Archives: Work

Under pressure from outside sources (no names, Lisa), I have forced myself to my desk to write an update.  I had – honestly – been intending an update for a while, including some back-dated film reviews (it’s been a busy week on the film front) but just haven’t seemed to find the time to do it.

My energy is still coming in fits and starts.  After a busy and productive week last week, this week has been a little more relaxed and less work-focused.  The new issue of CF Talk is taking shape, but is now at a stage where I’m waiting for our writers to draft their articles and send them in, leaving me without a great deal to do other than sit and wait.

Live Life Then Give Life is going from strength to strength since our charity registration came through and there are a number of projects being mooted between us as I speak, sadly none of which I’m at liberty to disclose just now.  If you live in the Manchester area, though, what this space over the next couple of weeks because we may have something exciting to announce.

I have also got myself back on the writing wagon, having taken my Headliners screenplay up to 40 pages and still going, which had really excited me as I whenever a hospital is around and about I seem to lose a great chunk of my creativity and imagination.

In fairness, I suppose it’s not the hospital so much as the condition I’m in.  After all, if a hospital stay is called for it means I’m not doing well and if I’m not feeling well then, as has always been the case, my creativity and artistic expression is the first thing to go.

Next week I’m due to give a speech at the Ipswich Press Ball about CF, which I’m really looking forward to – black tie events always excite me, mostly because the old performer in me loves getting dressed up and being the centre of attention.  Unusually for me, I have actually written my speech this time.  It’s not long, only a couple of minutes, which I would normally busk my way through relying on my natural charm, wisdom and eloquence, but clearly my faith in myself has deserted me.

Actually, quite apart from this being a posher and more official deal to the kind of speech I’ve made in the past, I also had some strong ideas for the speech that I didn’t want to lose in the weeks building up to the speech.  In the process of getting my ideas down on paper I got carried away and ended up writing the whole thing.  After the ball, I’ll pop the text up on here for you all to peruse and tell me where I went wrong.

Other than that, not much has been happening, really.  Although looking back over what I’ve just written I realise I started by saying I’ve not been doing much but have now clearly proved I’ve actually been quite busy.

Next week is hopefully dedicated to CF Talk and preparing articles for submission to the designers, with a short break away in Ipswich at my Godfather’s place for a couple of days of proper chillage before the Ball.

Promise I’ll have more updates on the boring things soon, and won’t leave it so long.  Mind you, how often have I said that…?

Maybe not as much as I should be after last weeks’ exertions, but I am chilling.  I slept in till 9am today.  (I secretly wanted to sleep till midday, but apart from my Tac alarm getting in the way, my body decided it was awake enough to rise at 9.  I’ve always said my body is an idiot).

Tuesday was a stupidly busy day for us as we were both in London, both for interview.  K had another Uni interview, about which she should hear on Monday and I had a job interview for a Theatrical post in a large, well-known company.  Sadly for me, my lack of West End experienced counted against me, as the job is maternity cover and they wanted someone who can hit the ground running.  That said, I did have a lovely chat with one of the guys who interviewed me today and he said they really liked me and would like to work with me in the future, so that is – as K pointed out – about the best kind of “no” you can get.

Tuesday was doubly hard as our journey home from Tresco was an epic 14-hour affair, leaving the Island at 1pm Monday afternoon and finally getting in to our hotel in London at 3am after a pretty-much non-stop journey on 2 ferries and in 2 separate cars.  4 hours sleep pre-interview is never the best of preparations, but I think we both acquitted ourselves well, as was born out by my response today and, I hope, by K’s on Monday – we’ll see, fingers crossed.

I also got a rather lovely mention by Bill Bryson on Chris Evans’ Radio 2 show on Tuesday (or Wednesday) when he was discussing litter-picking in the UK.  Quite what relation I bear to that I don’t know, but it’s always nice to know someone’s thinking about you, especially when they’re thinking about you on national radio.

