Monday, 23rd October 2023
Last night I felt robbed. The night before — no idea about dates and stuff, today’s Monday, last night 22/23, night before would be the Saturday 21/22 — was landmark. I decided, because of the pain, I try to call it discomfort, but let’s face it (which is a bit unlike me) it’s pain, I took a second Tamsolosyn at about 2300 in order to try and sleep. Up until then my sleeping pattern was wake up in discomfort either needing a wee or feeling like needing a wee, struggle for half an hour, doze for half an hour to an hour. Despite the risks of a second dose within 24 hours, I badly needed a few hours sleep. I decided the risk was worth it. Best I don’t seek advise. Don’t try this at home.
I had a period, about 2 till 5, of three hours. Deep sleep. Then an hour or so watching movies and another two-hour stretch.
It was wonderful.
Last night I was expecting a repeat. I’m now taking the Tamsolosyn late afternoon in order to have maximum dose at night. I was still wide awake at eleven, unusual but maybe chemical related. Dozed off about midnight. Awoke to the familiar stinging discomfort. Checked my phone. I’d been asleep an hour.
I felt cheated!
Today is the first time I’ve written anything sine the 2nd. Partly there is a discomfort to sitting. An insight yesterday evening, connecting the discomfort to timescales, (I had thought the discomfort in my upper gluts around the rump was spending too long at my desk) I think sitting causes the muscles to put pressure on an irradiated bowl and the discomfort just seems to be coming from my gluts. What to do about it? Give it time. And be gentle on myself.
Another new one for me
I’m writing this horizontal. My default orientation for the last week or so. I’ve not been able to write — or read, my greatest pleasure — for a while now. Partly coz of the sitting, mostly because of a zonked brain. I imagine this is what brain-washing is like. There’s an altered state of internal reflection that is distorted in such a way that you don’t realise it’s distorted. I remember former Police dog handlers explaining to me with Zen that one of the difficulties was the dog was being trained to resist the very techniques used to train him out of certain habits. My brain, post-radiation, is in an altered state that can’t see that it’s in an altered state. A zonked brain is a functioning brain in neutral. There is no gas. All energy is for survival, none for locomotion. Hence the need to lie down, nothing more (OK, Sky movies and sport, just to keep the small gas ring on the low setting that is still ignitable, and I found a lovely YouTube channel about a young couple who bought a boat to sail the Atlantic) and give my body time. Healing time, not punishing time.
As a kid my heroes were Douglas Bader, Francis Chichester, Dougal Haston. I wanted to be steel inside. Push the boundaries of the British Empire. Never say sorry, never show pain.
Now I want to be like Mother Teresa, Florence Nightingale, St Francis of Assisi.
See what time can do?
Time and death diseases.
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