Monday - Paracetamol

I'm quite amazed that I'm now entering Day 9 of the Nosmo King Extravaganza. Sleep has slowly crept back into my life, albeit in small increments. However, while the last 8 days have been pretty much horrendous on many fronts, nothing could beat Friday.

I can't really say I've had a happy week; what with the lurgy and a flare up of my back problems, thanks to a stray cough. But Thursday saw me return to work and it was a surprisingly good day. I felt as though I was getting back on the horse, so to speak, and facing new challenges (or to be more precise, old challenges with renewed vigour).

I got home from work on Thursday afternoon and I was actually really buoyant and, dare I say it, happy. I went to the pub, drank a couple of pints of one of my favourite beers - Kingston Topaz - and... well... I felt like I'd broken the back of the previous 7 days.

Friday morning rolled around and I thought I'd broken my back.

I've been no stranger to pain, especially chronic pain, over the last couple of years, but what I suffered Friday morning was pretty much the worst back pain I've had EVER. Worse than sciatica, worse than having my soft tissue ripped to shreds in my shoulder, worse than when I had my tonsils out when I was 25. It was so bad, I considered phoning the wife up, getting her to come home from work, so she could wipe my arse. Yes, that bad!

I don't know what I did apart from feel happy 8 hours earlier, but obviously that short burst of happiness was enough to screw my back up so bad that I was in tears to the doctor at 8.40am.

The upshot is that I'm now on Co-Codamol 30mg - which is the highest dose you can get of this paracetamol/codeine mixture and I had a quick and timely reminder of what its like to be stoned again. It didn't really take the pain away, I just didn't give a shit about it. By midday Friday, I could have been on Planet Bazongo drinking dolphin's piss out of a donkey's arse and I wouldn't have given a flying fuck.

But that wasn't just it. God, if that was just it I'd almost be happy...

Wheat bags - great things for applying heat to an area of your body for soothing relief. Also, when you're out of your face on painkillers, capable of causing even more damage than you could possibly wish for. Just to add injury to insulted injury, I successfully scalded my lower back. Friday night about 9.30, I suddenly realised that my back was really sore; like it had been burnt or something. Lifting my top up, that's exactly what it was - burnt. Red raw. Like I'd just poured some lighter fluid on it and set fire to it. Fuck me is there anything else I can do over the next few days that'll just fucking kill me off?

I really don't like turning this blog into a diary of my woes and ills; but I've got bugger all else to talk about and people should be aware that I'm a walking disaster at times.

Fortunately, I've taken some more of my new magic pills and I'm pretty sure that in the next 15 minutes I'll be away with the shit faeries again, not caring a fig about anything and dreaming of a full night's sleep.

Obviously, I didn't go to work. Driving would have been a bad idea with the way my back was and after taking the pills, driving would have been slightly more dangerous than kicking a hungry tiger in the nuts. The doctor - a lovely woman who genuinely seemed sympathetic to my plight - thought it was pointless doing any form of examination until the worst of the pain had subsided. I tried to explain to her that my back has been giving me real gyp since the middle of May and while I welcomed her optimism I thought that perhaps something should be done about it before I die, so we compromised on next Wednesday.

The day was spent in an attempt to find a half comfortable position to sit in; by midday I really couldn't give a shit and by 2pm any guilty feelings I had about having my 6th day off in 7 days had completely disappeared. I'm fed up with being sorry about not being at work. It's not like I'm purposely putting myself through the pain barrier. I'd rather be at work and pain free; but I'm not and I'm going to stop apologising to people for being a fucking cripple.

As you can gather, I'm not a very happy bunny at the moment. But... I've not wanted to start smoking again. I can't see the point. I've gone this far and done really well, why sacrifice all the cravings and addiction withdrawals for the sake of a bit of acute mindblowingly awful pain?

Friday night, we were being taken out for a meal by my godson and his nubile young girlfriend; I had to cancel that because I can't sit straight. I probably can't shit straight either, but won't find that out until the morning. Therefore Friday evening was spent avoiding programmes that would make me laugh and... and... and... oh joy the codeine is kicking in; time for me to try and get some sleep, possibly to have some dreams about dead people coming to visit me. Last night, I dreamt about about a guy called Ted, who died in 1980 something or other and was responsible for us having our first house rabbit - Harvey. The other night I saw my parents for the first time in ages - yes, it was a dream, but it was a damned fine dream and I was slightly disappointed to wake up. I'm not just dreaming of dead people though; I thought I got woken up by my brother-in-law the other day. It was so vivid, I got out of bed and called down the stairs, just to make sure he wasn't there. I also dreamt about having dinner with Phil Collins and I spent the entire dream trying to convince him that his future lay in drumming and he should give up this stupid idea of being a singer...

wibble wibble wibble ...