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More to go on this weekend.

FEELING MYSELF

Well, taking the pain meds on a regular basis really seems to be working out well. More than I would have thought. I have had no sugar cravings. Coincidence? My mood is better and I am not so short tempered. Coincidence? I do know that one of the things I was afraid of was the drugs changing my mood. It is 'mood altering' drugs that i have been taught to steer clear of. I have realised that I am not high. I just am in a better mood because I don't hurt so f'ing much! I can be a right twat (idiot) sometimes.

The postman has brought me surprises this week. Oh, okay, the postman is in fact Flora, and she is a lesbian. And no she isn't at all mannish. But I digress. I ordered Twisted Stitches by Maria Erlbacher, published by Schoolhouse Press. I had to order it it from Amazon.com as Amazon.co.uk did not stock it. I had seen the book on Fuguestateknits' blog. The information told me to expect the book in several weeks time. It took a few days to arrive. I love the book. Oh and I also got the Vogue Sock Book and Cokkie A's book. Not sure why, but what the hell.

The second surprise, even though I knew it was coming, was a hank of Wollmeise. I had seen that a blog/email friend had bought some at a fair and I wrote and asked if I could possibly buy some from her. I really expected the answer to be no as I know Wollmeise is a bugger to get hold of. Not only did this dearly lady not say no, she sent it to me as a gift!!! I haven't mentioned her name because she may prefer to be anonymous. The colours are gorgeous, black, and rusts, going from light to dark. It feels very nice and there is 160+ grams of it so plenty for a nice long pair.

I watched a film this afternoon called The Women. It was okay to watch whilst I knitted. Clever in that not one man appeared in the whole film, unless one did whilst I was twisting a stitch. I am not too sure what the point was or whom it was aimed at since these were all very rich women except for the 'mistress' who was a perfume sales girl. Come to think of it I think this film was snobby and pretentious and they portrayed the mistress as a common working class slut. Perhaps this wasn't a very nice film.

I have just started to watch the seventh series of 24. No I do not fancy Bauer. Not at all. I cannot resist watching this though. If only to wonder how many times this guy can survive what would have killed a lesser man in the first episode of the first series! The whole thing is very silly and very macho and very American and politically incorrect but I enjoy it anyway.

Oh and Carly Simon's new album, Never Been Gone, has arrived and I have listened once. I am not sure what I think. It contains re-workings of her own songs. I always find this difficult and is one reason why hearing songs live that I have only heard on record is not my favourite thing. Her voice though still does it for me. (not THAT but she has always made me feel.)

PIGSBUM!

On Saturday, a friend, Leive, visited. We wandered around town and had lunch in a nice Italian restaurant we hadn't really noticed before.

I watched the second series of Dirty Sexy Money, a deliciously awful Dynasty/Dallas type drama. It was cancelled but obviously they didn't know that when the last of series two was made so I am left hanging and having to make up my own endings for the characters. Pigsbum!

I watched The Reader. A very well made and acted film. Melancholy to say the least. I felt such compassion for the lead character, played by Kate Winslet(boy she can act), but do not condone or excuse what she did.

I was bothered by the sexual relationship between a 15 year old boy and a woman in her 30's. Had that been a man and a 15 ryr old girl, or a man and 15 yr old boy or a woman and a 15 yr old girl, I think this film would not have made it to the cinema or at least not without an awful lot of condemnation.

We also watched the BBC series of Emma and Desperate Romantics. The former being a Jane Austen novel adaptation and the latter being about the The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood - artists in Britain in the mid 1800's. Jane Austen was clearly a feminist. Quite something for a woman in her day. Although I thoroughly enjoy watching period dramas, I can't help but be aware of how awful life used to be for all concerned. Not just the lack of modern medicine, gadgets, etc but the rigidity of ideas and especially how children were treated. (Austen was also clearly aware that children thought and felt just like adults did and thus their treatment in her day was abusive. She really was ahead of her time in her thinking.)

I think anyone who thinks life is worse now than it used to be, needs their heads tested or just needs to either remember well or get educated. The song 'One day At A Time' which makes me want to puke, despite the fact I do live my life one day a time, has these lines in it that is just so ignorant and facile! It says:

Do you remember, when you walked among men
Well Jesus you know if you're looking below
It's worse now, than then
Cheating and stealing, violence and crime

I have the urge to machine knit but as yet just haven't found the energy. My new socks, with a yarn I got from Mama Mi on Etsy, are coming along nicely. Very nice colours and distribution there of.

I have been taking my pain meds every 6 hours for the last 5 days and it is working out much better so far. I only take 3 x a day, not 4, but that seems to be okay for now. ( PIGSBUM! Australian exclamation.)

