Bork Slowly Borking

 Tired and nauseous. I am getting bored saying it. Regrettably I cannot shift either. Everyday is a nausea day. Worse when I sit up. Typically if I spend time on a computer sitting upright, inevitably I start to feel sick and then stay that way. It makes everything an unpleasant experience. It waxes and wanes of its own accord over some hours, eventually I get tired "fighting it", and I have to give up and lie down. Where typically it lowers a notch. And comes as something of a relief. Meh. Yesterday I continued to experiment with finishes on my boxes. Whilst battling with nausea. So, after the first cloisonne trial revealed that the stain was reactivating, I have now tested two different sealing varnish sprays. The junker box I have is proving to be a great asset for testing - same wood, same stain, same scale. But it's junk. So I can test different approaches. One half of the box lid is coated in one varnish ( mid range quality ). The other half has another varnish ( hi...

 Losing track of days a bit. My sleep is all over the show, but ironically I think in a slightly better state. I am kind of sleeping in the early hours, before getting up around 4am ish, then staying up as long as I can manage, before inevitably crashing out and sleeping the afternoon off before starting again. It's not good for my sleep, health or yada. I feel like I am operating at a perpetually shit level all the time. And the waves of nausea et al certainly don't help. I don't know. I am just riding out the stupidly stormy waters and randomness. See where I wash up to. Made a GP appointment. Did I say that already ? Well. I have. Now the wait to be seen. They sent me back a patronising ( of course ) message, about how I shouldn't phone them unless it was an emergency ( in response to me saying I had tried to phone them to tell them I had to cancel ). I am unreasonably annoyed at the absolute shitfuck response to me saying there was a queue of 26 people - they have s...

 Today I took work off to have lunch with a friend. Albeit. I did actually work in the morning. I ended up sleeping a little, 1am to 4.30 am, then unable to sleep, ended up working until 10am before finally sleeping. This whole time schedule was undoubtedly a mistake, but, it's not like I am in control of it at this point. I woke up at midday to get ready for lunch... the worst I have ever been. I should have taken a photo. I looked appalling. And groggy. Foggy. Ill. The lot.  Nevertheless I ignored it all, I was just going to push through everything, to the point of collapse. As long as I wasn't collapsed I was going to keep going. So went out for lunch. It was nice. Took me hours to warm up. But eventually I felt a bit better. We chatted about this and that, work, family, health. Nice. My lunch wiped me out. Overly full, incredibly tired. So got home and crashed for hours. Woke up. Slowly warmed up. This is absolutely my reality now. Crashing out. Slow to wake up. Clearly sh...

 A work breakthrough. Got a bunch of stuff done, managed to concentrate well enough for a series of hours, and worked through the night into the day. Talked to Andy today about a few things, caught him up to speed, and we talked about some other things I had done last week, and suddenly, from one perspective, I don't look so useless at all. But I know I am operating well below my usual levels. But still useful. On the other hand. My nausea is worse today. Stomach pains for most of the day. Pretty bad. Which put an end to work output. I am just. Gonna switch to really light things again for a while. Soups. Fruit. Hydrate. And see how I do. I really. Really . Have to make that GP appointment.

 Super rough today. Struggled to even be upright during the day, gave up, slept through the day. My anxiety crawls upwards realising just how debilitated I am. I still need to do work, catch up with work, but everyday is a shitshow of feeling ill and "warming up", with a small window in the evening where more often than not I just hang out with a friend to keep myself sane. This is difficult. I am basically at a point where work is going out the window. Don't get me wrong. I am still very capable and can noodle with all sorts. But the old days of blasting through some impossible fucking project are long gone. And. I am not sure where that leaves me. Really I just want it to go away, to be able to function at a high level when I need it, and pretend I am not constantly ill. Reality gets in the way of that. I don't know. I will spend this evening when I feel a bit better knuckling down with some major work output. But work can sometimes be that thorny shitty impossible ...

