Archives: Chest

Amid all the hullabaloo (gotta love that word – never thought I’d use it here!) surrounding L4L, I have actually been looking after myself, too, you’ll be pleased to hear.

In fact, I was booked for a check-up at clinic today.  I popped along, with K in tow for waiting-room entertainment, and saw all the necessaaries, who all seemed to be buzzing about my appearance on Radio 4 and/or the upcoming gig.  It was almost like a taste of celebrity…

But most importantly, things went really well.  Off to a cracking start when I weighted in at 52.6kg – the heaviest I think I’ve ever been at clinic.  According to my notes I’ve put on a kilo and a half in a month – pretty good going!  Especially considering a week of that was spent in hospital, where eating enough calories in a day is more like a carefully managed game of skill than a diet-plan.

While I was up there, since I was due to start back on my TOBI neb (a nebulised form of the antibiotic Tobramycin), I asked them to do a check on my lung-function before and after, as the last couple of months I’ve had of TOBI (it’s taken on a month-on, month-off basis) I’ve noticed my chest getting tight after a dose and I wanted to check it out.

Sure enough, my before and after L-F showed a drop from 0.7/1.4 to 0.6/1.3, which doesn’t appear overly significant, until you work out that actually what shows up as a 0.1litre change on paper calculates to a 14% drop in the “real world”.  And I challenge anyone to lose nearly a 7th of thier lung capacity and not notice.

So after a quick conflab, the powers that be (that’s my CF nurse and Doc B) sent an order to pop me on a ventolin neb to see if it would relax my airways back from the TOBI.

I haven’t taken ventolin in years, and even then it was only as an inhalor, not nebulised, so I don’t have a great deal of experience with it and didn’t know what to expect.

What I didn’t expect – at all – was to find that after a single 2.5mg dose, my L-F jumped to an eye-watering 0.9/1.6 – a scale I’ve not reached in over a year!

To say I was happy is to do understatment a disservice – it’s unbelieveable that a quick 2 minute neb can make such a difference to my breathing.  But more than just the numbers on the page, I really noticed it in my freedom and ability to breathe and walk and just generally not feel breathless.

In  fact, there’s a good story that will show you how good it was.  When I got up to leave the ward after the trial, I switched from the hospital-plugged oxygen supply back to my walkabout tank and wandered up the corridor to Pharmacy, from where I then walked back to the car with K, had a 5 minute telephone conversation, walked back to pharmacy, returned to the car and then popped quickly back inside for a pit-stop before we left.

When I finally got back to the car and switched to my “driving cylinder” (long story), I discovered that I’d forgotten to turn my walkabout cylinder on when I left the ward.  So I’d spent the best part of 45 minutes walking up and down and all over without once noticing a shortness of breathe and questioning my oxygen supply.  What’s more, I actually remember noting to myself how I seemed to be walking faster than I normally would without noticing any adverse effects.

You don’t get much better than that.   Consider me not only well chuffed with my day’s activities, but on a personal high both physically and mentally.  Things have a way of turning themselves on their head – it only takes a bit of positivity and something to add a bit of meaning and purpose to your life.

Blimey, life moves at a hundred miles an hour sometimes, doesn’t it?

A friend asked me the otheer day how I think of things to put in this blog everyday – and I have to admit sometimes it does seem a little pointless to be writing when nothing much has happened.

And then you get days like today, where it’s ALL happened!

It all kicked off at 10am this morning when the phone woke us up.  Until today, I’ve been up and about by 8.30am every day for over 2 weeks – completely naturally, waking of my own accord.  But the first day I sleep in, it all kicks off.

Steve from Tin Racr Design was on the phone, asking if I’d got his proof of the programme through yet, which I had to confess I’d not seen because I wasn’t out of bed.  Hastily rolling out of bed, I plonked myself in front of the computer and checked my mails to discover not just the proof, but also an email from the printers we thought were handling the printing for us saying they could no longer do it.

To say I panicked would be overstating it slightly – I’m not really a panicky person –  but let’s say my calm took a bit of a dent.  Rolling K out of bed, I thrust the phone, a yellow pages and an outline of what we needed into her hands and got her dialling while I jumped on the job of proof-reading the awesome-looking programme.

