Bork Slowly Borking

 Because I am a genius level intellect, instead of avoiding wheaty products as I said I would, for convenience, I have continued eating them despite me suspecting they may be a major contributing factor in me feeling shit. Smart. I am feeling more shit than ever. Very smart. It does serve one decent purpose however. The difference between how I am feeling now, and how I was feeling a handful of days earlier is like night and day. And furthermore I can tell you the differences. Overnight there is a massive change. It feels like I puff up overnight. All my muscles ache and are in pain ( this despite being on anti inflammatories ! ). Everything feels weirdly... inflated. My eyes are worse. I feel sluggish and heavy everywhere. It feels like being under very heavy cotton wool. It makes me want to sleep for longer. I don't feel refreshed after sleeping. And I am very very slow once I am awake to shake it off - in fact I don't really shake it off, I just manage to shake enough of it

 Ok. It's not the painkillers. Last night and today I have felt absolutely terrible - despite taking painkillers. Pains all over. Submerged in an ill feeling I am hard pressed to properly describe, sluggish, ill, full of pains, bad eyes, the whole thing. I think. Unless it's a coincidence, it's all down to what I eat. Or rather. How much I eat. Yesterday I missed eating at normal points, and couldn't be bothered to make myself something, so, after a week or so of eating very minimally, got myself a pizza. And it made me feel terrible. It's also the first time I have felt full hunger wise all week. For whatever reason I think if I eat until I am full it fucks me up hardcore. This is something I've picked up on before but wasn't sure what was going on. I think the reason I have generally felt better - despite the gouty foot - has been because I have been very careful about what I am eating, and also eating very minimally ( was losing 1lb a day for reference, n

 I was punished for Tuesday. The gout came back hard - for no good reason. I was careful with what I ate, and no sugar, but it made no difference. Back on the codeine and the non stop Ibuprofen. Grim. The only thing that I can think of is that I ate later in the day on Tuesday because of the pub, and had caffeine later in the day too. Other than that. There were no differences. I largely skipped work and instead just rested. Asleep. Nursing my shitty foot. The other foot also decided to get worse. I can only assume it's the gout meds that are giving me this unprecedented fuckery of gout ( or more unlikely but more sinister I have kidney issues ). At this point it has been nearly 3 weeks. Perhaps on the bright side the suffering is of some benefit, it may be slowly erasing years worth of crystal build up which is why it's giving me so many problems. But eh. With even a mildly acceptable health provider, I wouldn't be suffering. Today finally I got to speak to the pharmacist.

 Took Poppy for a walk. She had a little bark in the car at a passing dog, but after a short conversation with her telling her that that wasn't something we were doing, she was a good girl. We went to the meadow, the cows were out, she was perfectly behaved, didn't react to them, walked nicely past them, perfect. She is at this point used to cows - it's one of the things it's important to do with dogs, get them "socialised" to different situations and experiences so that they can understand what's going on and not freak out. Cows are one of the things Poppy has been exposed to multiple times, and at this point, she has it down pat. Nothing to worry about. Trot on. She said hello nicely to a few other dogs, and all in all the walk was lovely. I miss taking a dog for a walk so much. It was wonderful to be out in the green, the fresh air, with a faint chill on the Autumn air raising goosebumps and a dipping sun turning the clouds shades of charcoal and orange

 No sooner do I say I felt a bit better all round than I slump back into not. It coincided with my first day of not taking any painkillers because my gouty foot is at the point where, eh, meh, I can just about get away with doing that. After sleeping without any pain meds or anti inflams for a day my eyes were far worse, everything hurt, I felt like I hadn't slept, and yada blah etc. I felt absolutely goddamn awful. Coincidence ? Or the effects of a continual balm of anti inflammatory meds ? For the record last night I took an anti inflammatory again. Result. Felt better in the morning. Uh huh. Even the eyes. Perhaps its just a coincidence. More testing required perhaps. There is a possibility there that some whatever mechanism is going on that causes widespread inflammation, which is notably worse at night, and causes a raft of problems during sleep. And in fact might be destroying any kind of quality sleep in the process thus just getting into a vicious circle of worsening shit,

