To Sleep Perchance ...

Just what’s going on in my body; I neither understand nor have the appropriate vocabulary to realistically express it. Sometimes I can feel mentally/emotionally well whilst my body feels excruciatingly below par; I didn’t think this was supposed to happen! At other times, whilst my corporeal aches and pains are in temporary abeyance, I can feel emotionally drained. I sometimes wonder if the sundry prescribed medications I take can become part of the problem.

I regularly resort to mebeverine (antispasmodic) to deal with my spastic colon/IBS; at other times a little motility aid such as domperidone (dopamine antagonist) is required. Alongside these I always have to take lansoprazole (proton pump inhibitor) to tackle a major gastric reflux problem.

I have recently been taking a small dose of sertraline daily, to deal with an anxiety/reactive depression issue, whilst at night 30mg amitriptyline is prescribed to assist (theoretically) with sleep and pain management. Currently, I also need to take 100mg tramadol a couple of times a day to deal with muscular and neurological pain.

That little diversion, into a pharmacopoeia, was not intentional; it just seemed easier to scribble down than a description of how exhaustedly crap I’d been feeling in the past couple of days. Sadly I’ve had to forego a couple of Christmas social evenings this week, both of which I’d been looking forward to; mind you, that simply reflects my general lack of physical and emotional stamina since 2003.

When I do manage to sleep, I’ve recently been having very vivid audio visual Technicolor dreams, not infrequently drifting from ultra normal situations, with many familiar faces, into the edge of nightmare territory. In one such dream friendly banter amongst friends took an horrific turn as an ogre broke into the room. The ogre, which I understood to be a “Cam-Moron”, had a smug superior grin as his cheeks blushed with roseate anger. “We’re going to put all you lot down”, he sneered. At that point I woke up to a fuller realization of what the ConDems were doing to the poor and vulnerable! 

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this post also appears on 'Mals Murmurings' under the title 'We Are Such Stuff ...'

we are such sleep as dreams permit us to acknowledge

I know that I've been sleeping, or at least suspect that to be the case, when I suddenly escape from a vivid (albeit naturalistic) dream. No matter the quality of the dream, be it blissfully arcadian or nightmarish chase, there's always something reassuring about waking up. I must admit that there was a time, in childhood, when waking brought little release from the more nightmarish of dream episodes; I required excessive amounts of reassurance to escape it's fevered shadow. These days, my dreams are usually of a somewhat more gentle nature and, in the dream, I generally possess levels of both physical and emotional stamina that I dare hardly dream of these days.

There are many times when, having finally managed to remove myself from the duvet lair, I belatedly enter the new day in full convincement that not even a wink of sleep has come my way; such is the painfully shattered sense of exhaustion that greets my emergence.Once exhaustedly abed, sundry neuropathic aches and pains do their darnedest to ensure that I cannot sustain any comfortable position for sufficient time to catch even a catnap; surprisingly the (apparent) evidence of my dreams suggests otherwise!

Re-privatisation Of High Street Banks

The Lib Dems Treasury spokesman Vince Cable welcomed more competition in the banking sector but said there should be no urgency to the sales.

"We need to be careful that when these split-ups occur, the prime cuts are not offered to private investors and the scraps left to taxpayers," he said.

ex: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8336286.stm

If Cable's desire is to be met it will be totally different to any other privatisation ever witnessed in the U.K.!

Reelin' and Rockin'

I’m reeling somewhat from the verbal abuse delivered by the big boss; all that I’d done was use my lunch hour to visit a friend. What he’d seemed puzzled about was my expectation, that it was possible to visit an antipodean friend, at home, during my lunch hour. Yes, I know that it took a little longer break than usual, to travel halfway around the world and back but, I also know that he’s extended his coffee breaks on numerous occasions.

I wake up feeling battered and bruised; it’s hard to believe that a barrage of words can cause such physical damage. Thank God, it was just a dream; don’t think I could have taken much more of this stress. The dream was so ludicrous anyway, a couple of hundred yards is the furthest I’d ever travel during a lunch break and, my aversion to travel, makes the dreamt adventure seems suspiciously representative of some subconscious masochistic yearning.

My beloved suggests a plausible connection between my dream and very recent reality. Yesterday afternoon, after many hours of restful inactivity in preparation (on my part), ma belle chauffeuse drove me to a barbecue*, some twenty five minutes away from home; most of the journey was on the A1 before manoeuvring our way through a couple of potholed, spasmodically flooded, country lanes. Even that little journey provides me with sufficient stress induced exhaustion.