In the middle of the chaos, other emails kept firing in from various sources, all seemingly demanding instant attention.  I can go days without getting any emails (well, ok, not at the moment) and usually you can sort them into various piles of urgency, but almost every one that came through today seemed to need an immediate response.

Understandably, with all my activity and the prospect of an exhausting rehearsal session at the Theatre tonight still to come, K was getting anxious that I pace myself and make sure I was keeping enough in my tank.

I pride myself on working well under pressure and although I had a couple of moments of dread at points today, I managed not only to address everything I needed to, but also to make sure I had enough time to have a proper lunch and take time to lie down in the afternoon to recharge before work.

As well as signing off on the programme, today has seen me: get hold of a follow-spot for the show, finalise two auction lots, get a sponsor for the programme (the legendary Dunham’s Solicitors in MK), confirm all the technical details with the venue and recruit a stage manager to handle the back-stage organisation for the show (well, nearly recruit, anyway, as it’s dependent on getting hold of someone else first – but we’re nearly there).

Not only that, but I’ve had a three-hour rehearsal at MKT for the Youth Theatre show, including an hour-and-a-half working solely with my three wonderful Hamlet cast members who have taken to the whole thing so much better than I could possibly have hoped.

Shakespeare is not an easy thing to grasp and there’s a lot of nuance and little touches to the text which can take an age to go over and discover in the rehearsal process.  I was so happy tonight to find that the cast have already got a good grasp of the text, but also that they are keen to share ideas and work with me and with each other to find a balance between their characters.

It’s been a long time since I’ve worked specifically as a director in a rehearsal setting and it felt great to be putting something together again – I realised tonight just how much I miss that area of the Theatre and how much more I want to do down that avenue.

On top of which, I also delivered the final part of the piece I’ve written to open the first and second acts of the show and it went down really well with the cast, which is always a good place to start.  I was concerned it might need a bit of redrafting, which would have been a headache considering how limited the rehearsal time now is, but it’s actually looking like it’s going to be OK as-is.

And now I find myself back home in front of my inbox again (with another 12 emails come through since I left the house at 5.30 tonight) and discovering a whole new load of greatness to polish off my day.

We’ve got some really good media interest, which will hopefully convert into coverage, and a few more pieces of the auction have fallen into place – including securing a workshop for people to see behind the scenes on Avenue Q, which I’m so insanely excited about it’s funny.

I’m now tired enough to go to sleep almost immediately, but I’m also pleased that I don’t feel totally exhausted.  I suppose the true measure is going to be how I feel when I roll out of bed and drag myself over to Oxford for clinic in the morning, but I think I’ve got the Big Guy on my side this week and he’s making sure I’ve got the fuel inside to see me through the weekend.

That said, I’m not taking anything for granted: I know I have to look after myself and pace myself or I’m not going to be able to make the most of what’s going to be one of the best night’s of my life.

Four days and counting!

We’re 5 days out from Laughter for Life and things are gathering pace with alarming speed.  It feels constantly like there’s a thousand things to do for us to be ready on time, but actually, when I sit and analyse where we stand, there’s really very little to be done.

It’s reassuring (in a sense) to think that the night could actually go ahead and probably run perfectly smoothly if we all completely stopped working now and did nothing until Sunday.  Of course, that’s not going to happen – we’re all far too commited to making this night the best it can possibly be – but I think it may serve well to remind ourselves as we fret over the final details that actually the leg-work is behind us and we’re now adding the icing/gravy/hair gel/anaolgy of choice to an already fab night.

Today was press release day and with the help of our awesome PR-guru Paula, who’s done a whole heap of work for Live Life Then Give Life in the past, we’ve mailed out press releases to local and national media.  I think the naitonal ones are due out tomorrow morning, but all my local ones have gone today, so I’m hoping that tomorrow and Thursday should be full of phone calls and sparked media interest.  We’ll have to wait and see.

