Monday and its 7:30, there is coffee, which I drink and then dress. I’m barley functioning as I organise my morning meds plus paracetamol. I put my injection pack in my pocket and walk to the GP surgery, sign in and wait. The nurse calls me in and we make conversation about the weather while she mixes the potion adn I take off the necessary layers for access. She tries to find a non lumpy area on the right side of my gut and then put in the needle and injects me. I buckle up and expose my left arm so that she can jab me with 3 months worth of B12. I go home to a peanut bagel and coffee and then do the life admin attached to the new furniture. Having created a file with all the info in I attend to my social media and messages. I clear the kitchen and then read for a bit, before doing some banking admin.
By lunchtime I am already feeling tired but go to the village shop with my partner to buy vegetables and a paper. On our return I eat soup and a roll while doing the crosswords in the paper. I prepare the nights meal and pop it into the crockpot to simmer away for a few hours. I clear the kitchen, empty the bins and then read for a while. I take more paracetamol as a pre-emptive pain control before seeing the dentist. My dentist is lovely but expensive and also not on strike, She talks to me, asks how I am and then prods me, pokes me and x-rays me. The upshot of all this is that I am seeing the hygienist tomorrow and her again on Friday. The cost is fearsome but where else can I be seen so quickly or effectively?
I return home acutely aware that my injection site is getting sore and I am running out of spoons. I read for a while, more Neil Gaiman’s Fragile Things but stop to write a to do list and begin to draft the blog. I know how the rest of the evening goes from here. My gut gets more sore and I feel less and less well until in desperation I go to bed dosed up with paracetamol. I am feeling rude and guilty that I have not written to those friends who have sent me letters recently and I am frustrated that I have not trained. This is the effect of having limited spoons. Its at times like these that I wish I could get out of it on drugs or booze, but in the scheme of things there are people who are a thousand times worse off than me. When I remember that, I remember that under no circumstances will I buckle. Whatever I do will be enough for today and tomorrow I go again like many of my friends and family are also doing.