Sock 62

These are knitted using Regia's Kaffe Fassett Design Line. I used 2mm needles. I used my Andersson Construction Method and Andersson Heel Mach II. As you can see, these socks are shorter than my usual socks. The yarn is the same weight and length but the row gauge is quite different. As I have known for years, and others doubt(!), colour alters gauge.

I knitted these on 2.25 at first because I  was trying to get them to pattern like the picture-Galaxy. I couldn't. Then I went to my preferred size, 2mm and thought I'd just stick with that. Silly me wasn't knitting with the Galaxy yarn as I had first thought which is why the pattern didn't appear!

NOW I GET IT!

Writing here really does me a lot of good. It generates responses. Those responses teach me, even if it takes repeating the same thing until the light comes on in my head. The light has come on regarding my pain drugs! I shall explain.

More than one person has suggested MJ to deal with my condition. This is amusing because I used to use MJ for precisely that reason, although I didn't know that was the reason. Makes sense? No of course not.

When I had my first MJ joint, I LOVED it. Yes, it made me laugh, yes it made sex wild, but most importantly I was able to let go and relax and I could keep still. I was able to sit still and watch tv or read. I didn't have to keep moving or get up and down. Bear in mind that in those days, I was shut off from my feelings. I was still in a dissociative state all the time.(as an example, I had a liver biopsy and had no pain relief because I was not present emotionally.)

Gradually my use of MJ increased. I gained weight, a lot of it. I also began to be able to think about my past with no feelings attached. This set me on the road to recovery. However, the MJ use was a problem. I saw it as a addiction, as did others. I stopped and always restarted. Whenever I stopped I felt awful. I couldn't sleep. I hurt all over. To cut this very short, I kept being told it was my imagination, there was no withdrawal from MJ use. What I did not know was, and nor did anyone else, and the Dr I had at the time could not have cared less, was that I was ILL! This was the reason the MJ had impacted me the way it had in the first place. It gave me pain relief more or less immediately. I was unaware of that. I know this sounds weird to those who do not experience 24/7 pain but you can have it and not be aware of it. I did used to complain to the Dr about not being able to be still. I know I woke at night when I moved because it hurt. No one seemed to take any of this on board so I thought it was NORMAL. That and the fact I had been taught all my life to 'not make a fuss' and besides that, it was always my 'imagination'.

When I did eventually stay off the MJ long enough, and the withdrawal did not go away, I don't know what I thought. I just accepted that I felt terrible and that it was probably my fault. I just got on with life as best I could.

Then I got my present GP of 11 years. She knew str8 away I was ill. She also knew I did not trust her or any medical professional. She waited until trust grew and also waited for me to tell her I was ill. I never did. Until I was rushed to hospital by a screaming ambulance. I was in much pain and it was assumed I was having heart attack. I wasn't and I knew I wasn't and I tried to tell them that but they knew better and basically told me to shut up.

I knew I wasn't because 1. the pain was not inside my chest and 2. this pain was just a worse version of pain I'd had for many years. The following morning the heart doctor told me I had not had a heart attack (duh!) but when had I injured my neck? HUH? I hadn't, I told him. Then why can't you move your head? Pardon? He showed me by telling me to follow his finger as he moved it. I moved only my eyes. He was right, my neck had very little movement. Okay, so this was when I started having all sorts of tests. And you know where I am today. Being treated properly and knowing what is wrong with me.

So what has this got to do with MJ and my pain meds? A lot!

You see, I considered myself an addict. I now see that as incorrect for the aforementioned reasons. However, I had learned a lot about addiction. Plus I am prone to feeling guilt/shame. I also knew that people who use drugs recreationally for for reasons other than they are supposed to, get hooked and are 'using'.

It could be argued that a lot of my 'education' on this subject was 'cult like'. To me, taking my pain meds when I was not in severe pain was using. So I have had this battle going inside me for years. It is why I had the script for Tramadol for 2 years before I gave in and took it. It is also why I didn't take the morphine when first prescribed. It doesn't quite explain the paracetamol as that is not in the same class but it was still a drug to me!

Basically, I had had a lot of addiction crap pumped into me by ignorant lay people who were addicts themselves and who assumed what applied to them applied to me. I was programmed by my past experiences to succumb to this 'education'. So for years I have suffered pain and felt guilt / shame each time I succumbed and took the drugs.

This last few days I have taken my drugs on regular basis. I do now understand why this is necessary. Several health professionals and other pain suffers have written to me and explained why. It makes sense. Even the information with the Tramadol says it is for the treatment or PREVENTION of pain!!!! As a result I feel much better. The pain has dialled down a lot. Not to zero but enough.

