Sunday
It's been a bit of an upside down week. I've had to sleep on the sofa for a few nights because of the breathing dificulties caused by dust in the bedroom. I vacuum the linen every day to get rid of dust and dust mites etc., but no room can be totally free of all dust. The sofa is leather and can't harbour dust particles. However, the lounge does collect dust and I still have had trouble breathing every night. Nightmares about being operated on, while unable to breath, AND being awake for the dreamt of operation, have not been too pleasant. I keep getting cramp in my leg as well and the pain wakes me up. It's a bloody nuisance!
What to do about the front and back gardens? They are overgrown with large shrubs that are too big to be manageable. We've taken a few weeks to gradually remove some of the shrubs, one at a time.
Each shrub seems to take about a weekend to prune, lop, dig out, and then take to the tip. I'm trying to psyche myself up into designing a new look back garden. It'll have to be low maintenance, with meandering borders leading the eye to different parts of the garden.
I think that I could divide the back garden into two areas. It is big enough to have a dividing line made up of an arch and reasonably tall shrubs. We would use the area next to the house, and the furthest part could be a quiet zone for just sitting and thinking. We've been visiting garden centres to get ideas. I've taken my digital camera with me so that I can have a long look at items and plants which caught my eye, after we've got home. I'd never remember what I'd seen. Even if I did, I'd get them mixed up.
I got a Diploma in Humanities and Design a few years ago (the very first letters after my name) and I'm trying to remember the salient points of designing a garden. Desire lines and points of interest with architectural plants, are bubbling up from deep in the olde grey matter. Thankfully I haven't thrown any of my notes or text books away. The first task is to find them all!! (in the attic)
The use of a voice recorder is paying dividends. This came more into prominence yesterday. I had an original thought, but by the time I'd found my voice recorder, I'd forgotten the thought. I must make myself carry the voice recorder at all times! I've lost something that I'll never remember. This incident proved the importance of using a voice recorder. I'm really annoyed with my 'memory' for letting me down.
J visits tomorrow and I haven't had the opportunity to put some draft notes together yet. I'll make that my primary task in the morning. BUT, it isn't a task, per se. It brings everything to the fore and I can review 'me.' I have written about a dozen pages from the thoughts which came out of last week's session.
I'm in a no-man's-land area at the moment. Looking at what brought me to this point in my life; considering how and when I'll be able to venture forward; looking at my state of mind and the emotional tightrope walk, that has me hanging on with more hope than conviction. Like I said, a bit of a no-man's-land.
My son returns from the Far East later this evening and I'll be going out shortly to pick him up from the airport. I am not expecting IBS or a Panic Attack to rear their 'orrible, ugly heads. I'll take something to counteract them anyway.
Friday
Some light relief...
HERDING OF CATS
Herding cats into the football stadium,
half empty
with gangs of Social Workers
who skreated and breated,
their animated throat-burning,
blood-curdling skrines
at that herd,
as they sploshingly began
hurling, water-filled, pink balloons at the cats,
Was not a good idea.
Squadroons of ill-tempered manx-tailed muggies,
brasted on olde hemp wine, and fired up with a passion
best kept for tin roofs
threw one another
at the rapidly blanching Sociatumpalists,
who tripped in their hundreds,
backing up the crumbling, cronkeeted terraces
of the Stadium.
Seasoned Ticket holders
fared worst,
whitened to the digital equivalent
of minus 3.
Hosepipes were deployed
to no avail.
Poltroons of muggies
scoffed at the audacity,
scorned the mendacity,
of broadcasts by tannoys,
supplied by Walmart.
Sneering through fur,
at a voice electronically enhanced,
while panicing Socios
realised with aplumb
the hosepipes were useless
with no water switched on.
Cats 4 Social Workists 0
Herds can be powered,
managed and armied,
by elitists in scabbie cabals,
but no-one told the muggies.
This tale was told across the shimmering amber embers of a pine fuelled carbon burner, by an actor of renown, who hasn’t looked back since he played the dumping end of a pantomime horse.
Sunday
Yesterday evening I attended 7.15pm Vigil Mass, as I always do on Saturdays.
However, this was to be no normal evening. As I approached the front doors of the church, a lady in front of me decided to push the heavy wooden door open so that I could follow her in. Unfortunately, the door was swung outwards towards me and the edge of the door stopped right in front of where I was stepping. I stopped suddenly to avoid walking into the door's edge, and by stopping suddenly I put all of my weight through my right leg and right knee. (The knee that was operated on just 2 years ago) Something moved in my knee and the pain was immediate at the same site where my quad muscle had been re-attached.
I spent a large part of today in A&E. X-rays showed no fracture. Soft tissue damage was evident, but ultrasound machines and staff to use them, do not work on Sundays. My leg is strapped up and I'll be seeing my GP in a couple of days. I have an appointment to see the orthopaedic surgeon, who had reconstructed my knee 2 years ago.
