Feeling depressed

 I have been a bit low for the last few days and then it dawned on us why. Last Friday we had to visit University College London Hospital to have the Baclofen pump refilled and the dose increased so maybe it’s my body getting used to the larger dose of Baclofen. Drugs have had some strange side effects over the years from hallucinations to insomnia so it’s no real surprise. I have Multiple Sclerosis and recently had an operation to form a stoma a colostomy. So far it has been a success we are just two months in and the nurse has told us to wait three months before getting too excited. 

My depression maybe the drug increase or just dealing with my MS. I cannot walk or even stand anymore so all the pressure goes on to my wife Heather. She is fantastic and deserves far better from life but carries on regardless dealing with everything and putting my well-being before her own. Depression just creeps up on you sneaking in through the cracks and going unnoticed until it has suddenly got it’s feet under the table and is wearing it’s slippers, relaxing and comfortable with it’s surrounding. Currently with COVID-19 restrictions life is super difficult plus it is winter and even if I could get out it’s always bloody raining.

Heather has her work cut out getting me dressed and out of bed. I have to be hoisted on a sling suspended from an electric ceiling hoist. Showers and bathroom visits are done on a commode shower chair which has a mind of its own as to the direction it will take, I am sure it is related to the the wonky supermarket trolleys 🛒 that are abandoned in car parks. I am in an electric wheelchair for getting around but at the moment the furthest I go is downstairs in my through floor lift to sit looking out of the window for birds visiting the garden.  We have several bird feeders an even on a dull damp day like today the birds keep me amused and I am never far from my camera 📷 . Photography gives me immense pleasure and is something I would recommend to anyone feeling depressed! Digital photography has made everyone a photographer. Phones have fantastic cameras and for anyone who wants to be a bit more serious about taking pictures the range of cameras available is enormous. I will blog more about cameras another day.

Today’s post is about depression and I imagine that we all have off days, feeling a bit blue and cheesed off with the world. It was because of feeling like that on a long term basis that I sought help. My first port of call was my doctor (GP) and she had a nice chat with me before she told me that I was depressed!  It wasn’t much of a surprise I had known for a while that I wasn’t feeling ‘right’. She prescribed an antidepressant tablets and guess what? They actually work. After a couple of months of feeling better I stopped taking them, have another guess as to what happened, yep I started feeling depressed again. I have decided that they are alright and now recon they are the best two tablets I take each day.

I have no simple answers to depression I just know how I have got over mine, and even now I still get off days. What I would urge anybody to do is seek professional advice. GP’s are busy people but they are marvellous people who really want to do the best for you. So even in these strange lockdown times they are available for help, so book an appointment, it may be a telephone consultation but it will be a fantastic one. Do it now!

My safe place is music

 I love listening to music and it is my safe place. I am 65 years old and 60’s and 70’s music is my comfort blanket. I have just put the television on mute and am listening to Apple Music on the iPad. How do Apple get things so right no other laptop or small device ever seems to sound as good. I am sure other people must find music a comfort in these awful times. COVID-19 has turned our world upside down and anything that gives us a lift must be worth seeking out. I am listening to Rumours by Fleetwood Mac 🖥 my iPad has given my that giff I didn’t seek it out.  

Big Garden Birdwatch for RSPB

 I am in the middle of my RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch camera to hand cuppa tea en route and even a sandwich. All this while sitting in my wheelchair looking out of the window. I watch our garden birds on the feeders most days so sitting still is no hardship. the youtube clip is from last year

   

Baclofen pump refilled

 Friday was stressful! A trip to UCHL https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ Getting my Baclofen pump refilled is a  twice yearly event, I had the operation to get it put in last February so almost a year ago 😲 time flies when you are living under pandemic conditions. The pump dispenses Baclofen directly into my spinal cord. I have Multiple Sclerosis and the Baclofen helps my body deal with spasticity. Multiple Sclerosis attacks the nervous system and to date there is no cure. The MS society is a great source of information and always searching for a cure. 

When this is over will it be back to normal

 I am sixty five years old. I my lifetime I have seen strikes blackouts mines disappear and several recessions. We have not been in the EU joined the EU and now got BREXIT done. I have seen interest rates on mortgages skyrocket and collapse, interest on savings ten percent and now savings are worthless. The one constant throughout all of these and many other disasters that thankfully I have managed to forget about is that day follows night. I and hopefully you will wake up tomorrow. I used to work with a Londoner, a real old cockney and his mantra was “ there’s two certainties in this world. Rent day and Death “ and when you boil it down he God rest his soul was right. We all have bills mortgages car loans rent commitments etc and everyone alive will eventually die! 

So getting back to normal! What’s normal? In my time on earth boom and bust has been a seven year cycle! I don’t mean that in the biblical sense I mean it in reality. Every seven years we seem to have had some disaster. And here we are again in the middle of the biggest disaster that has occurred in a hundred years. It is thought that the end of the Great War bought about the spread of the pandemic named as the “Spanish Flu” and it killed an estimated 50 million worldwide. The current COVID-19 pandemic has so far killed over two million people. But it looks as if it may be sticking around for a while so even with a vaccine it looks like we are stuck with it.

So what will back to normal look like? I have no way of knowing, my Crystal Ball 🔮 has got a flat battery 🔋 so anything I type here is just the speculation of my deranged mind. I can tell you here in England that we won’t be visiting Debenhams but who else will be closing the doors never to be reopening them? Well today has seen a first the stock market 📈 has been in turmoil of small investors beating the Hedge funds. I can’t say I understand it but I know some people who have played the game company share game today and come out on the winning team. So social media looks as if it’s going to feature heavily in “the new normal”. It recently played a large part in the riots in Washington DC so let’s hope political riots are not featuring in “the new normal “

I have mentioned recession in the early part of the post and I don’t expect us to get out of this pandemic until we have suffered another one! You may think I am being negative but my take on everything is we ain’t seen nothing yet.

COVID stupid questions from reporters

 I know it’s a news reporters job to as questions but honestly can you believe the absolute stupidity some of the TV news guys? “Minister when will lockdown end? Minister why are children not in school? Minister why can’t you answer my stupid questions?” Then the news editor digs up a stupid woman from the travel industry saying we don’t need to send people into hotels to isolate. Are the news programs all in league with stupid people who don’t get it. We are in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. One that has killed two and a quarter MILLION people and more and more will die each day, yet still they want to ask for and end game. Get real stay safe and follow the guidelines and stop listening to the idiots on tv 📺 

Buds appearing Spring is around the corner

 With all of the COVID-19 worries I have found it difficult to find anything positive to blog about but today as I sit here in my wheelchair staring out it feels like spring is on it’s way! The sun is shining and the sky is blue, the birds are busy flying in to visit the feeders and the buds are swelling on the small tree at the bottom of the garden. Yes Spring is on its way😁. As the saying goes ‘One swallow doesn’t make a summer’ one bud doesn’t make a spring.

We still have along way to go before I will say spring has sprung but it is definitely closer than it was a week ago.