 I ended up crashing out again for the mid part of the day yesterday. Woke up late afternoon at some kind of mid shit point - not good, but also, had worse. I got up and wanted to get stuff done. Let's be positive. Made a cup of tea. 10 minutes later nausea. In spades. And I felt terribly ill. My groceries were due to turn up and it was the last thing I wanted. Just. Go away. I curled up in a ball on the sofa and downed some antacid.  The groceries were running late, which gave me a little time to try and gather my ill self together. Just picking the groceries up and putting them away was a hard test. I am so fucked. But I got it done. I ate some "lunch" that had come with the groceries ( some light sushi and a natural fruit juice ) despite feeling nauseous and not wanting it. Slowly, oh so slowly, as the evening wore on, and I sat on my computer, the nausea subsided, disappeared. Ok. Feeling much better. The nausea and terribly ill feeling are going hand in hand. Pretty ...

Continual nausea. Don't eat. Nausea. Eat. Nausea. At times I can make it go away with a dose of antacid and not eating anything. It slinks back eventually. Last night was particularly bad. Pulling me out of sleep bad, before subduing the beast with a glug of antacid. I would put dollars to donuts it's an ulcer. I really need to reschedule the GP. Eh well. Yesterday passed in a blur after doing all the things. I crashed hardcore during the day. Deep sleep. Groggy sleep. Apnea kicking in. I woke up in the later afternoon groaning and feeling like a car had run me over. Paying for it. But as early evening turned to late evening I felt better - albeit again chasing off nausea. I slept somewhat overnight. Awake by 5am. Can't sleep. Awake. Well. Ok. At least I guess I slept some hours there. I feel a little better. Hungry . Rare. Couple of things - Yesterday, after having basically been up the better part of 48 hours, hungry, I decided to throw all caution to the wind, fuck it, ...

 I can't seem to sleep. No matter how little sleep I am getting or how tired I am. My brain constantly ticks over and I spend hours lying there awake. Inevitably I give up, flick a video on, and then try again after 20 minutes. It doesn't work. So last night I slept for 30 minutes. Very sleepy, very tired, dropped off. 30 minutes later wide awake. And then singularly failed to get back to sleep again. So. Clearly I am not very good at this shit anymore. Or good at waiting. Or something. Perhaps I have spent too long being a mental fuck up. Or my ill health preys on me. Whatever it is. I have spent a lot of the time since yesterday in some state of anxiety or other. Ready for today. The many calls, organisation, moving my car from one garage to another. Really, it's straight forward. Call garage A. Confirm they can accept it. Deal with it. Get a price. Call recovery. Get them to move it. Call garage B. Confirm it's being moved. But that sitting around waiting for everyon...

 Today was about as much of a shit show as you can get. So. I didn't sleep again. Couldn't. Despite being even more tired. Didn't sleep. I think I got to sleep around 7am again. And was then up for 9.30 am to get to the docs. Felt like shit. Took it slow, left plenty of time to get to the docs. Except I didn't get there. Car died. Battery flat. Last year, MOT, Kwik fit replaced the battery - despite it being in theory ok. I was dubious about it, but they did it. Sometime this year that battery died on me. I told them. Brought the car in. They said it seemed fine. No signs of being flat, despite me having to jump start it to get there. Today. Battery flat again. This time however, the car was fucked. They came out to replace the battery, still wouldn't start. Ended up getting it towed to them - still under warranty. After fucking about with it all afternoon they couldn't deal with the issue and had given up. So. Car is currently in the garage. Needs to be picked ...

 Today I have done zero work. None. Nada. Zip. Despite yesterday feeling extra shitty and tired I still failed to sleep, no matter how hard I tried. It was gone 7am before I properly slept. Rather than try to slog through poor quality work today I decided to just take it off. Ostensibly sick. I kept my ear peeled for any emergencies. But otherwise. I rested. Slept. Just. Let it go. Concentrate on feeling better first. Work later. And I feel better for it. That being said. Towards the very late afternoon, feeling a bit better, let me have a 5 minute sit down planning my CnC box, I immediately felt ill again. Nauseous. Weak. Sleepy. Ok. I stopped what I was doing and retreated back to bed. I had been up for all of 20 minutes. Hmm. It crosses my mind whether some of what I go through is just all down to a dodgy stomach. A very surly and bad tempered ulcer that reaches out and makes me feel truly shit, not just in a nausea kind of way, but makes me sleep and feel weak and shaky and et...