Yesterday I was up at 8.30 because some idiot (who may or may not have been me) booked my car in for a service on the day we returned on Tresco/London.  Clever boy.  I bundled myself out of the flat into the early morning (OK, I know it’s not that early, but it felt it, damnit!) and dawdled over to Westcroft with my car, swapped it for the loan car, which, to my annoyance, was running on empty, so scooted over to the petrol station for fuel, pulling up at the pump and promptly stalling, having forgotten I’d switched from Auto to Manual at the garage.

After returning home and trying to stay awake for an hour, I finally succumbed and took myself back to bed, sleeping till 1.30, which I really needed and then spending the rest of the day in my comfy sofa-clothes and watching TV or surfing the ‘net, absolutely refusing to do any work.

Today, after a good, solid night’s sleep, we caught up with our nieces and nephew, who it felt like we hadn’t seen in an age, and their mum and dad (the latter of whom stopped in on his way past during work).  Once the little ones had toddled back off with Mum, the eldest, JJ , stayed with us to get some homework done and have a revision session with K.

Having duped us out of timing her English assignment, we played a couple of games, had lunch, put her nose back to the grindstone and then took her home, following which we stopped in a my ‘rents to collect a CD of photos from the weekend my Dad had made up for us, then shooting on over to Costco with K’s mum to pick up our monthly “big stuff” shop.

Costco really is amazing, but it’s not the world’s greatest place when you’re tired, as K was today and I increasingly became on my way round.  Still, it got done and that’s the main thing.

This evening, after grabbing some food with K’s ‘rents I’ve been trying to catch up on a little email and planning another early night as I have to be up in the morning to take K in to work and then probably ought to be getting on with some work of my own.

The response to Tresco has been absolutely amazing – we’re now nearing £1,500 in sponsorship, which is fantastic, but the number of people who have been moved and inspired by our exploits over the weekend is phenomenal; I really didn’t expect a reaction like this at all.  It’s been more amazing that I could have possibly imagined.  Thank you to everyone who’s sponsored me, emailed me, encouraged me and just generally helped me through the last few months, and the even hard few months that preceded them.

Today was supposed to be spent with my legsa astride a throbbing machine, but sadly they don’t let you learn to ride motorbikes in the snow.

I woke up bright and early (and surprisingly alert) at 7am, cooked myself a nice, filiing fuelling breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast, then – having glanced outside and taken stock of the conditions (light snow, which wasn’t settling, and cold, dark skies) I stuck on a multitude of layers of clothing including nice warm thermals and set off for the CBT (Compulsory Basic Training) centre on the other side of town.

15 minutes later I pulled up to find the instructor warming the bikes up while sheltering in a large shipping container from the elements.  Seeing the bikes out gave me hope that he might have decided it was OK, but when I approached him it was fairly obvious that he’d already made up his mind about it all.  We had a quick chit chat and went over the weather situation and even though it wasn’t supposed to persist, he pointed out that any sort of snow technically disqualifies him from teaching, which means if the DSA were to turn up for a random inspection (a not-unlikely possibility), he’d have been in the doo-doo.

Sufficiently disappointed, I toddled myself back home and made with the productivity.  Knowing that I had a good 3 hours before her ladyship was likely to be roused, I set about ploughing through a whole stack of work that had been slowly piling up over the last couple of weeks, waiting for my attention when I finally stopped running around the country like a lunatic for half a day.

Satisfied with my morning’s work and with a finally awake K, we were joined by Dazz, who popped up to use our ‘net for some bits and bobs he wanted to do (mostly to do with adding photos to Facebook, I think).  After lunch had settled, K and I decided to be good little Easter bunnies and take ourselves off down the gym for an hour, me completing another mile on the treadmill, K doing circuit set of cardio and weights.

We got back and chilled for a bit before having to head over to my ‘rents to get our weeks’ washing done – having a kaput washing machine is starting to get ever so slightly annoying, now.  Luckily, this weeks’ laundry duty happened to coincide with my ‘rents getting back form their skiing holiday in Italy, which meant we had chance to catch up with them, peep out their photos from the week  and hear all their stories about the Fawlty Towers hotel they stayed in.

