I was going to write about our holiday (it was brilliant!! Very relaxing, with enough things to do to keep us busy, but not too much, as we just wanted to chill out.)

But instead, I'm just going to talk about pain.
( Oh, and one pretty holiday picture...Collapse )

i got drugs.

More drugs.

Soon I shall open my own pharmacy.

Today I scored 500 co-codamol tablets (on repeat now until I've got through 3000 of the bastards), I've still got my old co-cos to finish up, and my old diclofenac, some ibuprofen and some tramadol - but that shit's useless, and I'll stop taking it. And I've also got some Amitriptyline and some naproxen too. And yet more confusing instructions of what to take, not to take, when to take it, what can't go together, what has to go together...zomg. Naproxen  - take more than two per day and I may die some horrible death plus it can cause depression... Amitriptyline...can take five at once! And it's an anti-depressive XD

Although the pharmacy were all out of the co-co I like, so I'm going elsewhere to get that - and they only had half the amitriptyline, so I've got an IOU for the rest of that.

My flatmate finds it perverse that I LOVE reading the 'possible side-effects'. I particularly like the line on one of them: "Tell you doctor if any of the following occur...blablahblah..heart attack..blahblah. Well, yes, I might let a doctor know about that. Other side-effects range from bleeding from the eyes through hair loss, mental slowing and hepatitis!

I didn't do a pic of the day at work today, sorry. But I did get a pic related to work...I knew the guy who made this:



I made a terrible bit of balustrade at work today. I mean...it was shite. I didn't mean it to be, but it went a bit wrong XD And I couldn't be arsed to fix it. Ooops. I'll polish it up in the morning and it'll probably look okay.

Well, I spent this morning having a lie-in...didn't get out of bed until just gone 7am! And lazing about until I had to run to the bus to get up to the hospital in time for my appointment. And omg, RSC is a difficult hospital to find your way around!! I've worked there before, and I've never had as much trouble as I did this morning.


Anyway, Back specialist now reckons my problem isn't actually in my back, but probably nearer my hip. And that makes me not his problem. Only been 2 years. No worries. MUCH. So now he reckons I'm pretty much stuck with the pain and I'm being referred to pain management. It actually makes me want to cry.

But on to happier things.



And, because of their past popularity...


I'm done.

Went to work today.

Spent half the morning working out some very long and complex maths.

Spent most of the afternoon cutting up stainless.

Realised just after lunch that I was cutting up the WRONG stainless. Admitted mistake to my boss (who took it very well, actually. I ALWAYS admit my mistakes straight away - it's so much better in the long run.)

Then started cutting up the right stuff - of which we only have 2 of the 10 lengths I need. Which means our driver has to go up to Cheshire to fetch me more...Only a round-trip of 500 miles XD

So, all in all, wasted almost a whole day and £600 worth of stainless and have caused someone to have to drive 500 miles. Go me!

I figure, if you're going to make a fuck-up, you may as well make a big one. I'm just glad that I'd got a set of allen keys and two new pens off him before I realised the fuck-up! I damn sure wouldn't have got them after!



In other news, now have tramadol, co-codamol and declofenac to play with on the drugs front. Took two tramadol and a declofenac about 2 hours ago and have so far felt absolutely no effect, still hurts like a mofu. Co-co and Declo was better than this - and this is meant to be stronger! Which makes me grumpy :(

Hopefully get some help on the 19th though - my next visit to my specialist.

Went to see the Doc. (Not our icudoc, sadly, but another, inferior specimen) The NHS being the caring sharing place it is the convo went something like this:

Elf: Hi, um, I don't know if there's much about it on my notes, but I've got a bad back, and I'm having treatment for it, but right now it's making my leg hurt so much it...

Doc: What do you take for it?

Elf: Well, ibuprofen, normally, but it's not really help...

Doc: Right, take ibuprofen and paracetamol if it's not too bad, take diclofenac or ibuprofen with cocodamol if it gets worse, and if it's really bad take diclofenac and cocodamol, okay?

Elf: Er...could you write that down for me?

Doc: Yep. It's just sciatica, I wouldn't worry.

