Whinge, whinge, moan, moan.

Sorry guys, but that's how it's got to be today. I feel really miserable.

My pain is really bad again. The TENS helps a great deal, but you can't stick the electrodes everywhere all at once and you can't have it on all night. I went to the doctors on Wednesday afternoon, a complete waste of time. The folks who went in before me took half an hour - which I think is good; if they needed half an hour, they should have half an hour. Anyway, whatever was wrong with them was obviously much worse than what was wrong with me and my doctor, who is usually pretty groovy, was in a great hurry with me and just didn't seem to be listening. It must be hard if you've just told someone they have a week to live to then have to deal with someone with a relatively minor problem, especially something subjective like pain. I felt rather exasperated and at the time I was in a great deal of pain such that I was afraid more emphasis would result in tears so I didn't press the matter. I came away with a prescription for quinine and I'm not really sure why. What's quinine? I thought that was something to do with malaria. I don't have malaria. I live in Yorkshire.

Yesterday was a write-off, brain didn't work much at all and I slept all afternoon. Not well, as they decided to start fixing the roof and banging above me - I must have been knackered because it never woke me up properly, I was just aware of this constant banging. I slept a good ten hours at night despite this but had horrid dreams. Dreams get me down so much. Sometimes they're great - I have really powerful vivid dreams and the good ones are better than the very best movies you've ever seen. But the bad ones are awful. Last night I dreamt that both my grandmothers died. Neither of them are in a good state just now and I am very worried about one of them; the one I'm closed to. But my dream was ridiculously painful - my granddads both came back from the dead, one of my cousins drowned (for some reason the entire dream took place at sea). The trouble is I have these horrid dreams and then I can't shake them off - it's almost three in the afternoon and I still haven't managed to do anything distracting enough to put it out of my mind.

It is also almost three in the afternoon and I have achieved nothing.

It is strange. Things are going really well in so many ways just now and yet a couple of off days really get me down. I can't concentrate on the positives at all. But I do know that these have been the worst few days in a few weeks and even then they've not been so bad; just frustrating. So overall I guess my life is pretty good.