable to keep up with a climb up the stairs. Cue nausea. Ill feeling. Faint feeling that has that awful very quick progression ...

 Foot hurt in the middle of the night. Same as before. Painkillers to take the edge off. Slept deep. Right arm went completely dead.  Got up, cant put weight on right foot. Went for a pee. On the way back felt... off. This is new. By the time I got to bedroom realised I was passing out. Flopped into bed cold sweat. Ill. Passing out. Ive stayed here for a while. Eased upright to write this. But. Weak. Shaky. On verge of passing out. Getting worse as I sit up. Need to sleep. feel awful

 Today has not been so calm after all. Spikes of grief and sadness. Concentrating on work. Empty. My right foot has deteriorated rapidly once again. Same place. Throbbing heel. Tender to the touch. And the foot has swelled again. The timing is just perfect. I am back on crutches. It's getting worse with each hour that passes and my mobility is increasingly shit, even with crutches. I struggled downstairs to get dinner. Dizzy. Left side of face crawling. Nauseous. Tired. Can't walk. So sad. So empty. Holy. Fucking. Shit. It's a thing alright. Just wait I guess.

Jumpy night. I woke up thinking I could hear a dog. I whistled into the darkness. As you do. Half asleep. No Johnny. There is nothing in the house. A tickle of anxiety of nothing being in the house. No reassuring mutt to guard you. My pains flared. Restless legs kicked in. Wonderful. Lights on. Flick the TV on for 15 minutes until the worst of the restless legs wear off. Eventually I slept again, really, super deep. Perhaps because there are no distractions in the house. Not permanently padding around dogs. Not a Hazel going to bed at 4am, lights on, up and down the stairs. Perhaps exhaustion from grief. I slept deep. With little in the way of numbness, tingles or otherwise. Properly . I doubt that phenomenon will last. I would guess it's a combination of utter exhaustion and stress chemicals meaning my cardio doesn't slump. Today I am more sane. Surprise. I got up, my left leg bad, my right foot, of course, starting to hurt again. A regression. How very delightful. But I was...

 Took Hazel home today unexpectedly. I told her in passing I had sorted the will out. I don't think she was happy about just being left a sum of money. As it would potentially interfere with her benefits. I think she either wanted a trust setup for her - to get round the rules about inheriting money, or, be left the house as is. Albeit. What would she do with the house with no money to maintain it ? Her benefits would not stretch to that. I had asked her days ago. Would she live in the house if I left it to her ? She didn't know. After talking to the pension people about the pain in the ass a trust was, and, because of the situation I would have to end up trusting someone I didn't know ( complicated because the trust couldn't be just a single person, so you'd end up in a weird situation of someone I didn't know basically overseeing my estate... ). It just felt like too much of an ask just to cater to the particular shit sandwich that Hazel is in. So in the end. ...

Predictably, I felt ill yesterday. Notably, ate something, and then, ooh, some 30 minutes later, I was hit by an awful slump, ill feeling and my eyes sucked back into my head. I guess at this point this is also predictable. Shit doesn't work. Random failures. I am beginning to shut down about it. I've pretty much stopped talking to Hazel about anything. And she has stopped asking. We're increasingly strangers living at the opposite end of the house living different lives. I am disinclined to talk to anyone about any of it. My talking into the nothing here is my sole release. And whilst I realise that here I end up repeating myself about how shit it is, I'm also aware how necessary this is for me to at least be able to shout into the void. It helps a tiny bit in the smallest of ways. My symptom roulette has clicked on one cycle. The dead hands have now quietened down to once a night, then shuffle off to not be a bother. But my stinging eyes have returned. My absolute flo...

 The pains have crept back a little - not to the horrible extent they were, but still. Today both my thighs are squealing from having been slept on. Just. Slept on. A thing they do day after day without complaint. But today. Some mystical hocus pocus is off with my clusterfuck of a body, and now they are bruised. Whilst in bed. Eyes are stinging and punchy. But. Dead hands have got a shade better. Only one went dead last night, and then, not for long. This is my reality. Ever shifting sands. I will keep my diet going for a while, I have a suspicion it is helping. I am trying to think if I ate anything in the last few days that could have been a spike in inflammation. Perhaps, for the umpteenth time of pondering, some specific food allergy ? Or maybe not. Last night my mood tanked. Again. Everything else aside, my thoughts floated around Athena. And it made me sad. And brought me back to that sobering realisation that I have nothing in my life. Forget grief. Forget the pains. The i...