I am very lucky in that I feel no side effects at all from my drugs, either in mood or in feeling sick. The only side effect I get is pain relief.

I am somewhat surprised at the amount of trepidation and shame I have felt while writing this. I knew that to explain my issue with the pain meds, which doesn't make sense without the whole picture, would mean me explaining my MJ history and my involvement with 'recovery groups' and how that has f*cked up my thinking about my situation. I still feel shame about taking the drugs. I don't about taking the drugs for my heart and intestines. I take them, no questions. I just learned that to take drugs for pain relief was using.

I also recall a woman at the meetings who was diagnosed with terminal cancer and once she was taking morphine for it, she was asked to stop coming to the groups as her 'using' was affecting others. Appalling I know but you know for someone like me, susceptible then to cult like pressure, my shame around drugs grew and grew. It was as if this poor woman was not well enough to cope with her disease without using! That seemed to be the attitude.

Gosh, I hadn't realised the depth of screwed up thinking around this. Just goes to show that no matter how far one has come, there is always further to go.

WHEN?

I find the information I have for the use of my painkillers confusing and it worries me that I may not be using them correctly.

I have had an abscess at the root of my spine, have done my knee in, and had food poisoning. All of these were extremely painful. I am not in that sort of pain 24/7. Not at all. It is much more of a nagging pain which gradually increases in intensity and is all over my body, especially my joints, and especially hands, feet and hips. My muscles feel as though I have been lifting weights 24/7. Meaning the soreness one gets after weight training when oen is not used to it. Just sitting down and driving causes pain and sleeping does too, often enough to wake me as turning over isn't at all easy and it hurts. Sometimes the pain in my hips is enough to prevent me getting comfortable.I am also almost always tired, or rather fatigued.

Last night, I went to bed, and lay there reading and soon the pain I was in impinged on my reading and I couldn't concentrate. I couldn't even hold my book without it being uncomfortable. I lay there and tried to decide whether to take the drugs or not. As I lay there thinking about it, the discomfort in every joint, hard to describe but something like moving without being oiled, became louder. I got up and took the paracetamol and tramadol and gradually could feel it dialling down the pain. I was asleep before I was aware of the pain stopping altogether.

It rarely does so I doubt it did. The morphine is meant for breakthrough pain. Now that is really not easy at all. I am not supposed to take it on top of the Tramadol according to the Dr but not according to the Chemist. However, I do not know if I need to take it until I have taken the other two drugs and they have not worked! I only take 5mg or 10mg.

The last dog show I was at, at about 3pm, my friend pointed out that I looked awful and she suggested I sat down. I did and then became aware of being in considerable pain. I then realised it had been 10 hours since I last took drugs. I took them I have asked John what he thinks and he thinks that if I have pain all over my body and am uncomfortable then it is severe pain and I need to medicate. To me severe pain is like when I broke my ankle and arm.(John and friends say I am 'grey' when it is clear to them I need to take the drugs.)

As I type this, my hands hurt, my hips and my legs. I took the paracetamol and half the tramadol 2.5 hrs ago. It isn't severe hurting but it is enough for me to be conscious of it. So does mean I ought to have taken the full dose?The only time I am comfortable is when I have taken all three drugs together but I reserve that for when I really have to.

Usually writing like this I get to my own answer but I am still confused. Oh, I might add that I can take my drugs 4 times a day, 8 of each.(not the morphine.) I have never done that. The most I have taken is 6 of each. 3 times a day. I do have a hang up about drugs and taking them. Addiction is one reason. The other is taking them for the sake of it and not for need and it this latter that really confuses me. Most of the time do not know if I have a legitimate reason to be taking them.

BETTER DAY

I took Carly on her own to dog training last night. I discovered that she likes titbits. She was much more outgoing with people last night too and allowed people to touch her. We got the 'judge' to give her a treat before going over her and that really helped. I think Carly will come back to her normal self in due course. I do hope so as she is excellent quality and could do as well as Whitney.

I got though the worst yesterday and by the time I had returned for dog club the cravings had ceased. Today I awoke feeling much better. I haven't need to take it since Saturday but I have noticed that I must be sure to have eaten before I take morphine or it gives me the munchies in the same way that MJ does.

I have ordered three knitting books. The Vogue sock book and the Cookie a sock book. Also, from the USA, a book about twisted stitch knitting. I found a large cone of 80% wool 20% viscose in camelish colour that I think will be ideal for a twisted stitch jumper as it will hold the definition well.

I do not have a show until the 15th and I am glad of the break. I have one show at the beginning of December, two in January and I think that is it until April.