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| Abandoned reflections |
On
Sunday, I had less physical symptoms but I was still very tired and stayed in
bed again. I did some more still life drawings,
including one which I thought might make quite a nice print or stencil. My partner had spent most of the weekend
doing his magpie stencils, in-between keeping me fed and watered. I was struggling to stay awake but thought if
I had a kip during the day, it would be harder to sleep at night so I made an
effort to stay conscious. Then that
night, despite being knackered, I had a lousy sleep and on Monday morning it took
me ages to come round and I felt like I hadn’t slept at all.
Eventually,
I came round enough to do some writing and spent most of the day on my blog. By
mid-afternoon I was knackered again and my head hurt. I tried to sleep but the incessant noise of blokes
using a power washer outside was preventing me.
I shouted at them to shut up, banged on the window, put earplugs in,
covered my head with a pillow, and when all that failed, I fumed.
Around
lunchtime Tuesday, I started to feel a bit less ill. I noticed it was rather pleasant outside
again so I decided to get some sun. As I
was on my way out, the garage rang and said
that the auto electrician couldn’t find the electrical fault in my car and it
might be to do with the windows or the dashboard or the damp or a combination.
Well, that’s conclusive then, I thought!
I said I would go and collect it the next morning.
In
the afternoon I finished my blog which took ages for some reason and made me very
tired again. I considered what to do with my blog now that I had caught up in
real time. I came up with the idea of posting
monthly summaries whilst also developing the illustrated version and doing the
research I had been considering.
In
the evening we chatted a bit about the car.
My partner was still reticent about getting rid, but I argued that it was
my car and I was the one who had to deal with all the associated stress. When I
settled down to sleep later, I did some relaxation and managed to slow my body
right down which felt really good. This
helped me to drop off fairly quickly but I still had a broken night.
When
I went to collect my car the next day, we discussed again the various theories about
the electrical fault and I was sure that the damp was the most likely
culprit. On my return home, the
headlights came on unbidden and I tried various tricks to turn them off to no
avail then I tried to take the fuse out but I couldn’t locate the right one so I
was at a loss. I rang the garage for advice when the dam lights just went off
on their own! The garage thought it
might be a courtesy setting which made sense so I tried not to worry about the
battery draining again and worked hard to keep my mind off stressful things for
the rest of the day.
I
worked through week two of the on-line course ‘Good Brain Bad Brain’ which got
quite technical. Later, I went to visit
a friend for a cuppa and a chat which was a pleasant distraction.
When
I got to art class that evening, the tutor was already explaining stuff to half
the class even though it wasn’t yet 7 o’clock.
He carried on regardless and didn’t even recap when the rest of the group
arrived which I thought was pretty bad form.
When we got started on the collographic designs, my art pal and I had no
clue what we were actually meant to be doing.
The art tutor was ‘doing the rounds’ and when he got to us I asked him
to explain.
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| Collographic print design |
Still
not entirely sure what effect I was likely to get, I chose one of my phone
photos of the river looking very moody to work from and started to cut out the
shapes. It was 9 o’clock by the time we finished making our designs and the art
tutor said he’d varnish them ready for printing the following week.
Despite
being exhausted, I had a weird night and felt very unrested the next
morning. However, I had an idea about the
printing thing. Later, on my way to the
market (where I bought a nicotine vapouriser of all things), I saw the art
tutor and told him about my idea for the printing and he said go for it, so in
the afternoon I did some sketching to try and get my idea on paper but with
little success. In the afternoon I tried to have a rest and was just falling asleep
when the idiots outside started making loads of noise with their stupid power
washer again!
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| Collographic print in green |
I was really sick of
having to put up with it every effing day!
I felt really down due to a severe lack of sleep and was on the verge of
crying.
When
my partner got home that evening, I started to tell him how crap I felt due to a
lack of sleep and how hard it was to rest due to all the noise outside. He said, ‘what do you want me to do? It’s
their work and it’s daytime’ and I got quite upset at the lack of
sympathy. I explained I didn’t expect
him to do anything; I just wanted him to understand what it was like for me. Fortunately, that night I got to sleep a bit
quicker and only woke a couple of times. So I felt somewhat better the next
morning.
I
spent ages cleaning the kitchen as it hadn’t been done for two weeks and the
electric fire had stopped working properly which was most likely due to
excessive dust.