 Holy fuck damn. After a slightly better day yesterday, most of today has been diabolical. I feel extremely terrible. Like along with the rest of it I have a flu. I don't have a flu. No temperature. No sniffles. But I feel like extra garbage. Today I was mildly useful at work. Sorted out 3 issues, done, dusted, live, no mess. Mildly useful. It was tough to do feeling as shit as I did. Like crawling over broken glass. It is getting into the later evening, and unlike usual where I feel a little better in the evening, I am feeling worse . Not. Good. I don't think I am going to have a problem sleeping tonight. I am going to sink hard. Perhaps this is just a very very shitty sleep cycle reset where I haven't slept enough and now my hours are jerking back to something more normal. Maybe. Also. Suspiciously. For the first time in an absolute age. Many weeks. I had a wheat bread roll yesterday. Today I feel like I have a non feverish flu. As much as that sounds like a slam dunk lin...

 Yesterday all things considered was a bit of a better day. I actually had some energy and zip for a change, albeit, it dipped and wobbled, nausea came and went, and of course, I slept long. But still. There were moments in the day where I felt ballpark alive. This is a big deal. I am under no illusions however that this is anything more than a temporary blip. It always is. Today I am exhausted. Couldn't sleep. Up in the morning anyway to deal with a work problem - successfully. Which makes a difference. Not beating my head bloody against a miserable wall for a change. Go in. Do something technical. Fiddly. Resolve it where others have failed. And out again, all before lunch. Very good. The Johnny of old. Although I do rather feel that this is less about me, and more about the layers of cruft that are now accreting at work. On the one hand - I am much less burdened with day to day stuff. On the other hand. The work process slowly fills with pointless shit, wasted time and modern va...

 My days are normalising into a pattern based around my current shape of ill health. Sleep is difficult, but when I do sleep, then waking is difficult. State switching then perhaps is the difficult thing. There are consequences to this. My sleep refuses to hit some regular pattern and instead continually shifts backwards, as when I wake up I feel terrible, and my best periods are often when I have been awake the longest, meaning there is a high pressure there to keep sleeping or stay awake respectively. I am idly considering turning to the outright evil that is some kind of sleeping aid, although I am very wary of such a crutch. But perhaps a nudge or two at the right point would be useful. So. I get up late. "late". This is anything from 2pm through to gone 6pm. I then stay up late. In practice, typically beyond 5am. Even if I attempt to sleep at any point beyond midnight, I don't sleep. Sleep wise. I need an absolute minimum of 10 hours. 10 hours is feel like shit, very...

 Big time nausea today. Perhaps it's one of those things. Perhaps it's because I slacked on my "anti ulcer protocols". I neglected to take an anti histamine. I didn't dose with antacid. Worst bout of nausea yet. It has very very slowly receded into the familiar background sea sick level of nausea. But I also feel shit along with it. Sketchy. Weak. Shaky arms. I feel terrible. Today has been hard to get even a glimmer of positivity then. It's hard not to succumb to the misery of always feeling ill, spiralling down, can't do shit. At my best I can get on with it. Tell myself to rest. Tomorrow maybe a better day. At worst, there is a realisation that the better days don't come, it's just a series of varyingly shit days, and that I linger in some suffering twilight purgatory. My friends words of "you wont die tomorrow, but you maybe suffering for the next 10 years" frequently haunt me. Because I know she has more than a point. All I want to d...