Also today, we’ve made great strides in gathering some great lots for our auction which is taking place in the VIP party afterwards, which include some signed Might Boosh stuff, a raft of Theatre tickets with accompanying bonus features which are still being pulled together through various wheeler-dealings around the place and some great pamper packs and treatment sessions and some awesome original artwork.

Emma is really struggling with a new course of IV’s, which is incredibly rubbish timing for her, but goes to prove that CF pays no heed to any other masters and will wantonly and brazenly do whatever it can to intrude on life.  But, she is showing the classic resiliance of all PWCF and not letting the little bugger get in the way.  “Chest infection? Pah!  I laugh in your face! You shan’t stop me!”

Patrick, from Bill Bailey’s management agency is being a total legend in helping us get things squared away and sorting last minute bits and pieces with us and Steve from Tin Racer, who do all the artwork and design for CF Talk is ploughing through preparing the programme for the evening for us.

It’s amazing how helpful and kind people have been in coming together to make this event happen.  People have given us things, offered extras, consitantly gone the extra mile and done whatever they can to help us along, with goods, services, money or support.

It’s amazing to see just how much goodwill there is in the world and a sobering thought when you consider the cynical times we live in.  People seem to expect so little of other people and often assume the worst.  What I’ve found throughout the last six weeks or so that I’ve been fully involved with this as a project is that people are far more ready to support and help people than I would ever have expected.

I’ve always prided myself on thinking the best of people and often wondered if I’m being just a little naive in my belief in the goodness of the human race.  But this project has taught me to stick to my guns even when the world around me is presenting a universally cynical view of itself through the press and TV – people are fantastic and if you give them a chance, they will bend over backwards to help you out.

There is no way this night would have been possible without the MASSIVE assistance of a huge number of people and each and every one has made contributions that could have stopped the whole show in its tracks.

This is more than just a gig: it’s a chance to tell a whole new crowd of people about the importance of organ donation.  But more than that, it’s reaffirmed my belief in people and it’s also given me the confidence to believe that if I want to do something, I really can do it.

Five sleeps and counting until the night of the year so far!

I’m always loathe to jump up and down and rave about having a good few days without any enforced bouts of bed rest.  Well, let’s face it, I’m always loathe to jump up and down full stop any more.  All right, I’ve ALWAYS been loathe to jump up and down.  Even when I could.

Still, it seems that the last few days have been particularly encouraging for me – a full day’s shooting all day Saturday, a nice, restful Sunday which still managed to include a trip to K’s parent’s for a lovely Sunday/Brithday lunch for her Mum and a middlingly-active day today getting K sorted for her new job and fixed up with sexy new specs.

I seem – seem – to have found a nice equilibrium with my energy levels for the moment – succeeding in balancing a need for restful periods with achieving the most important goals of the day without running myself completely into the ground.

I’m hesitant to be fully excited until I get a couple of days further into the week with no repercussions, but so far, so good.

The day’s shooting on Saturday was really good fun.  Although we had quite a bit of time pressure to ensure we were out of the public areas of the Theatre by the time the matinee audience came in, we actually got all of the stuff we wanted relatively quickly and with very few hiccups.

We did, unfortunately, realise later that we’d miss-shot one scene and made a fatal error known in the trade as “crossing the line”.  This is far too hideously boring to explain in full to anyone not familiar with the term, as it’s a bit of a pedantic, anally retentive technical thingy to look out for, but unfortunately it’s one thing that can completely ruin a film when it’s all cut together.  Most of an audience would never be able to point it out, but would undoubtedly know there’s something wrong with what their watching.

Luckily for us, the scene in question with the minorly-major technical hiccup (or f**k up, depending on your view) is one which we still have to shoot a couple of additional shots for, so shouldn’t be too much of a problem to go back and rectify.  Fingers crossed.

Today I spent another morning in front of a camera, this time giving an interview for a student film for Bournemouth  University’s journalism programme about transplant and life on the list, as well as what can be done to increase donor rates.

It’s nothing major, but I was put in touch with the filmmaker through UK Transplant and as I said at the time I agreed to it, any publicity is good publicity.  I think it’s particularly good because there’s a chance it’ll be seen by a good number of students at the uni and that the message it sends out will get through to one of the most campaign-aware sectors of the population.

