I have been reluctant to share an update because nothing much has changed or is news- worthy. I am in a state of limbo – not sure what that means but I think its to do with dead unbaptised babies so not an entirely accurate description of my state but will have to do for now.

Positive things: I now take only 2 doses of two different pain killers per 24 hours. That means record keeping is dead easy. I have a slow-release opiate (oxycodone) which they have increased the dose of that lasts all day. The previous dose faded in the evening so by TV time I was pretty uncomfortable and annoyingly demanding for Maria – hot water bottles, cushions,  cat on lap, cat off  lap. I take one other dose that lasts all night. I think it’s the drug that has the most anesthetising effect because I do tend to drop off frequently during the day. I also take one dose of gabapentin per day and one at night. I am wondering if the gabapentin which is a nerve agent may eventually be dropped but trial and error is the order of the day and in any case I have to be weaned off it slowly.

That means I can get through the whole day pain free as long as I don’t walk or sit for any amount of time.

Negative things: I stay in my dressing gown and pyjamas most or all of the day. Probably not good for the morale but not sure if I care.

I can’t walk or sit for any amount of time. If I sit in my studio and get involved in a project later in the day or the next day I may struggle a bit with back pain.

My brain is not functioning very effectively. I get confused easily. I can do my German translation but I don’t remember the new vocabulary so it’s a pretty repetitive process but I still enjoy it. All this tallies with the effect of the oxycodone so I don’t fight it. I would rather have brain fog than be in pain so I just stop and do something else of take a nap.

Longer term – As far as improvements to the underlying condition I just don’t know. I have a meeting with my consultant in a few weeks but I am not expecting any great revelations. If this is as good as it gets I can live with this for a long as I get given and I will just regard as a sedentary opportunity and new chapter in my life. I don’t need to keep repeating this but Maria is totally on board with whatever comes to pass which gives me enormous comfort and almost normalises the whole thing.

One very positive thing is that because I spend so much time on sedentary pursuits which can easily be paused we have lots of time for chatting. I really look forward to our chats because it reminds just what amazingly good friends we are. By no means do we agree with each other about everything but we can talk about literally anything and then stop and do our duolingo or discuss dinner or TV feeling refreshed and positive about whatever it was we talked about, she energises me and makes me feel good. Aren’t I lucky.

Tecchy stuff best avoided. I am yet to be convinced that anybody read these so why do I write them. I think it might be showing off

My other drug apart form the actual drugs and translating german is, and this happened before, when I last had a course of steroids, buying stuff online. It was lighters and phones that time and it was much more obsessive with quite big sums spent. Other than the German books I have been buying old gadgets to optimise my studio set-up hoping that a day will come when I can use it again. I really enjoy doing this although it is the one thing that can so obsess me that I break my own sitting standing walking rules and pay the price the following day. It I so immensely satisfying to know that your set up will work what ever strangenesses you throw at it. My set up uses up to 5 computers recently reduced from 6 and runs 8 operating systems windows xp, windows 7 windows 10, windows 11, ubuntu 20, MAC OS 10,  and 15 as well as windows 7 on bootcamp – ‘what?’ you may say more OS’s than computers – Yes and only 5 screens. I have three switches to route different computers to different screens. This all stems from my reluctance to ever bin stuff that works because it has been superseded by a new version that may not. When I was working toward my PhD I amazed my supervisor by programming a whole series of apps to manage pauses in synthetic speech. He didn’t expect the arty farty bloke to be able to programme – to be honest not did the arty farty bloke but I put in the hours read the text books – copied code for hither and thither and managed it. The apps grew in complexity and while a professional programmer would call them amateurish at best, they worked sufficient well to demonstrate proof of concept, that was all that was needed so I am very proud of them. Here is my final and most elaborate app.

I think it took me about a year to make. Its long so skip to get to some of the more outlandish features which don’t really work in terms of delivering more liveness but are quite amusing to hear

There is one secret project that I can execute from the prone position which I am really enjoying doing now. I wont be sharing this until its nearer to completion but I am applying the principle applied by Dr. Ellen Langer and its working – it has changed my creative process although I had already been applying intuitively, this video gave my personal discovery legitimacy.

I don’t have anything else to say.