Once we get there, I recover sufficiently to become, temporarily, my old sociable self, contentedly sharing conversation and anecdotes with the assembled company. The company and the pastoral location prove most rewarding but, that doesn’t prevent a state of mind and bone numbing fatigue overwhelming me by 9.00pm. Everything around us is still in full swing but, I can’t risk overdoing it!

So, here in the real world, I recognize that this small excursion is my equivalent of that travel so casually undertaken by my dream-self!

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* for more details of the barbecue see my beloved's posting on her Bright Light blog.

A Place Not Quite Like Home

You know that feeling, when you sense that there are intruders in your property? Well, I’ve been feeling that kind of stress the past couple of days, with three semi-invited non fee paying B&B clients. The clients in question are three females, aged 18 – 22, who arrived on Friday night and, will be disappearing tomorrow; nieces of Helen’s owing to the chance connection of bloodline from her first husbands side of the family.

We rarely have any contact with these “guests” but, Cathy likes to keep in touch as it’s a link to her late father. The invitation was only proffered (?) at last minute, as their prior free board arrangements had to be cancelled and, Cathy only had room to accommodate their Mum & Dad. I’d already been at a quite low ebb, energy wise, before this imminent arrival was imposed on us but, I didn’t quite realize how stressful it would prove having three strangers sleeping under the same roof. In one way we hardly see them, as a strict itinerary for their visit had been established by the ex-military father, with Cathy arranging a bit of socializing for the girls.

Perhaps, the increased muscular pain levels and, the occurrence of vivid dreams disrupting my less than perfect normal sleep patterns, are a reflection of raised stress levels. With the extra bodies in the house, I’m quite reluctant to respond immediately to the demands of my erratic colon and bladder. Furthermore, I’m reluctant to enter the bedroom of strange females to switch on the modem and router located therein so, my impulsive requirements for a bit of surfing or biological demands have to be put on hold.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve nothing against our guests, no more than I have against any other stranger! Quite simply, an alien presence in one’s abode militates against it feeling like home!

Just An ORDINARY Day?

There’s no such thing as an ordinary day, albeit I too often consider them as regular events. Each new moment is just that, new; “you can’t step into the same river twice”, come to think of it, you can’t even step into the same river once! All is in a constant state of flux, we are swamped with new events, decisions, purposes etc., and so, what can possibly be ordinary about it?

On other occasions, we may protest that a day has been uneventful when, what we really mean is that there have been no dramatic incidents or, we’ve not met anybody new, or we drank the same type of coffee as we did yesterday. Sorry, but if you really need a gangland slaying on the doorstep for you to make the effort to get out of bed and go about your daily chores, give me the mundane.

For me, time passes all too swiftly, even when my sole function is to sit and breathe, and stare into space, for great chunks of it. And, of course, there are always decisions to make; do I get some breakfast before I get dressed, do I feel sufficiently energised to take a shower or, do I get dressed now and take a shower later (if I really need it)? All these decisions are made in my first state of semi-alertness after a restless, or even a more restful, nights sleep. And there’s questions to be asked, vital topics like “did the dream wake me up?” or “what exactly was that dream about?”, “is it really Tuesday already?”

Each day is full of excitement and demands, sometimes the demands are too great to cope with; dare I risk seeming lazy if I don’t do it; if I perform such and such a task will I suffer from some sort of post-exertional malaise?

Today has been an atypical ordinary day. I managed to consume the coffee, which my beloved had left on the bedside table before going off to work, whilst it was still reasonably hot. Removed myself, slowly, from the duvet realm, checked my e-mails before getting dressed and, half drowsily stumbled my way downstairs to grab a banana and a bowl of cereal. A reasonably brisk hobble to the local shops then ensued. Next I illuminated the small aquarium and, subsequently fed the inhabitants thereof. A similar practise was involved in dealing with the main aquarium.

When my beloved returned from work, I prepared a delicious lightly spiced and generously herbed trout and peppers dish served with wholegrain pasta, which we eagerly devoured in the joyously stimulating company of Ross Noble (Radio 4 – 6.30pm). In the early evening I managed to sort out a recurring problem my beloved has been having, with ‘Word’, on the computer at work. To solve it, I had to first recreate it from my beloved’s verbal description. Having recreated the problem, it took little time to resolve!

