"I find penguins at present the only comfort in life. One feels everything in the world so sympathetically ridiculous; one can't be angry when one looks at a penguin." – John Ruskin
Yesterday I said I hoped to sleep at least some of the time Johan was out running. I not only managed that, but I ended up sleeping nearly all day, over 19 hours in total.
Johan woke me up when he got in to give me painkillers and to tell me how he did (he ran over a marathon with 27.12 miles in 3:35:23 according to Strava), then I went back to sleep until waking up naturally after 11pm.
I’m hoping to spend at least some of Monday awake. Body is saying I might need more sleep soon though, probably because of this cold. I’ll take it.
Day9 is someone who is a shoutcaster (commentator) for various video games.
Caffeine is good. Caffeine means that even though I’m still full of cold I could actually do something productive. The only downside is it makes it easier to overdo it. I ended up going on the Surface to sort out my emails (which had built up from being too ill for over a week) and also doing the big May update that was finally approved (it had previously had caused issues with the Surface so was delayed by Microsoft). It mostly went okay, but killed DNS while using my custom hosts file so I needed to go back to the default. I guess I’ll use uBlock Origin instead.
I’m currently trying to transition from Chrome to Firefox. This is much easier on a computer than trying to do it on my tablet or phone, especially because I could easily import all my bookmarks and history. It seems to be running a bit faster which is always a bonus. I’m pretty tied into the Google ecosystem but there are addons for the stuff I really need so it should be fine once I get used to the differences.
Johan is doing a long run tomorrow, aiming for at least a marathon at the Saturn Running Remembrance Run. I hope it’s not quite as cold as it was this morning as many Parkruns had to cancel due to the icy weather (Johan ended up in Jesmond Dene which was on). I’m hoping to spend at least a bit of the time he’s out sleeping. He is a silly sausage 😛
It’s still technically Friday in Hawaii, so though this post is late it could be worse 😛 I spent most of the time asleep or wishing I was asleep.
The weather has turned really cold here over the last few days, and right now it’s -1°C (30.2°F) outside. I’ve had a rough few days, and Johan reminded me that this happens every time the weather gets like this. It’s not stopping him going out running though.
Not only is the weather cold, but I think I’ve caught another one. Is it possible to have two colds at the same time? I’d not gotten over the last one yet. I can just about deal with the broken temperature monitor, the sneezing and the worsened ME symptoms, but I really struggle with a blocked nose.
What doesn’t help is my nose is generally really dry (as are my eyes and mouth), so when it does get snotty it goes crusty really quickly. This makes clearing it out difficult, especially when my hands aren’t working enough to use the saline nasal spray to make it easier.
My body also decides that instead of breathing through my mouth when my nose gets blocked in my sleep, it’ll instead wake me up telling me I’m suffocating. My sleep has been more fractured than normal because of this. I’ve been a bit of a grumpy pants and I don’t like it.
Sammie is working on a project that she’s really excited about which in turn is making me happy. Johan is working on an app to make it easier for me to communicate with the carers when I’m not doing so good. Eventually it’ll go on a spare tablet we’ve got in the hallway and I’m hoping to be able to tell them things before they come in my room. I currently have to rely on signs on my door and they’re not usually read.
I’m hoping my body lets me sleep again soon. I’ve got things I want to do and no energy to do them. Silly cold.
Feeling a bit better than yesterday, though that’s not hard. Johan made the executive decision to give me all my feel better meds and it helped. We think it’s payback from seeing the optician.
During my occasional awake periods, I’ve been chatting a bit to Sammie. I’m grateful she’s able to talk to me about things, and also that she feels able to talk to Johan when I’m not available (most of our conversations are in a shared chat). I’m really proud of her, and though I wish I could help more (being a teen sucks) she impresses me with how much she cares about things. She’s amazing and I love her.
Today I was reminded of a descriptive pain scale that was going around Twitter a couple of years ago. Today is also a bad pain day. Most of the time I try and get my pain low enough so that I can try and distract myself from the worst of it, and I also have poor bloody awareness so sometimes I’m not consciously aware of how much pain I’m in though it’s still affecting how I’m feeling and what I can do. I’m one of the lucky ones who between my medication, heated blanket/pad/penguins and distraction, sometimes I can still do things.
No pain scale is perfect, but I do better with ones that describe how pain is affecting my ability to do stuff rather than in comparison to the worst pain I’ve experienced or can think of. As today is a bad day, I’ve been going between an 8 and a 9.5 on the below scale. I can’t remember the last time I was below a 6, which was when I was on IV morphine. Usually I bounce between a 7 and a 9 depending on how long I’ve been since taking painkillers and if I’ve moved or had personal care done. Pain sucks but after years of it, you learn to work with it as much as possible.
0-10 Scale of Pain Severity. Image description below.
0-10 SCALE OF PAIN SEVERITY
Severity – Description of Experience
10 – Unable to Move I am in bed and can’t move due to my pain. I need someone to take me to the emergency room to get help for my pain.
9 – Severe My pain is all that I can think about. I can barely talk or move because of the pain.
8 – Intense My pain is so severe that it is hard to think of anything else. Talking and listening are difficult.
7 – Unmanageable I am in pain all the time. It keeps me from doing most activities.
6 – Distressing I think about my pain all of the time. I give up many activities because of my pain.
5 – Distracting I think about my pain most of the time. I cannot do some of the activities I need to do each day because of the pain.
4 – Moderate I am constantly aware of my pain but I can continue most activities.
3 – Uncomfortable My pain bothers me but I can ignore it most of the time.
2 – Mild I have a low level of pain. I am aware of my pain only when I pay attention to it.
1 – Minimal My pain is hardly noticeable.
0 – No Pain I have no pain.
(Apologies for the poor formatting. I had to use Google’s image reader thingy and I’m struggling to concentrate because pain.)
