Follow-up to My life is FUBAR – a small, but vital, improvement…

I wrote about how grim things had become yesterday, and that I was in the grip of seriously worrying depression. Well, I’m happy to report that things have improved somewhat.

Oh, I’m still depressed, but the pull of my suicide kit, from its hiding place, has weakened a hell of a lot.

I have a suicide kit because, the way my health is going, there will come a point, maybe sooner rather than later, when I will become a burden to myself and/or to others. At that point I’m stepping out. I’ve already written about that before, at length, and I’m not going to do so now – just setting the scene, as it were.

I’ve managed to come to terms – to a

My life is FUBAR…

And I have no real idea why.

There is, though, something very weird going on in my life right now, way beyond even the normal vagaries of the usual suspects (ME/CFS, COPD, OA, aortic valve calcification and heart failure are the biggies). At the risk of being accused of melodrama, even waking up in the mornings has come as a surprise the past few days –I am, quite seriously, not expecting to. Not that I’d know if I didn’t, of course!

Last Monday I was extremely ill, and profoundly, almost suicidally, depressed – no, that’s not hyperbole. So bad that I was forced to cancel a cardiology appointment I’d waited 8 months for (still waiting for a new appointment, which they’ve promised to send ASAP, after I pointed out I might not have another 8 months).

Yet, on the Tuesday, I felt

Journalism, real life – and the gulf between…

Two articles in the Guardian’s Weekend magazine rather got up my nose yesterday, striking me as self-indulgent in the extreme – or just plain odd.

One was an apparently normal, attractive, woman, Hephzibah Anderson, who, after a relationship fizzled (ah, diddums; you’re not alone, babe, it happens to us all), had decided to give up sex, but not dating, for a year. That’s just perverse, and must have

The damsel and the midnight stranger…

Some years ago, late one late Spring night, coming back from the pub in a mid-Wales village where he was staying, a man was startled when a soft voice called to him from the darkness.

It was a young woman, in a wheelchair, tucked away behind a garden wall, and separated from the world by a

Life – it’s not a dress-rehearsal, and no-one gets out alive.

I know this is going to be controversial so, please, I’d ask you to think about it, rather than just react and post a snotty comment. Constructive comments, though, are very welcome.

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This was written primarily from the perspective of a Myalgic Encephalopathy (ME), sufferer (that’s me), though it applies equally to other chronic illnesses, especially my COPD, the precursors of which I have had all my life (Ron’s Rants passim). For US readers, ME = CFS.

The following extracts are from an article in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research, Volume 61, Issue 5 , November 2006, “Well-being in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome: The role of acceptance.”

They reflect, and endorse, insofar as it relates to chronic illness and pain, the philosophy – if that’s not too grandiloquent a term – by which I’ve tried to live my life:-

Objective: Research in chronic pain patients has shown

Smile, darn you, smile…

A Guardian journalist has put forward the idea that, because she actually saw a catwalk model smile, we all need to smile more and that, hey, wouldn’t it be great if the government got behind the idea! Well, no, it bloody wouldn’t, though it is the sort of dingbat idea they’d be likely to go for. Don’t encourage the buggers!

A smile is a response to a certain situation or stimulus, and random smiling is widely regarded as strange (unless you’re in the service industry – though it doesn’t apply in my local!). A normal person does not

Now,what’s that called again?

OK, own up – just who is buggering up the language?

It was bad enough, growing up, having to learn to call tea dinner, and dinner lunch. Now some dim-bulb has decreed that dinner is now supper. Which rather raises a question

Working with COPD…

Can you work with COPD? Another search engine question. For new visitors who are baffled by these, search engines sometimes bring people here even though their precise question isn’t covered – this is my attempt to redress the balance, and so far it’s been very successful.

So, the answer depends

Protesters 1 – MI5 0

While I have no objection to anyone tossing green custard over Peter  “Lord of Convenience” Mandelson, I have to ask – where the hell was his security?

That the perpetrator, Leila Deen, a leading light with the environmental activist group Plane Stupid, could just walk up, throw the custard then walk away unhindered, to give interviews to the press, simply beggars belief. Whether you think embarrassing

Employment & Support Allowance Information

You will find a selection of ESA-related downloadable PDF files on this website . Some are for healthcare professionals, and benefits advisors, and yet others are for patients.

My advice – download the whole shooting match (on each