 Yesterday was very bad. The pains were so bad I could hardly walk - forget the problem foot. Literally all my other muscles screeched. I got up at one point and doubled over. A knife in every muscle, legs, lower back, upper back, front torso. So odd. Like everything hurts simultaneously. The level of pain that physically stops you from doing something. The automatic response. Flinch. Incapability. Flooring and breath stealing. I ended up sleeping a lot overnight. Groaning everytime I had to shift position. Being at rest a torture as whatever muscles contacted bed squealed in pain. And having to flex my hands to stave off the worst of them going dead. Not fun. Today I have tried shifting my diet around, cutting out bread like carbs ( which I don't eat a lot of anyway ), in some hope of it maybe, possibly triggering a climb down in pain. The last time I had serious all over pains like this - before I got seriously ill in 2020/2021 - it mysteriously got a lot better when I cut brea...

 Today has been a disaster. I have barely managed to be out of bed. And when I have. I haven't done much. Played a game for a few hours on stream. That's it - that was my peak. The rest of the time I have had to sleep. No choice. I have felt, awful. And each time I have slept, I have felt awful in sleep. Frozen hands that don't warm up even after hours under the covers. Punchy eyes. And exhaustion. Brain fog that suddenly hits within 10 seconds and then lingers for half an hour. I dreamed dreams of death. Of being so close. I cried in my sleep. I curled into a ball in a corner of a room in a dream and wanted everyone to go away.  No one understood. No one could help. Just. Leave me alone then. I woke up at one point sad. Got up. Inexplicably became even more sad. My thoughts turned to Ares. How he used to always snuffle my ears and face when I would lay down and look at the stars. Standing over me. Blocking the view. Such a goofball. So lovely. All those memories and thing...

 Angry. And worse health again. Everything hurts like a fucker. I am getting back to that stage again where descending a single step makes everything scream. Worse. The painkillers are not even denting it. A weird all round muscular knifing pain. It doesn't even bear worth mentioning that I also have the pains almost certainly associated with the normal process of getting older that everyone gets - yeah sometimes my knees will ping out or otherwise, and this pops a hurt, that pops a hurt. In the scale of things these are hilariously low priority. These are normal . I can perceive the difference between normal - I am out of shape and getting old. And. This is fucking chronic illness insanity, all the danger lights are flashing and the ship is half sunk. Today I've had all the things. Swollen feet, dead arms, punched eyes, and intense pains. Marvellous. The old bullshit is doing a terrific number on me. Yesterday, my day off, started with an annoyance. Asking about code release ...

 My health has improved by the tiniest degree - which moves me from staring straight down the plughole, to merely circling it. It is still Very Bad. For one thing the dead arms, cold hands, no circulation shit seems to have moved on for the time being - and has instead doubled down on my eyes, very stingy, very bloodshot, black eyes. It's almost like there's only enough Stuff to service 3 out of 5 bits of me at any one time. You want your eyes to sting less ? Ok. How about we cut circulation off to your hands and lower arms and make your upper torso excruciatingly painful. Oh. You don't like that ? Ok. How about we tone those effects down a little but punch you in the eyes and make your feet swell up more then ? Chronic inflammation and poor circulation ( for whatever reason ) would be my favoured guess. That it's inflammation is I think a no brainer - it can get anything to a tiny bit better to somewhat better if I dose myself up with an anti inflammatory. And sometime...

 Very tired at the end of the day. The tiredness that I get that is fuelled by ill health. Pushes me into bed early. Naps. Fatigued. Lying in the dark I feel the very common of late weird sensations crawl across my head, and arms, and chest. A dizziness. A vertigo. A strange flutter. And tingles. My hands go cold. Then numb. My feet ache and swell, the right one that has been a problem this last few months especially so. I am doing nothing. Not pushing myself, not over working. Just at rest. In bed. Not asleep. And the sensation of dipping into a groggy state comes anyway. I reflect in a suddenly sober way in the calm, with my head spinning, that my health this last 10 days or so has dramatically shifted worse. Beyond clear. I shuffle around pained and awkward, I am turned way older than my years and I know it. I am not leaning into it. I am trying. But. It's obvious which direction it is going in. And its speed of decline has been quite the thing. I ponder whether Athena's pas...

 Last few days I have been in and out of sadness about Athena. I am perversely a bit happier at being that sad about it, as opposed to just getting on with everything. I very much dislike the aggressive mind scrubbing my brain has been doing erasing stuff that doesn't make me happy. I've never wanted to not be sad, just wanted things to be different. Being sad about it is a reasonable response. The solution is not for my brain to switch it all off ! Clearly it disagrees. Anyway. Rather than get into overthinking about it. I probably just had a better day, then felt guilty about having a better day. The grief is still there. It's also neatly clarified something however. My whole, I don't adult well, I don't cope well with this. On consideration. I think I am where I want to be. "want". Where I think I probably should be. Having a glimpse of being a "better adult" and just getting on with shit has not been good. It's made me realise that it...