There’s huge amounts of resources sitting around university campuses in way of students who can be incredibly vocal about any subject close to their heart.  Make just a few of them aware of the importance of having people signed up to the organ donor register and there could be a whole new wave of Live Life Then Give Life supporters coming through the system and shouting louder than we have before.

Arrangements continue apace for Laughter for Life and I’ve spent a large chunk of the day on the phone to various people and rapidly swapping emails to finalise press strategy for the week, with local MK releases going out tomorrow.  Our national campaign should begin in earnest this week, too, although we’re a little disappointed that Bill’s not able to help us with shouting from the rooftops due to his already manic schedule.

That said, we’ve got an entire 3-hour gig lined up for Sunday night with some of the countries top comedians donating their time for nothing and for which we’ve already sold out a 600-seat Theatre, so it’s pretty hard to be unhappy about anything!

Here’s hoping the rest of the week stays as smooth as today.  We’ve got a few auction lots to finalise and gather, as well as the press and media work to cover.  I’ve got some technical gubbins to double check and artists to liase with.  We’ve got an auction to plan and sales to figure out, and I don’t even know what I’m wearing yet!

Gosh, it’s all go!

Today’s been rubbish.

I woke up fine but by midday I was totally out of energy.  I’ve no idea where it all went, because I’m sure I wasn’t using that much – i was only sitting at my desk trying to work.

All afternoon my brain has been mush.  It’s not listening to what I want it to do and as for focusing on anything vaguely work-like for more than 10 minutes at a time, you can forget it.

My chest feels OK – bit full of rubbish but nothing majorly out of the ordinary.  I’m sleeping OK.  I don’t think I’ve been doing too much.

But something is clearly not right.  I just don’t know what it is.

Man, this is frustrating.

I’m thoroughly confused.

I should be used to being confused by my body by now, I really should – nothing should really throw me about it’s day-to-day fits and wobbles and ups and downs. But somehow I just haven’t got used to the unpredicability of it all.

Take yesterday, for instance: after a really rather awful, moody, tired Sunday, I slept averagely well and woke up at 8.30am full of energy and enthusiasm and raring to go. I actually wanted to eat breakfast, which is something almost wholly alien to me, since my appetite doesn’t usually kick in until mid-morning at the earliest, so the extra energy boost was great, too.

I spent all morning ploughing through mountains of work and knocking things off my To Do List left, right and centre. I amazed myself at the speed with whihc I rattled through all the things I wanted to get done and I’d almost achieved everything by midday.

I felt entirely un-guilty about taking some time out in the afternoon to pop over to K’s brother’s to play with the little ones – one of whom has just discovered how amazing it is to be able to propel yourself towards whatever it is you want. I wouldn’t so much call it crawling, just yet, it’s more like commando-crawling as he doesn’t appear to have worked out that using your legs can help, but he’s on the cusp of a major revelation, that’s for sure.

Back home after an hour of fun and games (OK, an hour of sitting on the floor playing with Fifi and her Flowertots – don’t ask me who they are, we were just sticking them to the magnetic board….), I settled in to polish off the rest of the pressing bits and bobs which needed dealing with before close of play, then settled on the sofa to watch some TV and hit the sack.

Now, today, after an identical night’s sleep, with perhaps an extra hour in bed, I have managed to achieve almost nothing. Since getting up this morning I have felt entirely drained of evergy, lacking in any kind of resource to keep my eyes open and my brain switched on.

Compared to yesterday, I’ve got next-to-nothing done, although all the important stuff has actually been dealt with, but I had to go back to bed at lunch time and it’s really only since taking K to college this evening and sitting back at my desk around 6pm that I’ve been able to engage myself to do anything at all.

It’s immensely frustrating because I just don’t know where this energy-drain has come from. I seem to be yo-yo-ing up and down from day to day with little or no reason behind the ups and downs.

I remember saying here previously that I’d be OK with it all if it made sense and was plannable, but it’s impossible to know what each day is going to be like at the moment and I can’t work out whether it’s OK to plan things or if I should just wipe my diary and play each day by ear.

