Confusion strikes!

Lovely bright chrysanthemums, a gift from our neighbour Pam. She said they are for optimism, that yellow is the colour for that.

Last Friday evening I went to see my Doctor to let her know she is likely to hear from DWP over my IB50. I took a paper with my main symptoms listed, and she was able to give me a copy of the neurologist's report from July 2005. I hadn't managed to get back to my GPs to find out what it said before - as anyone who has been reading regularly knows, Life just kept happening too fast.

Last Wednesday I did something weird to my chest. I was trying to open a bottle of tonic water, couldn't shift it, so was using one of those rubbery grabby sheets (from Lakeland Plastics), which I do find very effective usually. But this bottle was stubborn. I had it gripped in my right hand, while trying to twist the lid off with my left hand... It was clutched tight to my chest.

Suddenly there was a definite "clunk" feeling, it felt as if something had given in the front of my chest. It didn't hurt, it just felt, if you see what I mean. And then I managed to do the same thing (same bottle!) the next day too. By Friday when I saw my Doctor the only pain I had was in my right shoulder (made me yelp going down the stairs when hanging on to the bannisters), so she thought I had probably strained a muscle from the twisting action.

Over the weekend I have had pain over my sternum that has been worsening steadily. It hurts when I turn over in bed, so have had some bad nights. I find that when I walk around the house it helps if I place my hand firmly over my sternum, just gentle pressure. Probably co-incidental, but seem to have a lot of wind at the mo too.

Last night was a particularly bad night, had some vivid dreams, including one very muddled one about Mum and breaking a plate so all the chicken stuffing was lost. (!) Woke in the middle of the night, and watched Griff Rhys Jones' "Mountain" on Snowdonia as couldn't get back to sleep...

Woke up again to hear the News, glanced at clock, 6am, time to call John (He likes to swim before breakfast). Woke him, then fell asleep again. He brought up a pot of tea, went off to swim... Only to re-appear about half an hour later. The pool was shut - I'd misread the clock, and then he did as well. I'd woken him at 5am, not 6am! Think I must still be running on British Summer Time!

Since then I have had two spam phone calls and a call from Wirral Social Services about Mum's Nursing Home bill - they didn't know she had died! They will send a bill to us, and we will pass it on to Mum's solicitor. Heaven only knows when it'll get paid - we don't even have Probate on Dad's Will yet, and that has to be done before work can begin on Mum's.

Everything seems to take forever, not helped by the recent extended postal strike in Liverpool. Meant we weren't getting stuff sent to us, and also we were unable to post anything off. So a lot of papers were stuck here waiting for the strike to end.

Just wish it was all over and done with - I do worry when we get all these bills that we have no money to pay. But guess most of the utilities etc are accustomed to long waits on the death of a customer. We can't be the only folks who have to wait for Probate to get the wherewithall to pay the outstanding bills.

Sorry, bit of a doom and gloom day today. I am hoping to arrange counselling with the person I saw when I first got M.E. Don't think I'm depressed as such, but am not coping too well. Have a tendency to start crying for little reason, and am haunted by the last few weeks of Mum's life. So I got the Counsellor's phone number from my Doc last Friday, but haven't contacted her yet as have been so incapacitated with the strained muscle or whatever it is. Just don't feel up to travelling even locally at the moment.

Still enjoying sunsets from our bedroom window though.



Monday's sunset