In the grand scheme of things it may not seem like much, but this holiday for my mum and dad marks almost as big a landmark as anything I’ve been up to of late.  For the last two-and-a-half years my parents have been as UK-bound as I have, having to remain accessible just in case that call finally came.  For two-and-a-half years they’ve had to put their usual holiday plans on hold and stop their preferred overseas holidays so that they can be around for me.  Last weeks’ trip to the Italian Alps, just by the Mont Blanc tunnel, is the first time they’ve been able to book, take and enjoy a holiday abroad for any extended period since I was listed back in 2005.

So it was great to hear of their adventures and even though it sounds like they got what they paid for in their bargain-basement last-minute hotel-and-flight deal, they really enjoyed themselves.  I can’t describe how happy it makes me to see my mum and dad finally able to do the things they want to do and to enjoy themselves without having to worry about me or what sort of state I’d be in when they got home.  I only spoke to them once while they were away, whereas in the past it would have required almost daily updates of how I was doing.  Transplant affects so many more lives than just mine and it feel amazing to be able to enjoy it from a whole new perspective.

After we’d got through all of our washing and I’d stolent the left-overs from the ‘rents roast lamb, we headed back home to find Dazz stranded in boredom at the flat.  Turns out when we left him, telling him to feel free to use the ‘net and that the keys were on the side in the kitchen for him to use to lock up then post through the lettter box, he’d not heard the latter part of the sentence, so had been sat in waiting for us to come back for close on 2 hours.  In the meantime he’d been joined by Cliff, who came to occupy him with a game of Simpsons Operation.  I’m not sure how interesting it is, though, because they both looked pretty bored when we got there.  Mind you, they had a whole WALL of DVDs to choose from, so I’ don’t have that much sympathy.

We sat down to cups of tea and K threw on Curse of the Were-Rabbit, while I jumped on my computer to write/update my CV in the vague thought that I might apply for a job I’d seen in the paper today.  I’d forgotten how long and dull CV writing is, getting through most of the film before I’d done with that and also caught up with the various bits of charity stuff which needed my attention before I ran away for a few days tomorrow.

By 11 I was finished and so was the flick, Dazz and Cliff had departed and K was in bed.  I hastily rushed through my ablutions before hitting the sack and vanishing into the world of sleep within minutes.  It’s been a long time since I’ve been up at 7am, done a full day’s work including a gym session and not had a nap.  Feels good, though.

With tremendous excitement, K and I load up the car and head back Northwards to Durham for the second time in a month. Bizarrely, as we arrive off the A1(M) and head into town under the Castle and Cathedral, artistically lit and welcoming, it feels like coming home. Odd that you can get that feeling on just your second trip, but there you go. If it weren’t for K and uni, I get the feeling we’d already be house-hunting.

The day started on a more mundane level, with K heading off to work, me getting through a chunk of email stuff from the weekend which was demanding my attention and then managing to scoot off to the gym, know it’s pretty unlikely I’ll see it again till Thursday.

I come home and rest up after my work-out, getting in an hour’s nap before grabbing some lunch, tidying the flat a little, then heading off to pick up K from work and start the journey upwards.

We get on surprisingly well on the trip, managing it door-to-door in about 4-and-a-half hours, which includes a stop on the motorway and minor detour through Durham, plus un petit hiccup finding our final destination.

Said destination was the house of Dr Stephen Cronin, a – frankly – complete madman who’s taking on the Everest Marathon at the end of May along with a team of friends including a runner who suffers from CF.

The house – and family – are both gorgeous and delightful, even if the former is somewhat overrun with preparations for tomorrow’s lunch for the ladies of Durham at which I am to talk and try to increase the sponsorship coffers of the Tenzing-Hilary Marathon team.

The Tenzing-Hilary Marathon is bonkers. Also known as the Everest Marathon it does exactly what it says on the tin – you walk/hike/trek for 12 days to Everest Base Camp and then – because clearly there’s nothing better to do – you run 26.2miles back down the slopes you’ve just come at an altitude which roughly halves the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. You’d have to be crazy to even think about attempting it, let alone fill in the application form, so I’m bowled over by the fact that Stephen appears – at least at first sight – to be completely sane, a minor penchant for running silly distances not withstanding.