I don’t suppose I can really start doing anything differently, other than, I guess, be strict with myself at stopping when I don’t feel I’ve got the energy and making sure I rest myself when my body says no. But when you’re trying to plan for a major event just 10 days away (how exciting!), it’s frustrating not knowing how much you’re going to be able to do all day.

Still, all moaning aside, I can’t really complain about today because I did get to further explore my media-tart side of my personality with a live phone interview with Peter Allen on Five Live Drive for the BBC this evening.

The wonderful Fi Glover, who’s Radio 4 show Saturday Live I did a few weeks back, passed on my details to the editor of Drive and, sure enough, I got a call at 11am this morning to talk about things and asked if I’d come on the show live this evening at 5.25 – pretty much prime time.

It was a bit of a tough interview because, obivously, I was mostly interested in plugging Laughter for Life and transplantation, but it seemed that they were more interested in the CF angle of things. Which was nice but, you know, not really “news”… Still, I managed to get through all the CF awareness stuff, plus a plug for the gig, plus a load of awareness raising for organ donation AND a mention of the Live Life Then Give Live campaign. Not too bad for 3 minutes air time, I thought. Even if it did involve a little bit of talking over Peter Allen as he tried to interrupt…

So the publicity machine ploughs on and the date of the show gets ever closer. Things get more exciting by the day and I’ll be sure to post updates on here as soon as I get them. hopefully, I’ll have more warning of the other interviews and things I’ll be part of, which will mean I can put heads-up posts on here ahead of time.

I’m in a bad mood: a grump, a fog, a depression, a dip, a lull, a negatively-buoyant, anti-happy smudge of a grey-day melancholy.  And I don’t really know why.

It could be the over-exertion of spending a day on my feet shooting the Youth Theatre video yesterday, where I was less than proficient at keeping my energy levels boosted and trying to stay seated as much as possible so as to conserve as much energy as possible.

It could be because this afternoon I went out to the cinema to see Hot Fuzz (which is great) when I should have been lying in bed forcing my body to recover from yesterday’s runabouts rather than forcing more activity on it.

It could be because I missed my dose of steroids at lunch time and didn’t catch up with them until nearly 6pm this evening, so my system is significantly down on it’s currently beefed-up power supply.

It could be that after going to the cinema, which I shouldn’t have done, following a day of shooting which I didn’t manage well, forgetting my steroids and driving over to Mum and Dad’s and back again just for a bite of dinner and not taking oxygen along for the car journey, I’m just a little bit pooped.

It could be that I’m just tired.

Whatever it is, I’m in a really bad mood.

This is supposed to cheer me up – my blog and blogging on it.  It’s supposed to remind me that when the going gets tough, the tough get going – or at least in my case the tough laugh in the face of the other toughness and tell it to be on it’s merry way because tough isn’t welcome in this part of town and if it doesn’t go away swiftly-and-I-mean-right-now then I’m going to do something really drastic like laughing even harder.

It’s not.

I’m still just feeling pretty grumpy.

So I’m clearly beyond help.  Far beyond the outer reaches of the depths of the far side of the distant part of somewhere that’s really not very close to the vicinity of the place where I am and help’s ability to reach me.

So there’s only one thing for it: I’ve just got to go to bed.  And sleep.

Like all big problems in life that at times seem insurmountable,  I’m confident that this will see me through.

Actually, thinking about it, there’s not many insurmountable problems that are cured by sleeping.  Insomnia, maybe.  But not cancer.  Or AIDS.  Or even HIV, for that matter.  War is rarely solved by sleeping, although I suppose if all the people on both sides were sleeping then they couldn’t be shooting each other, so it’s a kind of solution, but not really practical or workable as peace-plans go.

Murders aren’t solved by sleeping, and dogs aren’t walked by sleeping.  Sleeping does nothing to stop the spread of malicious rumours regarding the alleged illegal exploits of footballers or politicians, nor does it make any headway into the resolution of global warming.

It does, however, stop mindless, idle drivel like this, because when I’m asleep I can’t type.