Later on, I planned to go
out in the car and the dam thing was completely dead again! I couldn’t even open the door with the
electronic key! I told myself not to get
stressed about it but it was hard not to.
I had a bit of a think and decided I needed to ask around for a friendly
garage/second hand car dealer who might buy it.
By chance, I saw a neighbour and on a whim asked her if she knew any tame
car people and she came up with a couple of suggestions.
I
really didn’t feel like doing anything in the afternoon but forced myself to do
some art. I did a charcoal drawing to
try again to get the printing idea out of my head but it still wasn’t
right. I also coated my crow collage
with mod poge and gave it a title. Later
in the week, I posted photos of my collages on social media (now the triptych
was complete!) I got a few ‘likes ‘and
comments which was encouraging.
On
Saturday morning we had another chat about the car. I got a bit upset again as I felt my partner
was talking over me and not letting me finish speaking and I said I never get
to talk about things properly. I told
him that while I had been managing my stress quite well of late, I still had to
try very hard sometimes and I had got really stressed about the car as it was such
a burden now, even though I tried not to fret. He said that he did understand and appreciated
what an effort it was for me sometimes. I told him that I might go round some local
garages for advice and he said he’d ask the mechanics at work as well, so I felt
a bit better after that.
In
the extremely early hours of Sunday morning, I was woken from an actual deep
sleep by horrid machinery noises outside – I actually thought they were part of
my dream at first but sadly not. I put
earplugs in and tried to ignore it but had a very broken sleep after that. When
it got light, we could see workmen on the banking on the other side of the
railway tracks. We were not the only ones to be disturbed by the racket and
various people were venting their frustration on social networks. We found out that it was indeed to do with
the railways and was planned to stop at 5.00 p.m. but it was closer to ten at
night when it actually ceased.
It
was a nasty, drizzly and cold day but we felt we should at least have some time
outdoors, having spent Saturday indoors doing crafting and baking. After a short walk, we had lunch at a small
cafe bar and I almost fell asleep after one beer I was so tired! Thankfully, I had a better sleep that night
and the next day started bright and sunny for a change.
I
really wanted to concentrate on dealing with the car so that I could unburden
myself of the stress it was causing me.
I looked at scrap values on the internet and later on, I walked up to
the local garage my neighbour had recommended and they advised scrapping it
which didn’t cheer me up but at least I had a second opinion on the matter. In the afternoon I did week three of the
on-line course which I didn’t enjoy as much as the previous two weeks. It was quite repetitive with a couple of
pointless videos which I wasn’t alone in deciding were designed to get
participants to sign up for more courses.
For a change of activity, I did some research in preparation for our
holiday to Barcelona at the beginning of March.
The
next day I made an effort to get up earlier as I had to go on a boring but
necessary shopping trip to the big town.
This took most of the day and really took it out of me. I was absolutely shattered when I got home and
my back really hurt. I literally crawled
into bed to have a rest and my eyes started shutting straight away but then I
couldn’t sleep although I managed to do some relaxation. When I got out of bed later it had gone very
cold and shortly after, there was a thunder storm. I went to bed very early
that night and had a reasonable sleep was conscious quite early again. We contemplated the severe weather warnings (‘amber
wind’ as my partner called it) as it was really bad Down South and predicted to
be bad Up North later on.
We
had yet another chat about the car. My
partner had failed to persuade the mechanics at work to take it off my hands
and he considered the notion of trying to fix it but we decided this would
probably just entail wasting a weekend on an unproven theory. We did a bit more research into scrap values
and I rang the guy that the local garage had suggested, but he was taking the
piss with his lousy quote, so I accepted a quote from a recycling website and waited
for their local agent to ring me and arrange pick up. In the meantime, I thought I’d better find
the log book and ended up sorting out a massive pile of paperwork and doing a
mountain of shredding.
I
was still worn out from the shopping trip of the previous day and really wanted
to go back to bed, but I forced myself to stay active and did some writing on
my film plot idea and some exercises before having a short rest. As I set off for art class that evening, the
‘amber wind’ had picked up. My art
friend texted to say she wouldn’t make it as she was still trying to get home
in the storm. I texted my partner to see
how he was coping (he was on a very slow train).