 It's early. Or late. Depending on your point of view. I can't sleep. Again. My sleep is all kinds of fucked up at the moment. Often I can't sleep, my brain ticks over, full of haunting thoughts. And then when I do sleep. I don't wake up. Don't want to wake up. And I'm incredibly slow to warm up.  So I've got up. Rather than lie there head filled up with thoughts. The feel of Athena's last nibble on my fingers as she took a treat. The bits of her that are fading away from me. She is slipping away. Fragment by fragment. Appalling. My thoughts turn to when I moved into this house. The better part of 25 years ago. I was anxious moving into this house. Alone. I felt out of place and not at all confident like I thought an adult should be moving into a new home. It was weird and jarring. But I just got on with it. As you do. With so much in life. Grit your teeth. Push down the anxiety. Stick a smile on your face. My parents helped me move. One of the few times

 Left foot is stubbornly gouty. It has moved again, or rather I think it's just a different wave. It's nothing like as bad as it has been, but it's swollen and painful if you move it, and it comes and goes in intensity. I am hobbling around better on it. But meh. At times I am feeling a whole bunch better. My eyes are doing a lot better. Not entirely sure why. The black eyes have got better, still there, but a lot better. The stinging grainy eyes are way better. Perhaps it's an allergy thing to do with the time of the year. Perhaps one of the minor tweaks we've made to my underlying crap has made a difference - the clearing dose of antibiotics et al might have done something. To recap, over the last six months we've done a lot to alter deficiencies and what's going on with my gastro. Supplements to get my vitamin D, slew of B's and minerals back in order. Gout meds to tackle a probably chronic level of uric crystal buildup. Anti bios et al to sort out a

 Taking a regular dose of meds just to even out any potential gastro effects. So far. It's ok. The gout is stubbornly refusing to budge from a grumpy painful but not the end of the world stage. I am limping around but have movement. Painkiller use is down - I've stopped the codeine. Pains are up. It's really apparent just how much pain and inflammation I have from a well dosed painkiller plan to a low dose painkiller plan. It's something I am bearing in mind and mulling over that maybe when shit is very bad, I need to drop back onto some painkillers. Generally I avoid taking meds as far as I am able, and until these recent shit years, painkiller use for me basically never happened beyond the obligatory fistful of aspirin to attempt to control migraines, or the dabble with low dose aspirin to help with feeling better ( which I didn't realise at the time is a massive gout risk - low dose aspirin causes gout.. who knew.. ) I feel like things are slowly improving. I fee

 Slowly my left foot has got better. Very slowly. And the daily ritual of painkillers has dialled all my other pains down to low, so, things going in the right direction ? Always a new wrinkle in my ever evolving fuck up of health. Perhaps it's all the codeine. Perhaps it's the slow aftermath of the gut nuking antibiotics. But I endured the worst constipation I've ever had. Really. Fucking. Emergency. Inducing. Bad. It very quickly wiped out any progress I had made, made me feel like shit when I wasn't in the loo, and screamingly bad in the loo. I have figured it's probably the codeine. Given I haven't ever experienced anything so bad as that. So. I stopped taking them. And gave everything a break as my foot was maybe on the right path. Uh huh. The left foot went backwards fast. Uh huh. Those painkillers were really doing a good job huh. Needless to say I have been careful with what I am eating, but, it doesn't seem to be making any difference any which way.

