May 26

 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 bread out of my diet, and in general reduced my carbs ( no potatoes, no rice, no pasta, no bread ). I still to this day am not sure if that was what made the difference, but I have noted a vague connection with eating supermarket bulk made sliced bread and generally feeling more shit.

It's now the end of the day on my alter the diet routine, and the pains have cut back drastically. From excruciating to not great but dealable with.

Hmm.

Could just be coincidence again. But I will stick with my diet for at least a few days more. There's definitely a hint of suspicion around 1) mass produced packaged bread and 2) breakfast cereals.

In any case. Regardless of the pains getting better, today has continued to be a very shit health day - I slumped hard and had no choice but to take a nap, I felt awful, life sucked out of me after eating. And I have been permanently dizzy with shitty circulation and raging tinnitus.

Today I hit bottom again. Just. Health issues giving me so much suffering. It's hard to be anything but when you get so ill during the day that you have to tap out and go sleep and feel your hands turn to static and your eyeballs sink into your head. The sense of impending doom looms large. 

In any case.

This evening I have stabilised a little. A bit less pain. A bit less dizzy. A bit less shit circulation. Ok. We can work with this. Whilst it lasts.

I have started tweaking the final version of my will today. Squaring up a few other people that should have been into it, into its provision. I have finally decided to stop trying to do some complicated flips and legal shenanigans ( to do with trusts and property vs money ) to sort out Hazel, and in the end, just treat her the same as everyone else from one big pile of cash. Leave her some stuff, but make no special provisions. She can sort that out herself if and when it comes to it. It was in the end just too much hassle and anxiety and cost, and I couldn't face Hazel's craziness about how she knew more than the legal experts about it. So. Fuck it. Just. Here's some money. Be happy with that - or not.

I honestly can't entirely make up my mind when it comes to my will. My mood shifts with it week to week. I fret about what the right thing to do would be. I am doubtless overthinking it. I hope no one gets offended. Money in the end is such a shitbag and so divisive. But it will help people. So. Tricky. A tiger you have no choice but to wrestle with ( giving it all to charity just feels like whilst an "honourable" thing, also a cop out from actually helping people you know and having to tackle the responsibility of getting it "right" ).

Today I also made some time to talk to a friend, something I just haven't had the energy or health or mood to do. It was good to talk to her. I listened to her own health woes. Not a million miles from my own. I felt very sad for her, I knew the kind of shit she was having to go through. It made me tear up quietly. I reflected how shit was so very different now from when it was 30 years ago. The lament of getting older perhaps. But also how cruel life can be, and how shit the health industry can treat you. I cannot fix any of it. I wish I could. All I could do was empathise. And hope that she would go on. It was unimaginable and horrible to think her fire would go out. I didn't say that to her. But. It is something. To see the fierce made hopeless. To see the fire go out and be left with empty ashes. Awful. But I commented to her something more positive. And that perhaps, optimistically, she would come of it ok. There was at least a hopeful path there. And maybe. The more likely outcome when all was said and done. Maybe.

A greater sense of seeing too much of the arc of pain in peoples lives and how life was in the end, at some point, just a cascade of suffering, floated around me. Hard to put into words. The understanding of how that works. The pattern that peoples lives have to get there. That it is a fundamental reality of life, wisdom, experience, insight lets you see it - and it is awful. Like a terrible masterclass in the philosophy of suffering. A school of science of awfulness. Getting better at seeing and feeling the pains in the world. Torture. Crazy. Like I say. Hard to fully put into words.

I have decided I will try and make an effort to go visit her. I had, honestly, kind of just given up on this as my health is so shit, and my mood is just. Also shit. Suicidal. Without being suicidal. What would that be ? Resigned ? Fatalistic ? I don't know. I would not be good company. It felt like a shitty kind of joke to travel to see someone to then just be miserable at them, and spend most of the day feeling ill. That's. Just. Not good. Pointless. Awful even.

Despite this. A small thought occurred to me. What if the flip was true. What if she went under and I hadn't seen her ? How bad would that be ?

Bad.

And although I don't often dwell on it. And although it can sometimes be six months between talking to her and not. I think. Her loss. Would be awful. Particularly feeling sorry for myself in light of the other losses I have been through and the bits of my life having now sunk without a trace. It would be another bit of my life disappeared.

Expanding on this I realised that I would be ill prepared for any kind of loss of anyone in my life at the moment - no matter how distant. I am, I guess, a little... fragile... with the distintegration of my life and loss and yada. It figures.

So anyway.

Probably a stupid fucking idea. And doomed to be a shitshow. But I will see if I can go and visit her. And if I am being a miserable fuck. It will probably be the last time I see her.

I don't know.

It's not like I know what I am doing. I go from 24 hour period to 24 hour period sometimes getting so low I don't think I will make it out the other side. Somedays just wishing to die. And then also in the gasp of breath inbetween deciding to jump on a plane and go for a fatalistic visit. Because. What's the worst that could happen ? I drop dead ? Ho ho.

Give it a week and perhaps I will have changed my mind because of shit health. Or dropped dead.

And in the background of it all. Health. And death. And everything else.

A little glimmer of Athena peeks in from the corner, that utter depth of sadness sitting there, and I move on, away from dwelling, and away from the absolute awfulness that is life without her or Ares. It is at times too terrible to contemplate. All of that loss.

Their loss in my life cannot be understated. It changes everything. I am nothing.

But like a broken record. I simply repeat the same refrain.

Stuck. I continue to wail into the void.

Todays Diet

Apple
Vegetable Soup
3 egg omelette with red and green peppers, tomatoes, onions, garlic, salt, worcestershire sauce, small sprinkle of parmesan
Steamed and roasted baby potatoes ( I took a risk on eating these carbs )
Another apple
Two squares of whole nut chocolate.
2 handfuls of mixed salted nuts.
BP - 125/70