Soft tissue damage is best left alone to rest and repair itself. Once again, my family have to do more and more for this bloody cripple. I'm back to using an elbow crutch. My main fear was a return to plaster casts and all that that entails. Those who have had a plaster cast know what I mean!
Thursday; Grateful...
I do not know where the words and phrases come from. It is sometimes like having an out of body experience. I'm let loose within my own mind and a field lays open before my mind's eye, where words and phrases are growing in different stages of maturity.
The words have colours and half hidden depths. The field may be glimmering in a heat haze, or be swathed in late afternoon shadings. From time to time I visit the field and find it is rock strewn, where only the hardest and densest words can survive.
It is my field. But I have no idea who tends it in my absences. I am grateful.
Walking Through Trees
Walking Through Trees
Slowly walking through trees
Under an arch of their years
How dense are their roots?
How deep are their roots,
one grave or two?
Who walked here before?
Another lost soul?
A well meaning fool?
A writer of droll?
A reader of schmaltz?
The World in a wood
Just passing through
Him with his thoughts
Me with my two
Her, deep in pain.
Desiring the silence
A wood cannot give
Thousands of lifetimes
Determined to live
None of them human.
Invasive procedure
So far so good
My tread leaving echoes
Where deaf shoots have stood
I’ll walk on
I Stared At The Wall
I Stared At The Wall
(Thoughts in a psychiatric hospital’s gym)
You have to get the line beat…
1, 2, 3,
1, 2, 3,
1, 2, 3,
1, 2.
I stared at the wall for an hour or two
The linoleum floor is coloured my ‘Blue’
See wires that trail from the walls to machines
Providing the power for endorphin-fed dreams
Machines taking power from switches that start
my sisters in arms, working legs, lungs and hearts
They grind to a halt feeling worn out and ill
Spending their time on the exercise treadmill
This gym for the daft and the mad and the lame
With cripples in limb or demented, insane?
We who have minds that are all out of kilter
Taking our ‘meds’ for the want of a filter
Lack of seratonin, causing “hey!” in the wire
The present being bleak, but the future dire
Given the time and the space to reveal me
Take a prognosis from one who can see me
I know I’m not right and I’m wrong in the head
The fact that I know this still gives me a shred
Of hope and a chance of a mind that is sane
Wherein I can ponder on God and his names.
Thursday
At last.
J informed me last Thursday that I have a date to see the Apnoea Unit. Their letter arrived a couple of days ago. I have another couple of weeks to wait before the appointment.
J said that when she spoke to the Unit last week she was told the doctor had reviewed my computer readout from my overnight stay. The doctor wrote up my notes and passed my file to his secretary. My file then spent several weeks sitting and waiting for someone to see it and do something with it. The doctor had done his job, but...
I can confirm that fellow clients of that Sleep Unit have experienced long delays because their files had been lost, misfiled, mislaid, whatever! One patient's file was lost for over a year. He kept pestering the Unit until someone took the time to search for it. This particular factor is the subject of an ongoing thread in the Apnoea Forum.
My appointment is in the daytime. Most appointments take place in the evenings. Therefore, I am expecting one of two outcomes; I haven't got OSA, or, I have got it and I will be sent home with a CPAP machine, which will be an automatic air pressure machine. The APAP's monitor every breath and set the appropriate air pressure for each breath. The chip inside the machine records the details over a period of a couple of weeks. When the machine is taken back to the Unit, the doctors can see what air pressure is best for the individual patient and set that pressure on a machine they give to the patient for his/her permanent use.
I know that in some parts of the country, people are having to wait for 18 months to be given their own machine. They've had the results of their tests, been told they have OSA, but have to wait to be given a machine.
If I do have OSA, and I am told that I have to wait for a machine, it is then that I shall tell the Unit that I will buy my own machine. The machines cost less than the cost of a holiday. I am unable to go on holiday because of my condition. Buying a machine will mean that I can start saving up to go on a holiday. The machines can be used anywhere in the world as long as your hotel room has an electric socket to plug the machine into. The voltage on the machine can be set to accept different inputs from different countries.
However, this is all conjecture at the moment. I have to be patient. (No pun intended)
Monday
This RagAttractively patterned
A delight to be seen
This rag worn when new
With pastel and sheen
A skin to be worn
A statement declaring
An adornment so chosen
Collected for wearing
Worn on the sleeve
To parties and do’s
Admired and remarked on
This one you did choose
Is hardly a patch?
Of what it has been
Colours now faded
And jaded if seen
Peppered with pinpricks
Frayed through and through
Worthless to me
Of no use to you
Spun through Life’s cycles
Stretched on the line
A rag that now flags
And flaps out of time
Cleans up and wipes up
And no longer shares
With not enough left
To soak up the tears
Wipes clean those dishes
Shines up those lights
Yet hiding and covering
Its crimson delight
Kept for its uses
But not for itself
A Rag out of sinc
Its heart on the shelf.