 Today has been ok. Took some painkillers. Took it easy. And for the first day in a while didn't experience an awful ill slump. I maintained. No naps. I ended up playing games for a lot of the day. Playing with a friend. Who does a pretty mean job at keeping me distracted and off the topic of loss and dogs. Which probably helped a lot. The pain is less. The grief is less. I have a horrifying feeling I am forgetting Athena. Already. I hate it. And I miss her so much. I miss her presence. I miss her little things and sighs and cleverness. I absolutely hate the fucking number my brain is doing scrubbing hurtful things out. It's taking her away piece by piece. It's taking me away piece by piece. Today I flicked through some photos of both Ares and Athena. I desperately wanted to see her again. I knew it would hurt. But I wanted to see her. Ho hum. I am ok. Increasingly more ok than I thought I would be in fact. Sad. But I know she wouldn't last forever. I hate that. But it...

 Yesterday my health was maybe a smidge better. Which isn't saying much. The pains around my torso went down half a notch. And my arms and hands going dead went down half a notch - dead and cold, but not as extensive. Hazel was tricky. And spent a good chunk of the day in hyped up aggressive borderline mode. You can't talk to her like that. She made a couple of doctor appointments for me, one for the same day to do with my foot. Personally. I wouldn't have bothered. It's on the mend. There are potentially issues with it that need to be looked at. But eh. We had talked yesterday about making an appointment with a "good GP" - which again given her mood, I was overruled about. The doc I like at the GP she doesn't. So my vote got thrown out. And that would be for whatever bullshit is currently going on circulation and eye wise. One last NHS attempt at addressing some of my issues. However. She made an appointment for my foot instead. Then proceeded to say how ...

 Health has deteroriated. Yesterday was the worst yet. Had a "bad turn" in the afternoon which I had to sleep for. Whislt trying to sleep both my arms went dead from the elbow down. Eyes hollowed out. Felt absolutely awful. Everythung hurt. This wasn't an apnea thing. I was awake. Aware. It was so bad I realised that, this, was kind of it. Athena has been a long emotional and stressful distraction from my health shit that was precarious back in December. It has not miraculously improved in that time. And now the shock of Athena has quietened down, and perhaps a price is being asked of the last few months on top of my already shit health. We are, I think, exactly where we are. I got up. Like the dead. And went and had a slow and shit chat with Hazel. That. I didn't think I was gonna make it for long. Not being funny. Not being dramatic. Just. Heads up. It's really bad. She was unhappy. And angry. But didn't quite take it out on me. She convinced me to go see a ...

Lots of pain. The all over body pain hilarity is biting very hard these last two days. Somewhere in the small hours of the morning it is at its worst. Everything is sharp muscle pain, and top half of torso is where it's at its worst. Breath stealing knives. This is the same shit that has been dogging me for years at this point. It comes and goes at random, sometimes sticks for months, years, sometimes a single day. I think, guess, inflammation is massively spiking in me at the moment. One of those all round inflammation things. My eyes have been bad as well. This morning I was actually pulled out of sleep screeching because it felt like someone had stabbed my eye on top of the burning sensation. I mean. Ok. It just sounds like shit is getting steadily worse, n'est pas ? Sigh. Life aint worth it for me. Yesterday I had a ragey rant at Andy. Straw that broke the camels back. The devs were poised to do something really stupid on one of our large clients databases. Lazy. Ugly. Perf...

 Worked for two thirds of the day today. Don't think I should have been working. The day was stacked with annoyances. Whilst it did provide some distraction, I am not sure it did anything for the overall what's the point of life malaise. It just underscored that doing everyone elses shit for them, to get other people rich, was absolutely not my point of life. That stuff used to be a means to an end. Now. It is not. Today Andy had a semi emergency. One of the clients sites was no longer working. Given it to our dev yesterday. But doubted he could get to the bottom of it. Without looking I diagnosed it. It's a date issue. Because it's a financial new year. You've not updated the new tax rates et al. No he said. He had updated it. Sent it to the client to confirm. Are you sure you've updated the data ? Because 99% it's either missing, or its been put it fucked up. Yes it has been done. Are you sure ? Yes. Three times. I took the first step to diagnosis knowing ...