There are many things on this earth and in this life for which we should all be thanking the Good Lord who watches over us.  And me being asleep and not writing any more of this is one of them.

Good night all.

Avid readers (do I actually have any….?) will no doubt remember my excitement at the turn of the year to receive my – free – upgrade of my mobile phone to the office-in-a-phone BlackBerry Pearl.

Now, apart from having it banned in the house, things have all been pretty rosey and happy with my new toy and I’ve enjoyed having it very much.  You will also remember that the main reason for getting myself the ‘Berry was so that I could stay in touch with the outside world while I was in hospital – I could continue work on CF Talk, I could stay in touch with my mates via email, this saving enormous text-message bills, and I could keep abreast of all the other various random emails which come my way from time to time through various different sources.

In particular, I was keen that I would be able to use it to email updates through to my blog when I was incarcerated at Dr Majesty’s pleasure – so that people would know what’s been going on and how I’m doing.

The problem I discovered with my theory throughout this week was simple: nothing happens.

In hospital, unless you’re on the critical care list and you’re hanging by a thread (and thank heavens I’m not there yet!), then time spent in hospital is mind-numbingly boring and NOTHING happens to you during the day.

I realised the idiocy of writing a blog on the goings-on in hospital when I sat down to consider it on Wednesday night and realised that the single most interesting, comment-worthy thing that had happened to me all day was that my dinner was delivered 45 minutes late.  I mean, people, it was AFTER 6pm!  Can you believe it?

Now, I’ve surfed some pretty spectacularly dull blogs in my time and I’ll confess that this isn’t always a riot of colour, but even that is beyond me.

Mum and Dad are decorating the house at the moment and I was more inclined to YouTube a video of their paint drying than to blog about my days in hospital.

Hence, you’ll gather, the lack of updates this week.

Happily, I’m now back residing in my own house with real, important things to blog about.

For instance, today I’ve had three cups of tea and I’ve had my glasses re-glazed with a new prescription so I can see when I’m driving.  I’ve also delivered a letter to the council regarding my benefits.

See – you’re life’s better for knowing all of that now, isn’t it?  Doesn’t it just fill you with that rush of enthusiastic, finger-on-the-pulse sense of truly politcally hot fresh news without which you’d be not only more ill-informed, but also a few minutes younger?

OK, so maybe my day’s still aren’t riotously crazily excitingly busy, but give me a break, I’ve only been back 24 hours.

Tomorrow is Shoot Day 1 of the Youth Theatre film shoot, which will go at the head of the show and is shaping up to be a draining but rewarding day, followed by a hectic week of organisation for Laughter For Life, which is now only 2 weeks away and COMPLETELY sold out!

Hospitals are rubbish, but they do one thing really well: make you better.  So now I’m better – in fact, flying high on top form, better than I’ve been for an exceedingly long time – and I’m breaking out into the world of doing things, achieving things and really getting a kick out of life.

Nothing happens in hospital, but it’s all go when you’re out!

I did it!! I actually managed to go out on a Saturday night without a) running out of steam after half-an-hour, b) not being able to get out of bed the next morning and c) feeling too self-conscious about wearing my O2 while I was out.

It’s a big step for me, really, and I’m really happy this morning. It was K’s Dad’s 60th this week and the whole family (the 4 off-spring and relevent +1’s) headed out to Sam and Maxie’s, a new place in the “Hub” where the new business/hotel-type district of MK is going up.

If I’m honest, I’ve been fretting about it on and off all week, what with my somewhat unpredicatable blowers and anti-biotic reactions at the moment, because I really wanted to be there and share the night with the rest of the family. K and I have known each other for a long time, and I’ve known her family for most of our friendship, but it was also the first time I was joining up with a full family gathering as “one of them” and I really didn’t want to have to bail out because my chest was being beligerent
(sorry, Nick, but it is in the dictionary if you want to check…).

It’s probably going to sound funny to people who know me, but last night really did feel like a bit of a watershed moment for me – like I was being welcomed into the family. There was no fanfare or special treatment or anything like that, but just that feeling of comfort you get when you stop worrying about whether or not everyone is really happy that you’re there and accept that it really does appear that they can tolerate your company.