It says something for the family, though, that their eldest son, Alex, has accompanied his dad on all of his 4 marathons so far and is gutted – yes, really, honest-to-God disappointed – not to be able to do this one too, wrapped up as he will be in exams.

Still training doesn’t appear to be so hardcore at the moment that Stephen can’t kick back a little bit and we were treated to a lovely Chinese take-away not long after our arrival, which is always a sure-fire way to win me over.

Shattered from the journey and mindful of the big day ahead tomorrow, we retire early to our accommodation on-site at their Coach House guest house across the courtyard. (Yes, their house is big enough for a courtyard…). For anyone even thinking about visiting Durham, this is undoubtedly the place to stay. I have no second-thoughts about a large and blatant plug for the place here, as it is one of the nicest places I’ve ever stayed in and so wonderfully close to the centre of Durham by car, too. Click here to check it out.

We’re hugely lucky to be given our bed, bathroom, kitchen and sofa gratis and even get a lovely little welcome pack of breakfast bits-and-bobs to see us through. The attention to detail is amazing and K and I spend at least 15 minutes exchanging “oooh, look”s at each other as we find something new and cool.

The place fully explored and long, hot, travel-cleansing shower taken, we hit the sack and attempt to get in a good night’s rest before tomorrow’s event.

That’s what I reckon, so I didn’t go to the gym today.

I’m not skiving, honest, just being careful of my leg and not wanting to work it too hard (click here for more on the Calf of Death – not bovine related).

K, however did go, and now has a nice and shiney new programme of weights workout to add to her regular C-V workout, which is lovely for her. And energetic. It’s my turn to ramp up the weights next, so I’ll be booking myself in when I go for my session tomorrow.

Apart from taking K to the gym, today I actually managed to get a lot of work done, which has made a change. I don’t know quite why, but Durham totally upset the balance of everything as far as work and projects were concerned – I was away for all of 4 days and it’s taken me 7 to catch back up. Weird.

This morning was delightful, though, as I ran K down to Lea’s house to get her hair snipped, which meant I got to spend the morning playing with her delightful little one. I’m trying to ignore the fact that I had to break my self-imposed vow never to watch and/or read and/or know anything about Igglepiggle by reading “All Aboard The Ninky Nonk” a total of 17 times. She liked it, which is the main thing. Me? I still don’t really understand it. Although I think the Tombliboos have something to do with the small personification of evil – that may be reading too much between the lines, though.

Yesterday was equally grand – spending time with our littlest niece and nephew for the little lady’s 3rd birthday. It was amazing to see their little faces light up when we got there and then I spent an hour of the afternoon reading/playing “Where’s My Pants”, which luckily is the book we bought her and not a genuine, house-searching game.

At one point, having to make a quick phone call, I escaped to the top of the stairs to grab myself 5 minutes, only to be spotted and joined, perched on the top step, by both of the littl’uns who proceeded to sit silently by my side while I finished my conversation. Cute isn’t the word. It’s much… well, cuter…

I also had a meeting yesterday with a filmmaker from MK who’s interested in collaborating on a few things. I’ve been looking for people interested in filmmaking around MK to work with on some short film projects to get me back in the groove to work up towards shooting something bigger, but have mostly drawn blanks. Now, happily enough, I’ve made contact with a few people and after this meeting yesterday, I’m hopeful that there’s more guys out there than I first thought.

The thing about filmmaking – and all work in the arts, really – is that it’s so much about the contacts you have and the people you can work with. Part of the reason I’ve had so much fun and success in the Theatre has been thanks to the place I worked enabling me to meet like-minded people and also set-up my partnership with Suze, which is ever-fruitful and enjoyable on so many different levels.

I still keep catching myself and realising just how amazing life is now – I’m still not taking any of it for granted and the most mundane things can get me grinning like and idiot at the fact I’m able to do them. And now to be talking about new projects and planning possibilities is so exciting and gives me so much drive and determination to succeed.

NOTE: for the unobservant among you, the Durham trip has been detailed in back-dated entries for the weekend in question.  They’ve been up about 4 or 5 days now, barring the last day’s worth of notes, which are imminent, I promise….

