Results tagged “medication” from Looking Up

What's in a name? Well how about this one...


The latest addition to my affliction collection (will this effing winter ever end?) is something that has been sensitively called 'walking pneumonia'. Yes, walking pneumonia.

It is a mild form of pneumonia caused by the Mycoplasma pneumoniae organism that allows the afflicted to continue in their daily activities, albeit in a rather lack lustre condition.

This goes a long way towards explaining why I've been feeling so rubbish of late, and coupled with the tapering of my Amatryptyline (see blogs passim.) it has given me the full freedom to weep great big man-tears about manly things. In this case Matthew Modine losing his best buddy in Full Metal Jacket. I have decided to use the opportunity to catch up on one or two movies that I have been meaning to watch.

Oh, I know, it sounds like a bit of a doss. But I do have a hacking, unproductive cough, sore chest, head-ache and a certain amount of dizziness (maybe it's Kubrick's 'verite' camera shake). So while I offer defiance, the truth is, walking pneumonia is proving to be anything but a walk in the park (cue consumptive La Boheme-style coughing).

I've spent the last week surrounded by technological innovation, blue-sky thinking and a new attitude to mobility. All will become clear in the near future, I can assure you.

What I have found is that there are days when just meeting someone for lunch and a couple of hours of chat can leave me so exhausted that I have to lie down. This isn't everyday, but nor is it predictable.

And yet on other days I can work all day and then play tennis until 10pm in the evening.

I suppose I can't really ignore the fact that I am weaning myself off amatryptyline at the moment. It is a slow process, with a drop of 5mg per week, but while I have been taking it for neuropain, it is an anti-depressant. This leaves me with a nagging twinge of anxiety that it has been slightly insulating me from the 'life's a pile of poo' vibe that can come with grey weather, neuropathic pain and impaired mobility...

OK, so now to the pants: It was something Rob Brydon said on a TV panel show, where he described getting undressed, finishing with a flick of the foot and catching his pants on his head. You'd want to hear a "Ta-Daa!"

Anyway, I found myself with a pang of grief, because I could almost feel the whole movement. As is often the case, it's not so much the stairs or problems with public transport that cause a feeling of sadness. Rather, it's those moments of frivolous spontaneous movement that are so fondly remembered. And so keenly missed.

...of the accidental variety.

Some can be helpful, such as coffee and a deadline.

Others? Well, let's just say the jury's out. It would seem less fortuitous to have a late night visit by me old mate Spike last night. Enough to make me reach for half a vitamin Z, but all that did was make me too dopey to reach for t'other half.

And so I enjoyed a night of squirming semi-consciousness punctuated with stabbing pains down both legs. As a result, I have spent most of today in a state of tiredness, and managed little more than pumping up the tyres on my wheelchair and roasting a chicken. Luckily I was awake enough not to roast the tyres and pump up the chicken. But it isn't this peculiar combination I am referring to..

No, it was the altogether rash decision (considering my dazedness) to watch a particular film tonight. I am referring to the rather fine 'Gonzo-The life and work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson'.

Rest assured, I am not about to start collecting guns or adding magic mushrooms and peyote buttons to my recipe for roast chicken. It is more a nagging sense of gloom at the state of things. The film's very fair comparisons between the presidencies of Nixon and Bush Jr. are very well observed, although in truth it wasn't fear and loathing on the campaign trail which did for the former, but rather straight forward investigative journalism by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.

As for Bush, while Jon Stewart must surely take a smidgeon of credit for helping to depose the psychotic idiot, there is a nagging feeling that we are lacking a voice infused with enough piss and vitriol to resonate with the kind of rage that should be present. For while Dr. Thompson would still have been just one small, quirky, counter-cultural voice, at least he wouldn't be waiting, doe-eyed and innocent, for the next Whitehouse visionary to be hamstrung by the system.

And, once you clear away the alcohol and drug-fuelled fog, the man could write, too. For anyone who hasn't read it, I would heartily recommend The Rum Diary. It offers an insight into the writer before the legend was born.

So, this is my point. In case you haven't guessed it. I am now tap-tap-tapping away through my own, far less glamorous haze of a double drop of Tramadol and a small glass of whisky, waiting for sleep to claim me and reset the pain clock. And wondering if this is the beginning of another period of closer 'friendship' from Spike, with his love for surprise late night appearances.

Tomorrow is another day, and I'm sure all will be well in the world once more. Well, once I get over being woken up by an eager and well rested 4 year old bouncing on me and pelting me with soft toys, only to discover the hangover I have already prepared.

A funny night. After playing tennis for the first time in two weeks I spent a disturbed night, first with a headache but then woken up by my old mate Spike. It's been a while since last he visited, and I lay there knowing that it was time to reach for vitamin Z.

But then something unexpected happened. I fell asleep again. This is the first time that I have ever managed to do this without some chemical intervention. I put it down to complete exhaustion, but it's definitely something to draw a little optimism from. That said, my subsequent dream had me trying to drain my bladder with a snooker cue while sitting on a trapeze. Extremely disturbing.