Elf: It's not sciatica, it's the front and side of my thigh, it's muscular pain not just nerve pain.

Doc: Whatever. Here y'go. ::hands over prescriptions::

He didn't ask me anything about anything, was in and out within about 3 minutes! But I came away with 100 cocodamol tabs and 84 diclofenac and told to buy paracetamol and ibuprofen whenever I need it. And all that for the princely sum of £13.70 for the scripts, 16p for 16 paracetamol and 29p for 12 ibuprofen. I do wonder if people in other countries don't think we have to pay for this stuff, because of the NHS...

So, icudoc, did I do well, or did I strike out? I'm mixing and matching tabs as we speak. Am quite disapointed that none of them are fun colours.

New guy started at work today, he's there to make tea, clean and paint. He seems ok. Can string a sentence together, which is more than most.

In other news, my leg really really fucking hurts today. I think I need some far more serious painies. And a new spine. (It's my back that makes my leg hurt).

Therefore I'm quite grumpy.

I'm still alive!

Survived hospital with only two stab wounds...feels horrible, hurts. Am eating Doritos and some angel cake to make myself feel special. There's something so gorgeously fake about shop-bought cake.

Um...very boring, really, the guy asked me if I was allergic to anaesthetic...so I was like "I dunno." And he said "Well you must have had one before..."  Urrrr...."No".....Why must I have had?? All of my hospital visits in my life have either been illness or injury - the sort of emergency injury that you just get tablets for. And I have nice teeth, so no messing about with it there either... Anyway, they kept me under obs for a while after, and I convinced them I was fine.

So now I have two holes and some biro cross-hairs on my back...oh, and a tiny plaster...just in case I bleed out. And I have to go back in 2 weeks to report what this has done to me. So far I'm worse...I'm hoping over the course of the evening I will start seeing some results...

It was steroids and anaesthetic they injected me with today...as the stuff went into me my leg was ARGH!! And it still pretty much is. Also, I'm not sure how I'm going to notice a difference...I mean, it'll be nice if it doesn't hurt, but quite often it doesn't hurt anyway, it's just numb...so what will happen? You can't numb numbness to make it go away, surely?

Yay! Finished work on Friday, worked for jonboy1 a bit yesterday, and today I'm doing nowt. Well, I'm doing lots of writing.

I've got a story that just won't quite sit right. Doesn't normally happen to me. I blame the lack of caffeine.

Hopefully by the end of the Crimbo break I'll have posted two LoM and a TDK (bwahahahaa) Maybe more...who knows??

As January 9th approaches I find I'm a little nervous. Needles aren't my favourite things in the world - unless I'm giving blood, which is fine. (And which I think I should be doing on around the 3rd...but I don't know if they'll let me, if I'm due in Hozza so soon afterward) I don't know if having them stuck in my back will be better or worse...I think I'd rather know when they're coming, tbh...

I can't wait for Christmas day, when I get to spend the entire day with Jojo. Although he has kindly volunteered me to work on Christmas Eve...sweet boy.

For a little while now I've been thinking about Jojo's been nagging me to phone the hozza regarding my back. I'm on a waiting list, see. It's a year long waiting list - or so I was told, eighteen months ago.

Aaaaaaaand today I rang.

And next week I have to ring back because they have to 'find me'. And even if they do find me, and do decide I'm not lying and I really am on ths freakin' waiting list, then I might have to go back for another appointment, because in the elapsed eighteen months my back might have changed and what they were going to do to me might now not be the right thing. They don't know.

NHS, man, 6 years waiting for treatment, on about 5 different waiting lists, paying for Osteopath to the tune of £40 a throw whilst waiting....and then they lose me.

CUNTS.

Normally, thanks to much manipulation of my skull and spine by my osteopath, my back is pretty stable. The last couple of days it's been annoying me. I've had a few spasms in the muscles in my back and although my left thigh is always numb, now I get random cold spots and fuzzy patches and it feels like things are touching me when they aren't, and I can't feel things when they are. It's not exactly painful, just really irritating.

And I've been on the NHS waiting list for 16 months now....