Without doubt the last 7 days have been the busiest I’ve had in a very long time – pre- or post-transplant.

It’s been a whirlwind of trips here, there and everywhere that’s taken up the entire week without either K or I having time to properly draw breath.  We are both shattered.  I don’t know about her, but I feel shattered in a wonderful, sense-of-achievement kind of way.  K may just be shattered from trying to slow me down all week! (Not in a bad, I-don’t-want-you-to-have-fun kind of way, more a whoa-there-boy-you’re-new-lungs-are-only-three-months-old kind of way…)

I must apologise for the distinct quietness of the blog – I have attempted to redress the balance with a few days’ updates all at once this evening, because I feel terribly guilty for having neglected it all this week, although the truth is when I haven’t been either working or sleeping, I’ve been out and about this week.

Since Monday we’ve been to Stoke Mandeville, Oxford, Harrow, Olney, Deanshanger and Willen, not to mention the shopping trips, gym-visits, cups of tea and various odd-jobs which have taken us all over Milton Keynes.

Next week is looking like it might be mildly more sedate, although being half-term there is the chance to spend some time with my Godsons for the first time since my op, which I’m looking forward to more than just about anything I’ve had the chance to experience so far in the 13 weeks since I have my blowers swapped out for a shiny new pair.

I dearly hope the next week will bring a) more regular blog updates b) more pages completed on the new script (19 down, but none written over the weekend) and c) more firsts for the book of wonderment.

I’ve had a much better day today than Thursday – both productive, relaxing and joyous in the space of 14 hours, it doesn’t get much  better than that, I don’t think.

Started out with a way-too-early start to give K a lift to work this morning, but when I got home decided it was too late in the morning to consider sliding back into bed (although I have to say it was mighty tempting), so instead I sat myself at my desk in the study and got stuck in to completing the background work for a documentary proposal I’ve been working on since my transplant.

It took me most of the morning, but I got it sent off to the appropriate people to see what they make of it by lunch time, which pleased me greatly – as it always does when I actually complete a task I set out to do.  I suppose that’s a pretty bad reflection on how often I complete the things I set out to do…

Anyway, after busying myself all morning, I decided to take the afternoon off – as is my wont – and relaxed playing Football Manager on the computer for a couple of hours before heading out to pick K up.

From there, we headed to my ‘rents to catch up with my cousin who was visiting with family in tow from Luxembourg, where she took up residence with her Luxembourgish husband several years ago.  I’ve not seen her or her family for two years, we worked out between us, when her eldest was younger, her middle was toddling and her youngest wasn’t even thought about.

It was fantastic to see them – and my other cousin and his new wife who made it up from the old family home in Southend – and catch up with them all.  K was especially happy to be able to enjoy the baby-cuddles she’s been looking forward to all week.  The little one is a wonderful bundle of cuteness, although she’s not as good at hide and seek as her brother and sister are.

In another moment of “oooh I can do that now I’ve got new lungs” I took my cousin and her four-year-old into town whilst we waited for dinner to cook to pick up some new shoes (which are apparently a bargain over here compared to Lux).  We had the best time wandering into town, looking at all the shoes, (“those are cool.  Those are really cool.  Those are REALLY cool.  Those are the coolest!”) although we were all disappointed that they didn’t have the ones with monkeys on in his size.

We all gorged heartily on one of mum’s roast dinners and the “adults” sat around chatting whilst K and I played hide-and-seek after dinner.  My ‘rents house has the best places to hide – it’s clearly been far too long since I’ve played a proper game of hide-and-seek, because I found some great nooks and crannys.  And I’m much better at hiding now I don’t have a tell-tale “ahem” to give me away every 5 seconds.

I’ve got such a wonderfully close-knit family that it’s always wonderful to spend any time with them, but when the gap has been as long as it was since I last saw the Lux Lot it makes it that bit more special.  And when they’d been told after I saw their mum and dad (my aunt and uncle) just before my op that they weren’t sure I was going to make it to Christmas, it adds that final finesse of wonderment to the whole day.