 If I were to draw a graph of my battles with Spike, it would show a steady decline in frequency of visits, so something's talking him out of dropping by.

On the same subject, there is yet more research published this week that relates to my every day. This time it is on the subject of pain and pain management.

With this and previous medical  revelations, I just need to come up with a good recipe for coral and blue M&M soup. Mmmmmm, yummy.

Ah, coffee. I start the day with coffee (without it, I crash into things, stare blankly into space, put my shoes on the wrong feet, etc.).

But then during the day, I also like to go out for coffee.I mean good coffee. Proper, strong, frothy milk coffee. Not weak, watery drowned in frothy milk coffee as we have been swamped with in this country. How is it that we, who live 800 miles from Italy (surely the undisputed home of good coffee), and yet we have embraced the tall/grande/gigante/biggabucketa  coffee culture born in Seattle, some 4800 miles away. Do we like paying four pounds for a pint of foaming semi-skimmed with a hint of beige?

I am lucky, we in the Stoke Newington area have a few good places for coffee. I am also lucky that coffee can help to focus my mind of the task in hand, and I feely admit to using coffee as a performance enhncing drug when it comes to wriring.

However. There is a downside to my coffee habit. I am now certain that after the coffee wears off, my levels of neruopathic pain increase. Particularly the one that feels like someone is trying to cut my legs off with a blunt saw and a knitting needle, before giving up and just setting fore to them..

Last night, I had to take the big Z option in order to get to sleep. This works, but when I take the larger dose, I fell a bit 'underwater' the following day. It's not a totally unpleasant feeling, but it's not that conducive to writing. And co, there's the temptation to have a cup of coffee. I mean good coffee. Proper, strong, frothy milk coffee, etc.

So, a new year begins, with war, financial meltdown, an hilarious bus advertising campaign and of course, the departure of the demented chimpanzee who has been 'in charge of the free world' for a very long time... No? Here's another clue. A quote:
"Free societies are hopeful societies. And free societies will be allies against these hateful few who have no conscience, who kill at the whim of a hat."

You've got to watch those hats. There are many, many more. Worth a look.

As for our start, well, I have managed to shift most of my persisting ills by making an appointment to see my g.p. Is that a placebo of sorts? I'm not sure, but it's certainly effective.  All I have to do now is get over the eating disorder I have developed over the festive period. It's called gluttony, I believe. Time to get out on the tennis courts, methinks. Meanwhile P still has sore ribs from coughing, not helped by R's enthusiastic climbing on her poor mum whenever any opportunity arrises. Sometimes I'd swear she lies in wait, ninja-style, ready to leap outand connect with whatever body part of either of us happens to be injured in some way.

Meanwhile, I have been busy writing various bits and pieces for various publications, some of which are now in print. I seem to have been mostly writing about tennis, but I have also been working on a more parenting based piece for one of the national dailies, of which more nearer the time. Call it superstition if you will, but I'm keeping shtum until I know it's running.

I have also been gradually drawing back the veil of three years on Amitryptyline after my magical sleigh ride kind of put me off in a big way. I'm now down to a lower dose than I have been on for the last three years, and so far without any negative effects. No doubt I'll be wheeling up and down the street with a lampshade on my head, singing 'bring me sunshine' while trying to eat my shoes by the end of the week. But that'll probably be down to the cold weather.

It is intriguing the way that medicine is prescribed sometimes. "Try X. No good? Try more X. Still no good? Try Y. No, keep taking X and Y. If all else fails, we'll throw in a few Zs." And before you know it, you're taking the entire contents of the scrabble set, and you can't remember what you're taking for which, and you have to take one because you're taking another, and your pharmacist starts going on ever more exotic holidays, and you can't remember what your name is anyymore...

What was I talking about? Where's my lampshade? 2...3...BRING ME SUNSHINE, THROUGH THE YEARS...you know the words, missus..etc.

As I may have mentioned in the past, one of the medications that I take to combat my neuropathic pain is Amitriptyline. This is a medication that was originally developed as a tricyclic antidepressant, but has been found to be effective in reducing the symptoms of nerve pain. I have been taking the stuff since I was in hospital, but I cannot honestly tell you if it's doing anything. So I have decided to creep up to the maximum dose, and if I find no improvement, I shall come off it altogether.

So, that's why I'm taking 100mgs of the stuff every night. Only thing is, last night I forgot on account of being feverish. I realised my mistake this morning and thought the best thing would be to take them straight away.

Well, that mental picture you have just painted is probably spot on. I went from fine to very not fine, to queasy, and then passed out. It was all very scary for P, who thought at one stage that I had stopped breathing. Luckily a loud snore provided reassurance that I was still here.

Still, it was all pretty frightening stuff for a while there. It has made me change my ambivalence about all the pill popping. And has made me more determined to identify things that aren't helping and kick them into touch. Metaphorically speaking, obviously...