 Mixed bag today. Which at the moment meant it was pretty fucking terrible, with some tolerable moments. I am struggling hardcore to keep it together. I have retreated into my absolute deepest cope hole - still coping, barely, but really far down in the hole. I get up, shuffle about, get something to eat, retreat to bed, and rinse and repeat this throughout the day. At most I will sit up for a few hours before feeling ill and or the pain in my foot getting too bad and I will retreat back to bed to sleep / doze. This is my life. Pushed to the absolute twilight level of existence. I don't have any more backwards steps from here. Backwards from this means I don't get up at all. My foot has varied today from tolerable but sore, to appallingly painful. It seems to flare up and down during the day and night - previously it was only doing this during the night, but of late seems to not care what the time is and just flare. Painkillers are definitely helping, in fact, they are probably

 After having a better day yesterday, I also thought my gout might be coming down a bit. Not so. Today was much worse and the gout flared hard. Slightly different place. Slightly different pain. But excruciating at times. Apparently, this isn't normal if it's being "treated". The docs got back to me. They will get a pharmacist to talk to me on the 27th. So just about two weeks out. No rush eh. Which I believe is the NHS motto. No Rush. Have You Tried Fucking Off And Dying ? In political news new PM Starmer reckons he is going to have a general plan for everything by Christmas. One might answer why this takes so long when they had plenty of time as a shadow government to come up with a plan ready to go ? I think honestly Labour didn't have a plan. They kept their mouths shut, their manifesto bare, and just let the Conservatives implode, figuring I guess, that anything Labour would say ran the risk of sticking their foot in their own mouth. Better then to shut up an

 Felt thoroughly sorry for myself yesterday. The foot gets a bit better... then gets a bit worse. Much like either of my feet have been doing all year. And it always seems to break down during the night - gets much worse. That's probably symptomatic of something.  Yesterday I managed to get a little useful work done, nothing too bonkers, but, at least I didn't feel entirely useless. Tried sitting down to put a little work into scratch building but ended up feeling too ill. Which tanked my mood. Incapable of sitting at a table. With a pencil. So fucked. I tried playing a game. Similar result. After 15 minutes. Felt green. So I gave up and went to bed. I decided to do a full dose of painkillers. Included the strong codeine ones. Which can always be iffy. But. My mood. I no longer cared. Take it away. Or let me not wake up again. Anything is better than where I am. So I did that. And watched some TV whilst they kicked in. An hour later, everything was warm. And fuzzy... ... and fo

 Struggled to do any work this week. The gout in my left foot is as bad an attack as I've ever had, the worst of it being when it flares overnight and prevents sleep. All the painkillers on top of each other can just about take the edge off, but, really, you just have to lie there, take the pain, not sleep, and just wait for time to pass. Less than good. Watching TV can help to pass the time, and eventually, slowly, it gets to a point where you are so tired, and the pain has had its edge taken off that I can sleep with it. But it means my sleep schedule is bonkers. And working is a hard ask. I am back to hobbling around the house yet again. When I look back at this year the realisation is that I have spent a substantial chunk of it unable to walk properly, and in some cases, unable to walk at all. You can kind of lose sight of the bigger picture, fighting the day to day miseries. The big picture doesn't look good. But then I guess, take another big picture look. All of this, if

 Today has been a bad day. But let's do the last few days. Despite seeing a couple of different people at the end of last week, being a bit more social, my mood is worse than ever. I don't know. I am done. With everything. And people. There is no spark there at all. I think. I have become somewhat accustomed to being on my own. That change from who I was, to the reality I am in now has begun to settle properly. To accrete. I think that old me is, by and large, now dead. My grieving for it fades. Everything fades. I am finding myself with little patience. Bleak. Unwilling to put up with the vagaries of people. I am going to snip a whole long wander into how and why someone recently lied to me. And just not bother. Their intentions were good. The lie was manipulative. Dismissing. Patronising. Rooted in truth, like many good lies are, but then dusted with bullshit. To make me feel better. So. A nice thing ? Except it doesn't feel like a nice thing. It feels like someone is tre