Now I’ve just got to wait until my first year post-Tx is up and I can finally go out and visit them instead of having to wait for them to get enough time off to make it over to us.

I’m back.  24 hours back, in fact.  Stupid viruses.

After hurling myself inside out for 24 hours, I managed to stop only to discover it had either caused or masked a lovely little infection, for which the docs started plying me with IV anti-biotics and wouldn’t let me home.  Wouldn’t let me home for 4 days.  Grrr.

Still, I’m back now and basking in the warm glow of a doting girlfriend and freedom to do what I want (as long as it involves sitting spending quality time with K).

Also feeling very excited about the Organ Donor Taskforce report published yesterday (which I would link to, but let’s face it, how many of you are going to wade through 66 pages of Government-commissioned report if you don’t have to?).  Essentially, it recommends a number of not-particularly expensive solutions to current problems within the current donor/transplant network in the UK which they are confident will – if implemented as the Government say they will – result in a 50% increase in the number of transplants in 5 years.

Amongst other things they talk of making assessment for donation the norm, rather than the exception, in end-of-life care, as well as dramatically increasing the number of Donor Transplant Coordinators and retrieval teams, all under the coordination of a central organ donation organisation.

This really is a massive step forward for organ donation in this country and is actually far more important than the possibility of switching to a system of presumed consent, as has been discussed in the news this week.  The so-called “Opt-Out” system may well increase the number of available organs, but without the infrastructure changes behind it, is likely to do very little to actually increase the number of transplants that are carried out in this country.

That said, the presumed consent debate is a fantastic one because it’s getting everyone to talk about organ donation.  If the 70% of the population who say they are happy for their organs to be used after their death all signed up to the organ donor register, there would be no need for an opt-out system anyway.

Other than that, I’ve got very little going on at the moment – keep trying to plan things but having stupid lung-related hiccups getting in the way all the time.  Anyone would think that 8-weeks post-transplant isn’t very long to be trying to get up and about and leading an active, multi-disciplinary lifestyle.  Honestly….

Oli has done so well again today.  He really blew me away when I went with him on another physio session on the stairs.  I was walking behind him and the physio as we went all the way up in one go and all the way down in one go, I was trying very hard not to get in the way and just observe so it wasn’t until the end that I asked him if he realised what he’s just done.  Not only had he gone up and down the stairs a lot more easily than he had yesterday, he’d also been chatting the entire time – he hadn’t even noticed!  It’s things like this that make me stop and realise just how much his life has changed already.  I would never have dared to speak to him while he was slowly going up or down stairs, one step at a time, as I knew he wouldn’t have had the breath to talk back.  Today he was chatting away and didn’t seem out of breath at all.  Wow.

This has led me on to a strange pattern of thinking today as we are entering the realms of activities that Oli either hasn’t done for a long time or has never done.  When we got there this morning Oli was a bit down.  He said he didn’t know why but he felt ‘off’ and was a little worried about it, even though all of his levels had been checked and had come back perfectly fine.  It was then that I had to remind him of all the activity he did yesterday, activity he hasn’t done for at least months, if not more.  His body, apart from recovering from a huge operation, simply isn’t used to this level of activity.

I don’t know but I don’t think Oli has ever had a stitch from running, or had achy legs or sore feet.  It has crossed my mind that when Oli experiences these for the first time, particularly the running stitch, he could possible think something major is wrong and start to panic.

We have all spent so much time thinking about the great things Oli can do with his life now, we had overlooked the little, more unpleasant things he will inevitably discover.  I’ve also been thinking that Oli hasn’t had a 35/40 hour week, ever.  He’s going to find out that it’s tiring and not always that much fun.

This post is not meant to sound negative in any way, it’s just that for the first time tonight I’ve realised how little experience Oli has of the regular world.  He’s going to go on and do great things and experience things he never thought he would.  Along the way however, he’s going to go through some very hard times.  He will come out the other side and the triumphs will be that much sweeter because of it.

We have a long way to go and this year will be very hard but also very rewarding.  I think that the relationships he has with close friends and family will need to be very strong to come out the other side but if they survive, they will be that much stronger for having come through it.