I was kidding myself. Delusional. I honestly thought that me, collector of ailments and virtuoso of the gentle, pitiful moan, that this time I would not succumb, despite R and P both going down with it.

And it's real, 100% guaranteed influenza. I know this not because I have been snogging geese, but rather that my temperature today has been up around the 40c mark.

Sadly, the extra bonus symptom that I have to contend with when I have a fever is a sensation akin to having knitting needles driven into my thighs every few minutes. Coincidentally, P has taken up knitting, which makes me a little suspicious. But that is mainly the combination of the fever, the heady mix of various pharmaceuticals and a lack of sleep last night. I actually started hallucinating this afternoon.Sadly it was all rather mundane, peripheral vision a bit wobbly as I sat Buddha-like, cross legged and wearing virtually nothing. At one point I imagined myself to be sitting atop a mountain. But then the phone rang, and there was an audible 'pop!' as my revery was replaced by someone asking if my name was Nisnad, or Nangtod or something.I became very confused. Maybe that too was an hallucination, but of an auditory kind.

Luckily I didn't receive any guests, as I'm sure I must have looked shocking.

That was until R came back from nursery and blew raspberries on my tummy. Surely that's the way to reach enlightenment. I began to imagine monasteries full of Buddhist monks blowing raspberries on each other's tummies. There could even be a surprise hit CD in it, too. Well, if the Gregorian/Benedictine mob can do it... Although I'm sure producing a very strong liqueur must have helped them break down Monastic inhibitions.

Sorry for all this drivel. I'm going to stop now and chase a sleeping tablet into bed.
I leave you with R's insghtful portrait of me. Kind of sums it all up, really.

Before you all start the whole 'Man Flu' thing... No, not me this time, but my beloved wife P who has succumbed to a proper feverish, aching  'flu.

Meanwhile, R has retained the cough of an asthmatic miner who smokes 40 Senior Service a day.  It is an endearing sound that only serves to enhance the glamorous shine of the perma-snot on her top lip. The combination of colds and cold weather makes me suspect that it will remain there until the big thaw.

So far I have dodged this particular bullet. Not quite sure how or why seeing as I've had every cold in the UK in the last few months. Perhaps the cold virus wants more of a challenge. My immune system up to now has used the bullying victim's tactic of lying down and hoping they get bored.

Of course I have enthusiastically joined in the mutual reassurance of parenting where we all get together over a coffee and tell each other how it's really good for our little cherubs to go to nursery/school and come down with everything short of bubonic plague. It helps to strengthen their immune systems, we say. Mind you, if mine is anything to go by, it doesn't count for shit once you become a parent. I have been cheerfully joining in with the big germ Swap Shop for months now, and I just keep getting sick. Go figure.

 So just for once, I get to look after my family rather than the other way around. It make take me a little longer to do some things, but it's good to feel useful. The only thing is, it has coincided with me increasing my dose of Amitriptyline. The result is that I am spending a significant part of the day wandering around the house in a daze when I'm not taking the odd nap. Maybe I'm not being useful... Maybe I just think I am. Maybe I haven't written this at all, but merely thought it. Ouch. My head hurts...
 
Talking of hurt heads. On a more cheerful note, I leave you with this gem. The more times you watch it, the funnier it gets...

Yep, my old friend Spike has dropped by for another visit. So as I sit wincing and waiting for the sleeper to kick in, I thought I'd use this most inappropriate moment to log in and rant about the complete lack of customer reviews of my book on Amazon. (this is a real struggle. I'm even typing slurred now. apologies.)

It's not been a great week so far. Oh, the newspaper coverage has been great, and I may have scored my first commission to write some stuff, which is fantastic. But yesterday my daughter kicked me in the head (I was lying on the couch at the time. She hasn't developed a leaping roundhouse kick before she's three) and then I fell out of my wheelchair in the kitchen for no discernible reason. It just happens sometimes, even after three years in a chair.

And now? Well, my personal equivalent of Winston's black dog of depression is a bull-terrier of neuro-pain trying to gnaw it's way though my left leg. For those who are new to my story, I am referring euphemistically to the neurogenic pain that I live with since suffering a spinal cord injury. I do not have an excessively unruly and very hungry pet under the desk. Although if I did, I wouldn't know until I spotted the blood. At which time I would summon my daughter to dispatch the violent canine with some fiendish manouevre.

Of course, the ever reliable late season collapse at the Arsenal hasn't exactly buoyed my mood either. Still, transitional season, no-one expected us to finish higher than 7th, young team, etc, etc. (It's not even making me feel any better either.)

See, I knew this was a bad idea. Someone out there write me a review on Amazon, and end this awful drug-addled drivel.

Finally, a picture of happier times, at the book launch last week. And, by the way, I haven't suddenly remembered a bit I'd left out. I am in fact signing the thing. In long hand, and totally illegible too. Special secret training is given to Doctors and authors.

Message ends.