 Friday was a harder day. Slowly I am going backwards again. It took me until the afternoon to begin to feel less than epically shitty. As it turned out my friend arranged a time for the evening to go see her. So. I didn't have to move. Which I think was probably for the best. Even by 5pm I was very sub par. I had a nap, roused myself in the early evening, and then made my way to hers for tea and a lengthy chat. Which was good. But sad. Always sad. I am followed by sad. I do not think I am great company anymore, if I ever was. But anyway. Today has been slightly worse again. Difficult to do shit. Played games for a chunk of the day, it takes my mind off of everything else when I can play with someone else . On my own games are far less effective. But even when sufficiently distracted, you can feel it there. Echoing in the background. A tug of unwellness. And drop out for a minute and you then fully realise it. Not good. But. Despite all that. I have had far worse than today. It'

 I managed to maintain yesterday and didn't fall ill in the latter half of the day. So by all measures, yesterday was a better day. Fragile. Iffy. But better. Today was harder. Pains in the morning. And the exhaustion dogged my heels keeping me in bed until just before midday. At which point I got a call from my not sister in law. To meet up somewhere in the city. I gritted my teeth through exhaustion and made my way into the city. Getting to the venue and just sitting there was not easy. I felt drained. Slow. Meh. But slowly I warmed up. Eating something helped. And by the end of it I was ok. In the end spent a lazy 4 hour lunch chewing three 3 small courses of food ( I mean small, the bruschetta was the size of your thumb - delicious, but tiny ). It was nice. She was in good form, a lot happier and calmer than I have seen her in a long time. I suspect her decent paying recent contract has helped bring all her anxieties and everything else down a notch, if not completely gone. I a

 I have been careful. Careful when I go to bed. Careful when I eat. What I eat. When I take which meds. It has helped a bit. I think. Or it could just be a random fucking fluctuation in the pile of shit. I took Poppy out for a short walk yesterday around the meadow. We were out in total for no more than 25 minutes. And 5 minutes of that was driving. It was the same route and same time scale I used to take Athena for a walk in her very twilight years. Of course every step is laden with memory and emotion. But it was. Sort of. Ok. With a lot of sad. I haven't been to the meadow in going on for a year. It has changed. The wide open meadow is disappearing under growth. The same spots that Ares and Athena used to gallop up and down after balls is now covered in knee deep thistles and plants. The weight of time landed on me heavily. Nothing lasts. The memories I have of things are no better than fantasies. All those things and experiences are lost to time. No one would know. They meant s

The exhaustion is killing me at the moment. At times I am pinned in bed. It is the worst it has ever been. A lot of things are the worst they've ever been.  Perhaps it's a side effect of the anti biotics ? They're definitely the cause of giving me the perpetual shits at the moment. Poppy is here. Getting her here was a minor grievance. I am not much fun for her I fear. I get up and feed her and then go back to bed. Rinse and repeat. With a treat thrown in somewhere around there too. Sometimes she snuggles with me. Most of the time she does her own thing. I am barely functional. Even holding my arms on my chest is an effort. They want to slump back down. I guess this is hardcore CFS. The can't walk out the door CFS. At times I can rouse myself. Usually in the evening. I can stay upright. Get something to eat. It doesn't last. And the daylight hours are a horror. I have again looked over the advice with dealing with CFS. All of the above is well within the ballpark of

 Friday. I dipped in and out of sleep in that heightened anxiety mode I now get whenever I have an appointment I need to keep. This one was visiting a friend to play a game. Not something you should have anxiety about. Not something a normal person should be in and out of sleep and fucked up about. But I have long since wandered off the path of normal. And whatever my rational brain may think of it, the animal inside of me reacts how it reacts. Anxious. So Friday saw me exhausted. Poorly slept. I ate a little something in the morning, and then napped until just before lunch, when I had arranged to turn up. I ended up late. Sleeping all over the place. But as I headed out the nausea kicked in. What I had eaten earlier had as if by clockwork, set my stomach off. It is predictable at this point. Consistent. Eat something. And then sometime later, anything from 5 minutes to an hour, the nausea kicks in. I feel ill. The tiredness kicks in even harder. My head spins. I gritted my teeth. All