That’s all got a bit deeper than I meant it too, oops!

Oli has also been moved to a different room now, he is no longer highly dependant and so is one step closer to home (hopefully!).  Oli’s Mum, Dad, Oli and I are all looking forward to a wonderful celebratory lunch tomorrow, I have to admit I am so excited, I might burst!  If you have a drink tomorrow, or even a cup of tea, celebrate with us and raise your glass to Oli as it is his first trip out since the transplant.  He is one awesome guy.

I’m not really sure at the moment, if I’m honest.

My body and my mind are all over the place and I can’t decide what to do with myself from hour-to-hour, let alone day-to-day.

Frustration is playing a key role in whatever I am doing at the moment, though, driving me to distraction.

For the last week or so I’ve been sleeping incredibly badly – not being able to get off to sleep and then waking every hour or so until the early hours when it tends to increase to to a whopping 20mins of sleep at a time.  It’s been driving me bonkers.  Also, of course, it’s left me with very little energy to do anything with myself all day.

Once I’m tired, I’m also absolutely horrible to be around.  I’m sure most of us aren’t at our best when we’re lacking a bit of shut-eye, but I know that when I’m sleepless I’m at my very, very worst.  For all the days K’s spent laughing at me and with me when we both get the giggles when we’re tired, I’m sure she’s now found out that when I’m really tired giggles are nowhere to be found.

Lack of sleep also causes more and more worries as well.  I’m well aware of the fact that it’s when our bodies are at rest that they repair themselves and set themselves up for another day.  As you’ll know from the more recent blogs, I’m also increasingly aware of the frailty of my body and the desperate need it has to keep itself ticking over.  Missing out on crucial rest time bothers me big-time because I know how precious a resource it is.

More than all of that, though, the more tired I am the more frustrated I get with myself and with the things around me.  My energy levels are so low that doing anything other than sitting and surfing the ‘net causes me to feel like I’ve been running around a football pitch for hours.  Without the rest it needs, my chest will start to moan and complain if I do much more than make a cup of tea and I can really feel my auxiliary muscles working overtime just to keep the oxygen flow going through what’s left of my lungs.

I’ve been struggling for the last couple of months with pain in my back and neck where the over-worked auxiliary respiratory muscles are tensing up and causing all kinds of different, unpleasant aches and pains, which in turn makes it harder to sit properly or carry myself as I should, which only then serves to exacerbate the problem with my back and neck muscles.  It’s the very worst of vicious circles that no one seems to have identified a way out of yet.

There are so many things I’d like to be doing with myself at the moment, projects I’d like to be working on, writing I’d like to be doing, but it’s the most I can do to get through a day without going mad at the moment.  My brain certainly doesn’t feel switched-on enough to achieve much beyond the occasional email.  I don’t think I’ve had a creative thought-thread for a couple of weeks now, which really gets me down.

Still, it can’t all be doom and gloom – there’s good things in the world. (Best not get on to last weekend’s sport if I’m looking for sunshine, eh?).

My bro was back for a couple of days over the weekend, which was really nice – he’s away so much doing this, that and the other that it’s been really good to see him and catch up a bit.  He seems really happy in what he’s doing, which is so good to see.  I get a real kick out of seeing my family and my friends doing things they really enjoy – I suppose it’s a kind of vicarious pleasure that I’ve lived with for a while now and I have always felt it most strongly for the things my bro gets up to.  If he’s happy, I’m happy for him.  And he’s always happy, because he’s that kind of bloke.

I know I could be doing a lot worse, too.  My chest isn’t 100% – an understatement, I suppose, of rather dramatic proportions, but then everything is relative – but it’s holding on there for the most part.  It could be much worse and I could be properly laid-up, which I’m not, so I should really not be complaining too hard.

I suppose that when frustration bubbles up it’s often hard to see the good for the bad – the wood for the proverbial trees, as it were – and it’s all too easy when tiredness attacks to let it drag everything down with it.  Positivity is a precious resource in and of itself, so I suppose what I really need is just the energy to go and mine some more of it.