Most
people did make it to class, which was quite remarkable. We did collographic printing using a press
that looks like a big mangle using grown up oil-based ink. We had a lot of fun, even though we had to
stand around a lot waiting for paper to be just the right dampness and for a
turn on the press. I did three prints in
different colours and they came out lovely which was a bit of a shock. I walked back with my pal who told me the
tale of her parent’s caravan (aka shed) roof flying off in the wind. When I got back, my partner was very tired having
been battered by the wind and taken hours to get home. That night I really couldn’t settle and my mind
was really churning with all sorts of stuff.
It was still very windy and noisy but also very bright outside- there
was a gorgeous moonlit sky which was weird considering the weather conditions. I
did some thinking and realised I was still anxious about the car while I was waiting
for someone to take it away. It was preying
on my mind even though I tried not to let it.
I did some relaxation and pretended the storm noises were coming from the
sea and did get some shut eye in the end, but it was nowhere near enough.
The
next morning I felt really depressed which I reckoned was probably due to the lack
of sleep and still fretting about the car.
I moped around for a bit but then motivated myself to go out and do some
errands. Later on I did some writing. I looked at the draft film plot for a while and
managed to write a couple of scenes then I made a start on an illustrated
version of my blog. I had a slightly
better sleep that night so was a bit less down on Friday.
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| Butterfly and flower |
We
are not big on Valentine’s Day but I gave my partner a nicotine vapouriser that
I was going to give him anyway and he drew me a picture on his ipad, of a
flower with a butterfly on it. I was
quite pleasantly surprised as I hadn’t said anything to remind him that it was what
he calls ‘stupid made up card day’, but he said the day was irrelevant and he
was just giving me a nice picture so I said he could give me one anytime!
I
did some more work on the pictures for my illustrated blog and later on, my
friend with the interesting ailments came round for a cuppa. She was on antibiotics for her sinusitis again
and also added nits and neck acne to her current list of ailments (I told her
she should do a blog of them). She also
said she had tummy ache so I told her to get some pre-biotics.
Amongst other things, we discussed awful
ethnic foods (prompted by her therapist telling her to eat gone off curds – not
tasty). When she left, the weather was
truly foul once more and I was glad I didn’t have to go out again. I took photos of my collographic prints and
posted them on social media.
On
Saturday morning I slept in quite late and found it very difficult to get
up. It was a horrid day again so we
decided to have another crafternoon. My
partner did magpie stencils and I tried out my brusho colours for the first
time (it turned out that they are more like watercolours than ink) and I played
around with stencilling, wax resist, spraying and mixing with PVA. The stencil was okay but I made a bit of a
mess and got ink all over my hands which took ages to scrub off. Still, it’s all part of the process.
In
the evening we met our art friend for dinner and went to the new Italian
restaurant which was okay but not fantastic and drinks were a bit pricey. We had planned to meet another friend and go
to the pictures but discovered that the film we were going to see was three hours
long which put us all off a bit. We all
decided to go drinking instead. We went to
our old local for one and chatted to various people but it was turning into a
bit of a drunken sing-along so we left and went to the pub nearer home and stayed
until closing time.
That
night I was quite drunk and went to sleep quite quickly, but then I kept waking
up every couple of hours and the next morning it was really bright and sunny so
it was hard to sleep in. We felt we
should go out as it was so nice, even though we were very tired. We walked along the canal, through the park,
then down the cycle path (where more work appeared to have been done providing a
bit of a country park feel).
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| Abandoned ruin |
We took a
few photos of disgraceful abandoned ruins then walked back along the canal. I was fit to drop when we got back but glad we
had managed a walk, albeit short.
Still
not having a date from the car recycling people I chased them on the Monday
morning and arranged for them to come the next day. I got everything out of the car that I didn’t
want them to have. This was quite
depressing as the interior had gone all smelly and mouldy and it felt soulless. Despite being quite down and tired, I managed
to keep busy the rest of the day, writing and doing housework.
When
the scrapper arrived the next morning, he swore lots about the fact that there
were cars parked on both sides all the way up the street and that my car
wouldn’t move at all but then he used a stick-on battery to get it moving and
onto his tow truck. It did make me wonder whether I could have just bought one
of them and driven round Mad Max style rather than scrapping the dam thing. It
felt weird when the car had actually gone; I felt sort of bereft but also
relieved that what was in effect a lump of useless metal, would burden me no
more. After sorting out DVLA and insurance
stuff, I went back to working on the illustrated version of my blog.
At art class that week we
worked on personal projects – I sketched out a picture of the woods from which
I planned to make a large collagraghic print.