So my halo has been well and truly buffed up by the encouraging response from my other half. Amidst all that activity, I even remembered to sort out a bottle to pop in the fridge; the consumption of its vinous content is imminent.

This has been an ordinary day indeed. Long live ordinary days!

I rejoice and am glad, in this day the Lord has made.

We Are Such Aches As Dreams Emerge From

Having posted this on Hirsute Antiquity, I recognized that it tied in reasonably with the header to this blog - at least that's my excuse for doubling up on a posting.

WE ARE SUCH ACHES AS DREAMS EMERGE FROM

Wrists, elbows, shoulders and hips; it seems the baton of discomfort is passed randomly between these runners in the restless stakes. A pattern slowly emerges, snuggling down, followed by a few restful moments before the mantle of dis-ease drapes itself over the appointed point of articulation. This process, requiring numerous postural reshufflings, continues for at least the first couple of hours in my duvet lair; eventually I drift into the realm of dreams. When I say dreams I mean full technicoloured, surround sound visions; a strange yet sufficiently natural urbanscape in which– I participate in numerous conversations, and arguments, in the process earning myself both respect and hostility. At some point, there’s always a last bus or train that I manage to miss and, frequently offers of help come from the most unexpected quarters; I teeter on the brink between optimism and cynicism.

With each discomforted awakening, I find it possible to recall multitudinous events from these dreams then, quite frequently, drift back into those selfsame situations. The fifth or sixth awakening, accompanied by all too real muscular and joint aches and pains, finds me in that realm of chest aching, rib-burning, coughing fits. With the coughing, the whole of my rib cage feels as if its been trampled by a herd of marauding bull elephants; regrettably, this is not part of a dream but rather a brutal reality.

Come the morning, I’m far more shattered than I was when I exhaustedly tumbled my way onto the mattress last evening. Finally, in the curtain filtered subdued morning light, I find a comfortable posture and drift back into the arms of Morpheus. Shortly after mid-day, I emerge half-awake into the world of the clothed day people.

Presumably, the various aches and pains my flesh is heir to correlate in some way to a marginal increase in exertion over the previous couple of days. There always seems to be a price to pay but, life is far too short and valuable to permanently err on the side of caution.

Still Hanging After All These Years

A dream brought into my conscious/waking life; having leapt from one side of a vast chasm, I remain hanging in mid-air. The air is rather turbulent, occasionally it pushes me toward a more secure foundation, across from the leaping off point, at other times it forms a gravitational pull towards a distant barren and rocky valley. Seems like the story of my life; I’m sure that it represents my faith journey.

No amount of reasoning can lead me to any theistic position and yet, I feel there is much more than a series of chemical re-actions, and it’s implied fatalism, to this universe of ours. My frequent struggle with “the problem of suffering” was only overcome when I could find no solution to “the problem of love … of full blown self giving, self-sacrificing love”. Just how does such love fit into the survival of the fittest?

I realize the line of thought here is over simplified but, the nooks and crannies of my ‘questing’ would require an encyclopaedic volume rather than a simple posting. Anyway, suffice it to say that for me it was necessary to take “a leap of faith”. It’s not that I needed to be presented with all the answers, just think how dull that would be. Sometimes it seems that I have actually landed in the rocky valley mentioned above. When the going gets really tough, I feel that it’s better to have my feet firmly planted on terra firma, albeit a barren and rocky location, than moving forward in what seems like a vain hope.

I suppose the Advent season has brought these matters of faith to mind and, as I’ve scoured the blogosphere I’ve found much food for thought. This morning as I read the posting Strength from God concerning “the servant’s mission”, on ‘Just As I Am’ I felt both moved and challenged; that’s when I recognized that my current position on the spiritual path is one of ‘hanging in mid-air’!

Earlier this evening, I read the text of Rowan Williams Christmas Message and was particularly struck by the following lines:
“We must give an answer to suffering and tragedy in what we do - because the one thing we know is that this is what God does. Faith is restored and strengthened not by talking but by witness in action.”
And:
“There is something about Christianity that always pulls us back from imagining that everything will be all right if we can find the right things to say - because for God, the right thing to say at Christmas was the crying of a small child, beginning a life of risk and suffering. God shows us how, by his grace and in his Spirit, we can respond to the tormenting riddles of the world.”

I never imagined myself being grateful to an Archbishop of Canterbury for moving me, albeit tentatively, towards a renewing of my FAITH!