Of course, it was helped hugely by being able to bribe the twins round to my side my being a taxi, but you never get anywhere in life without the odd backhander, eh?

But I think most importantly for me last night, helped by feeling welcome and comfortable, was that I managed to get through the whole thing without worrying about how I was feeling. I seemed to have the perfect energy levels for the night. I didn’t arrive home exhausted, nor did I feel that I had to not do something because I wasn’t up to it.

I was about to say that I suppose that sitting in a restaurant having dinner isn’t too taxing, so I shouldn’t really make a fuss, but actually, on reflection, it shows how far I’ve come in my recovery since before Christmas that my mind is working like that. Back in November/December, the idea of spending 3 hours sat in a restaurant, oxygen or no oxygen would have been enough to send me to bed to sleep for a week – so it really is a big deal for me to have got through it.

It’s funny how these little victories often nearly go unnoticed and it’s one of the things I love about doing this blog. In the same way I said when I started out that I hoped writing it all down would encourage me to see the wood for the trees and not get bogged down in hard times, but remember to keep smiling, I think it helps me not to overlook the upsides which might otherwise get glossed over.

Whatever way you look at it, I’ve come a long way since the turn of the year – like any period in life it’s had it’s ups and downs, but it’s worth reminding myself that I’ve done some amazing things and I’m doing better than I perhaps would have hoped in terms of moving forward both physically and mentally.

A week in hospital for respite pre-show this week should also do me a lot of good and although I know I’m not going to like it much when I’m there, it’s been reassuring to have the knowledge of an impending stay to let me prepare for it, rather than the usual course of getting it hoisted on me when I’m at my lowest.

The next week can’t really go quick enough, but at least I’m on a high going into it, which should stand me in good stead for keeping my spirits up through it.

Today has been, frankly, a pretty rubbish day.

Yet again last night my drugs and brain conspired to keep me awake almost the whole way through the night,  letting me finally drift off for more than an hour just before my 6am alarm call for my morning IV’s, followed by my usually solid sleep-time of 7-11am being interrupted by phone calls, deliveries and other distractions.

So a bad start to a long day as it was, which put me in a less than fabulous mood for the rest of it, which in turn annoyed me because my cousin Katie was down from Brum to catch a show at the Theatre and we were planning on having a bit of a day of it.

As it was, I could hardly muster the energy to entertain, although we did have a good chat and a cracking Game of Life with K (which I won, natch…).  But I still had to collapse into bed mid-afternoon to catch up on sleeps.

My body was simply not keen to play ball today though and stubbornly refused to wake itself up from my nap, which dragged me further into struggles for general awake/happiness.

The thought of getting through an hour and a half’s work session was, I have to admit, less than appealing, so it came as some relief when Rheya phoned to pass a message from Suze to say that since most of my group weren’t in for tonight, it made more sense for me to stay at home, so I delivered Katie to the Theatre and sorted her tickets before heading straight back home.

No sooner was I back than my chest started playing silly buggers again and givingg me all sorts of grief – mostly muscle-related pain, I think, from where I’ve been sleeping and holding myself a little strangely due to the IV access in my shoulder.

Being both exhausted and in pain is never a great modd-enhancing combo, so I was getting spectacularly downbeat and po-faced when I discovered perhaps the funniest thing I’ve seen on TV in a long time.

Curled up in bed with K, we flicked onto Never Mind The Buzzcocks and I laughed so hard I’m sure the pain from my chest has migrated to my stomach.

I’ve really no idea who Donny Tourettes is – or even if I’ve got his name right – but he made for some of the most unintentionally hilarious TV viewing since You’ve Been Framed made people laugh.

Watching Bill Bailey and Simon Amstell (both newly minted personal heroes of mine) ripping into Donny’s bizarre attempts at either rebellion or humour, coupled with his own self-image of sex-god punk rockstar out to diss the world had me doubled over in laughter and nearly falling off the bed.

It goes to prove that no matter how lousy things get, I was right all along when I said that the only way to deal with the tough times is to smile through it.

God bless you, Buzzcocks.