Sep 24

 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, and little recuperation.

Maybe.

Maybe it's just a variation in the ups and downs of bullshit that go on with me. Maybe the background fixes have helped somewhat and are enabling me to at times push back a little against the wall of bullshit. Which. Doesn't sound too far fetched either.

Ironically the gout is worse again today. Not killer. But worse. I think this is the 16th day of it. Which according to the Conventional Wisdom is way too long. And you really really should see a doc about that.

Ha.

I do so like that most of the advice you get is, see a GP, and then the reality is before you can even get to a GP the actual GP service tells you to fuck off. A marvel.

I wonder if the new Government will also reform the GP service. I think they surely have to, as a lot of the problems with the NHS start right there. Including the absolutely slammed A & E wards and backed up no service ambulances which are all overloaded because of the failing to do their jobs GP service.

We shall see.

Yesterday I slumped hardcore.

I didn't shift out of bed until 5pm. I spent a handful of hours properly awake. And was then back in bed. This is my current "honest" state. And I use honest in the meaning of, this is where I am if I am not pretending to be better, or strive against shit, or otherwise. By default. That's where I am. A few hours awake. Perhaps an hour actually up and doing things. And by doing things, I mean on my feet, getting something to eat, or going to the kitchen or putting the trash out. That's it. Not going out. Not doing anything useful beyond bare minimum keeping me going, keeping Poppy comfortable.

My mood was tanked hardcore. On the floor. As it has been for a while. In some respects, if you can view it from that handle, it's fascinating. Even talking to Poppy. It's a struggle. Everything is so flat. Nothing is genuine. Just raising your voice a pitch to talk in that sing song way to a dog is hard. It comes out monotone. You don't feel it. It's awful. And that's for the most meaningless easy of things in the world to do - just say hi to a waggy tail dog. Everything else is progressively harder.

Funny how your brain can so drastically warp the world around you. It's nothing to do with the world. Whilst the world can indeed be a source of frustration, misery, suffering and awfulness. It's not the world. It's my own horrendously fucked perception of it. A grainy black and white tv looking out on a technicolor world. A tinny mono audio hiding the full on harmonics of a symphony hall.

It is incredible really that it can make such a difference. And why on earth there should be that filter on it in the first place. You can easily see why at a lesser level people can pick up all manners of likes and dislikes about something that have nothing to do with objective reality, and everything to do with just the balance of shitty chemicals in their head at the time. And how one persons truth trying to be applied to anothers just causes fights. This is shit. No its great. You're a moron. You're a misery. Just random chemicals at the root of endless disputes and bloodletting.

Dumb.

Veering off the point.

Fucking brain shenanigans.

It would be nice to just have a fucking stable, repeatable, reliable baseline. The world and all it's problems are plenty hard enough to deal with. Without also standing on the deck of a ship that pitches and reels making you stagger and retch threatening to pitch you overboard at any minute.

But alas. That is where I am. Where we all are at times I suspect. Some worse than others. Some for longer than others. I don't think any of us ever have a completely stable deck to operate from.

Today has ostensibly been a work day.

I have done shit.

Andy is away I think. My anxiety about today, about getting on has evaporated. I have instead taken it easy, investigated one issue and left it at that.

I feel better today.

Today I am going to try giving Poppy a short walk. It's going to be a problem because my foot isn't entirely right, and, at the best of times she can be an anti social handful, and after having been indoors for 2 weeks, I expect her to be doubly anti social lary, aggro mode. Which isn't cool. I want to let her off lead to have a run. I need to be careful to manage her. Make sure she has a "dummy". And be careful where we walk. The rigours of taking care of a difficult doggo. Something I am well versed in as Ares was also a problem, albeit, 99% the best of boys, trained better than Athena, happy, loyal, obedient, cuddle bug. Except for the 1% where he absolutely had to dominate a target dog because they were a threat, and he had no limits, no stepped warnings, just 0 to 100%, fuck you. Which is definitely not the doggo way. Dogs are usually all about the stepped response and posturing. So that. And he used to scare the living shit out of 80% of dogs we came across, just because he was Ares. Not because of anything he did. Whether it was his size, his body language, I never knew. Sometimes dogs would lose it whilst he wasn't even looking at them. Unbothered. Relaxed. Looking at me. Meanwhile. Some smaller dog going absolutely ape shit over him. I dunno. I figured in the end he must have had some intrinsic scary aura to him. Poor lad. He loved playing with other doggos. He was a big guy to be sure. And very fast. And confident. And strong. No question up there in the alpha rankings.

I digress.

Ares was lovely. As I always said. The best apocalypse dog you could ever want. Loyal. Brave. Fearless. Tough. But maybe not the best dog for civilised times where you're not supposed to teach the smaller dogs that barking at you is a dumb idea. Ares was a sometimes believer in talk shit, get hit. Which is not inline with modern sensibilities.

Our bullshit will be the death of us. And I fear society will soon brand dogs as anti social. Uncivilised. Whatever it is. Because of the bullshit we put on them. And the stupid rules we try to apply to the world.

Anywho.

People suck.

Dogs are lovely.

Fuck the people.

Save the dogs.

You can quote me on that.

I could go into length as to why that is so. And that our over neurotic need to take any risk or accident from everything - an impossible task - a world in which every body of water has a danger dont swim sign on it, every packet has a danger nuts indicator, is just an ever increasing sign of our insanity and trauma. But. I'll skip it. Concise enough to say, people suck. Dumb as bricks. Neurotic. Splash damage.

Dogs are old school.