 A tiny bit better today. I slept long. But did not fall into a horrible pit. Just a mildly shit one. Which honestly is better. I have forgotten what good feels like. I'll take merely shit. The gout stubbornly remains, not terrible, not right either, bright red inflammation still visible, an ache all over, pain when you tense, but, meh, it has been far far worse. I finished watching all of the Fargo series today. The last series, series 5 is excellent. And chimes queasily with the existential horror that the US is currently being sucked down into. About patriots. And stupidity. Cruelty. Christianity twisted into forms of hate and torture. Great series. Not so easy to watch in todays world. It underlines a very ugly portrait of America. It left me hating the US all the more. Not good. I guess in a way, this is one of the things that makes the series great. A US production that does not shy away from taking a very hard look at some very ugly characteristics of American chauvinism. I ...

 Lunch was indeed wildly optimistic today. I couldn't do it. Wiped out. So I cancelled. And ended up sleeping and sleeping and sleeping... until the sunset. Nausea is down today but present. A continual background hum of slightly green around the gills feeling. The gout grumbles. The tinnitus screeches. And if I get up and do something useful with myself I break out in a sweat, the nausea increases, and I have to sit down. Today I absolutely needed to go out for a few groceries. I could have ordered them in, done the thing, waited a few days. But I also haven't stepped outside my frontdoor in a week. Bed, to kitchen, to bathroom and back. That's it. I could be living in a bunker at this point. So I gritted my teeth and went out. It was not easy. I felt like shit. Nausea ramped up. Awful. Anxiety about just being well enough to not collapse somewhere out in the world. The grocery shopping I maintained however. Not too ill, not getting worse. A slow walk around getting some n...

 Today the nausea has taken a step back. Perhaps it's the full on anti ulcer approach I am now taking. Perhaps it's just coincidence. Today has not been anywhere near as bad with the nausea - copeable with, if not pleasant. The gout on the other hand has got worse - a sure sign I actually ate something yesterday ( whatever is going on with me I am basically fucked when trying to process any food ), and the apnea has got worse too. Groggy sluggish. It pervades into sleep itself, you can feel the slow sluggish response in your dreams as if you're being smothered. On waking a bone dry mouth, sore throat. Probably snoring my head off between dying for air. So a mixed bag today. But, overall a bit better. I shall continue with the current plan, eat sparingly, absolutely avoid anything remotely gouty, avoid any stomach upsetting meds - albeit I am still dabbling with anti depressants, I am somewhat wary of completely stopping them - take anything that aids stomach problems, and ...

 1 AM. Feeling a bit better. Again. Today I ate something a bit more proper. Some rice with vegetables and a grilled chicken thigh. I think I have maybe figured out what's going on with me at the moment. One, my exhaustion et al is much worse. Probably because of the other two things. My sleep apnea is biting hard. Probably because of the other thing. The final thing. Pretty sure I have yet another stomach ulcer. Or whatever close approximation to it I have. The thing that recurs every 3 to 6 months. The stomach problem is pretty nasty - when I lie down and sleep for anything over an hour it fucks me up. Today there have been definite reminisces of when everything was on fire inside me nearly 4 years ago. Same kind of feeling. But not as intense. The nausea however is worse. Plus. Sleeping on one side is worse than the other. Both are fairly shit. But one side is worse. Ok. So. Ulcer. I am not taking any NSAIDs. No Ibuprofen. No aspirin. I know from experience any kind of iffy stom...

After trying to get back to sleep after 5AM I gave up and got up. Made a cup of tea. Got a bowl of cereal. Noodled a little with work. Told Andy I was really ill, and not sure how much use I would be. I felt a bit better. Oh. Perhaps I had turned that corner after all. But I had stayed up. Avoided sleep. Midday I finally went to sleep. 4pm I awoke. Feeling absolutely terrible. Nausea. Groggy. Brain fog. Eyes a mess. Gout worse. Weak. Shaky. Exhausted. And everything feeling puffy. Sleeping is killing me. The persistent whatever it is wrong with my stomach, my gastro, is back with avengeance. And with it everything else has kicked in hard. I feel terribly ill.