May 23

 Feeling just an edge better today. Which. Sigh. In the greater arc of things. I don't know. Is that fortunate ? Lucky ? Snatched back just a tiny bit - once again - from the very edge of oblivion.

A lucky roll of the dice ? A spin of the gun in russian roulette to a click, and not a bullet.

Eh. Meh.

I am very thankful I feel a bit better today. All round. Super far from any kind of good. Or healthy. But enough. Enough of a glimmer of energy and less choppy seas to give a twinkle of hope.

I think I have become trained to exist on fumes. Very lean running existence.

Yesterday I took all the pills. Just about everything I could lay my hands on. My gut meds. My gout meds. My crazy meds. My daily vitamin. My boosted vitamins targetting my deficiences. I don't have a problem taking meds. So. Of course. Me being me. What I do is pop each in my mouth and hold it. Because. Of course. Efficiency ! You can swallow them all with one drink of water. You end up swallowing a bucketful of gravel. It doesn't phase me. But there is something maybe just a little... dystopian.. or fucky.. or weird about it. How many fucking pills.

Anyway.

Maybe that has something to do with slightly feeling better.

I would absolutely positively 100% not commit to that at all. I know way better than that. This shit is - to all intents and purposes - chaotic and random. Oh that it were so easy to regulate with a fistful of pills.

Taking all those pills made me nauseous. Of course. To be fair. Nausea is just the common state I am in these days so, uh huh. But. It's what made me take the "anti nausea" pill on top of everything else once I had taken them ill. I know pills - depending what they are - are not always great for your stomach. Taking a fistful of them, eh. I mean. Swings and roundabouts. I think in theory most of those pills should be benign anyway. The crazy meds are not. They are a known stomach irritator.

My twitchy nerves kicked in hardcore with the meds. This is not unknown. The restless leg syndrome I have often kicks in very hard once I take certain meds. It's a slam dunk causation. Not 100% triggering. But very often triggering. And something you can definitely track and take to the bank.

So. That was tricky last night. Woken a few times with that itchy jumpy leg. Interestingly only ever one leg at a time. And typically the left one. It's frustrating and annoying more than anything, albeit it isn't pleasant. Like an itch you can't scratch. That builds. And builds. And bam. Your leg kicks quite violently. Now rinse and repeat every 10 seconds or so.

Of course long term it fucks with your head. As all things do.

As an aside in these last few months the whole left side nerve thing has become a regular feature. The way it presents is kinda new though. I get a "funny" sensation, all the way down my left side. It is subtle. Very very similar to the restless leg feeling, but dialled way down. There is like. An itch. Internally. All the way down the left side. A faint zinging electricity. Which. You can almost certainly deduce is some nerve thing going on. It's low level, but it's there. You can feel it. It is. Uncomfortable. It can wake you up. It can stop you sleeping. It's like a low level feeling of someone drilling your teeth. Nails on a chalkboard. Mmm.

Sometimes rolling over entirely one side to the other ( doesn't matter which side you start on or end on ) helps with it, tends to swamp it out. But not always.

These things just like the restless legs are *always* at night. And *always* when you are sleeping or near sleep. Rather annoyingly it seems the most common place these happen is if I've been asleep perhaps 30 minutes or so, then it wakes me up. And is there. Nails on chalkboard. And it snaps you out of sleep completely. No easy back to sleep doze state. It is. Annoying. At the very least.

It *could* be just symptomatic of critically shit levels of vitamin B. Which I have. And which if continually shit can cause, dun dun darrr. Nerve damage. 

I have to remember to take my vitamin B. And also maybe look at vitamin B shots. I was supposed to do that. Someone made me promise to do that. I can't remember who it was. I haven't done it.

One of the maybe more mundane issues I face with myself is my absolutely diabolical capability to keep a schedule of anything. I mean. Fundamentally I hate schedules anyway. But. I find it very hard to keep track of regular pill taking or the like. I'm a smart cookie. But I'm fucked if I can stay on top of something where I have to do something regular like take a pill at a set time everyday and remember to do it. I absolutely suck at that. 

Needless to say this has consequences.

I'm probably least dysfunctional with my asthma meds. But even them. I suddenly lapse out of taking them. Forget. And sure enough. 24 hours later. 48 hours later. I will try to sleep. And wheeze. Oh. Ohhhh. Shit. And then immediately take a hit of asthma meds.

The asthma meds have been formulated to be exactly abused like this.

They were reformulated from older formats to be this because after studying people, this works better with how shit people are.

So. My asthma meds really do work well with me. Both for the asthma. And because I'm shit at taking meds. It's like they knew. Which they do.

Today is on a bit of a knife edge. I feel a little better. But it is incredibly fragile. If i make the smallest misstep today I am going to be fucked. Identifying that misstep is very hard. It does NOT mean you just sit on your ass and do nothing. Whilst that is often a pretty good defensive plan. It's not always right, and sometimes you just disappear down a hole of inactivity and also my whole, blipping through hours, hyper focused on something inconsequential, like the TV, or the internet, or just inside my fucking head. And suddenly 8 hours have gone by, you haven't eaten, or had a drink or taken any meds, and you feel worse.

That being said.

I might try to go out today to pick up a handful of groceries. I don't have a lot in.

Expenditure of energy vs getting fresh air and mixing with Actual Human People. Getting some groceries vs being super protective of a little energy.

Tricky.

Damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

Take your choice. Roll the dice.

Sigh.

What is it like to be fucking normal and not have to live life like this. I wonder.

Today I glanced over the sad story of "physics girl". I already knew this story. Had already consumed it. This is a story about a bright spark, an youtube type person, laid low by covid, then CFS and hammered into the floor. Hardcore. Far worse than me. There was an update recently. I think she is in a better recovered state now. A few years on. Which is good. But. Her story. Her symptoms. Ugh. Yes. I can see it. Sigh. I find it slightly crackers that we still haven't nailed what's going on with long covid / post viral syndrome / CFS.

You can see her update here, it's positive, she's so much better now. But yeah. There are negatives. It talks about someone else with it who is gearing up to euthanise. I understand. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqeIeIcDHD0