Oct 8

 Not wheat.

As time progresses my nights are getting worse. Pains all over, bad eyes, gout flares. And then during the course of a morning they slowly get better but leave me partially exhausted. Rinse and repeat.

This could be the gout meds I am on. Or not. Maybe it's just par for the course.

At times I am feeling a bit better in the day overall.

And then at night a lot worse. 

Up, down, up, down.

Being work functional for a given day is hard.

Other news.

My brother popped in for a cup of tea on Sunday. Extremely rare - no skip that - almost unprecedented ( I think he has done this a single time before ). My sister in laws daughter now lives in Norwich, and they had been visiting. It would have been rude not to visit said my brother. Uh huh.

Formerly she used to live about 7 mile outside of Norwich. So. Not exactly far then either. Eh well.

It was nice to see him.

Hazel is still here at the moment. I gently brought up the subject of going home this week to her as of last evening. She immediately said oh, yes, tomorrow then, or maybe the day after. My work days. Eh. Not so good. Oh. Thursday then she said. Uh huh. Not sure if I surprised her with the push or not. The immediate tomorrow reaction kind of felt like it was a bit of a shock to be honest.

She has slumped again into a super lazy state. Not taking Poppy out. Hardly doing anything except make herself some very low effort food. Not moving. I have made her dinner for all but one of the days she has been here - one day I didn't have the energy for it, so made myself something easy and trashy ( egg and chips ! ) but left her out. I've also done all the washing up, except for one incredibly surprising and rare instance. I think she must have been feeling guilty ( also incredibly rare ).

Hazel is as Hazel does. You can see her actively just digging a hole for herself though. I am chronically ill, suffered migraines over the weekend, all sorts of health problems and I am more productive than she is by a mile. Which is ridiculous. Despite her protestations she is not chronically ill, but does have a serious mental health condition. And being brutally honest about it she is also terminally lazy at this point and has been stuck in this rut for years.

Whilst in the past I have offered her a place to stay here whenever she needs it to rest, recuperate, whatever, the problem is now that she slumps into a further state of inactivity when she is here. Looking after Poppy kind of goes out the window first and foremost. A bunch of household tasks just get delegated to me by default. And she gets to live an even slower pace of life. Which I don't think is very good for her. Her only motivation is when she is on her own she lives on that line of absolute necessity. If she doesn't take Poppy out she'll have messes on the floor. If she doesn't - eventually - take the rubbish out, the kitchen will fill up. That being said, last time I was there, there were 5 full bags of rubbish "waiting" to go.

This is in my opinion just a further extension of the whole dropping out of work, not doing anything with yourself phenomenon. She is still relatively young. With no major health issues. I think the next 10 years for her will be incredibly difficult unless she finds someone to entirely look after her needs, financially et al. Which. She might be able to manipulate. Otherwise, brutally, coldly, I don't think she will make it out of the next 10 years.

I get the sense that my time trying hard to help Hazel is at an end. She makes her own choices and chooses her path. And as she freely admits, often very poorly. She is still estranged from her dad after the last awkward set of exchanges. I suspect. This is how it is going to stay. No major bang of emotion. But rather just a withdrawal. I can imagine that he doesn't have a clue how to progress through the minefield of rules and expectations she most recently set - with demands for a referee, counselling et al. It is. Too much. And it is almost entirely borne out of her mental dysfunction.

Nature of the beast I suppose.

So in a few days I will be on my own again.

Despite not being able to do a great job with Poppy, it has been nice to have her around. And she has fit in to our low energy chilled vibe wonderfully. She has been a very good girl, and I will miss having her shadow me around.

I will need to get used to being on my own properly again - it will I expect not be easy again. But this is part of the price I knew I would have to pay in looking after her in the first place ( and a small element of me feeling that I wouldn't be up to the task - because I would have to relearn being on my own again ).

On the other hand. Having the house to myself again, sans Hazel, will be nice.

The question of a dog for company is difficult. I can't really take care of them well enough for my liking. My month with Poppy has shown we get on just fine even if we are low energy. But still. A big part of me thinks that there are better lives out there for a doggo than stuck with a perpetually ill dude.