The tutor kept going on about using pieces of cardboard but I wanted
texture. My art friend had dealt with a
broken car window during the day but it got sorted in the afternoon and she gave
me a lift back. When I got home the house stank of solvents as my partner had
been printing while I was out.
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| Leeds - Trinity roof with rainbow |
On Thursday morning I had an
awful headache above my right eye. At first
I thought it was from the solvents but it wouldn’t shift, even with aspirin. I
refused to believe I was getting yet another virus, and I had plans to go to
Leeds to do a bit of clothes shopping then meet my partner after work. I visited the Trinity shopping centre for the
first time which was rather time-consuming but managed to get a few
essentials.
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| Leeds - The Victoria ceiling |
When I met my partner we went
to the city museum (as it turns out, it was open until 7 p.m. which was lucky)
followed by dinner at Thai Cottage and a drink in The Victoria. When we got home I was knackered, my headache
had returned and it got worse as I settled down to sleep. The next day I felt
quite ill and stayed in bed all day. I kept myself occupied by changing the
buttons on a cardigan I’d bought the day before and threading a bracelet. In the evening, my partner bought us a ‘fake
away’ on his way home.
I had to get up
as it’s impossible to eat curry in bed without making a mess and we watched
some films but I didn’t stay up late.
On Saturday morning I thought I
felt a bit better. We went shopping for
some groceries and ended up buying a printer which was a bit random (although my
partner had been on about wanting one, then changed his mind, but at £40 I said
I’d buy it for his upcoming birthday).
In the evening, I started to feel incredibly ill. My head was really hot and my throat hurt and
I had a recurrence of the niggle in my left nostril again so I went to bed
after dinner.
That night, I woke after a
couple of hours' sleep with the most horrendous sore throat. I tried throat
spray and lozenges etc., all to no avail.
Then on Sunday I felt really ill all day; I honestly couldn’t remember the
last time I felt quite this bad, so I was bedridden again, and spent the day watching
telly and trying to sleep.
I reflected that it was odd for
me to have a sore throat at this stage in an illness as I usually get it at the
start so I was seriously wondering if it was sinusitis again especially as I
was coughing up some rather nasty phlegm, especially first thing in the morning.
On the Monday, I still felt
very poorly indeed. My throat hurt so much that I had slept even less than
normal and I could barely talk in the morning. I spent the day in bed but managed to work on
my writing a bit. On Tuesday morning I
felt slightly better (at least I could talk) but still crap. I e-mailed a complaint
to network rail about the planned 2 weeks of night time engineering works
starting early March.
In the afternoon, I had a doctor’s
appointment and she agreed with my diagnosis of sinusitis and prescribed double
dose antibiotics (as I told her that worked last time) and also Temazepam for
my continued sleeplessness. Of course we
talked about anti-depressants again and I told her that I had seen a report
indicating they were useless for mild depression and furthermore, of all the
people I knew who had used them, not one had said they were the answer to all
their problems. She agreed to some
extent but said she thought I had medium depression. Well, who knows? What do I have to compare it
to? I also picked up a leaflet for a
different talking therapies outfit. The
GP said it might be worth ringing them as there might be less of a wait for
treatment than the other place.* She gave me a sick note for another month then
I went to cash in my scripts and spent a fortune in the chemist and made sure
to buy Pre-biotics as well on the way home (which I knew I would definitely need.
That night I took a Temazepam
and was asleep by about 12. I still woke
a few times and didn’t really have enough sleep, but when I was asleep it was
much better than without drugs. The next
day I could feel the antibiotics were already taking effect and my sore throat had
eased a bit which was a relief. I was
still exhausted of course but in between resting, I managed to start packing
for our holiday.
I continued to improve but only
very slowly. I had hoped to feel up to meeting
a friend for her Birthday by the Friday but I really couldn’t do it. I was starting to worry that I wouldn’t be
well enough to go to Barcelona the following Monday...
*I kept meaning to ask my
doctor why mental illness is not treated like other illnesses. How come when
the GP is at a loss what to do to help, you are not referred to a proper
specialist? When I had a mystery
recurring sore throat a few years ago I was referred to ENT at the hospital for
tests by a specialist consultant. Why am
I not being referred to a proper head doctor and getting MRI scans etc. to see
what is actually going on in my brain? I
plan to look into this at some stage.
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