Please note this Debbie is full of whining, complaining and general misery. I’m sure I’ll feel better another day, please skip to the final paragraph.

Thursday was one very long day. I got to the hospital at 11, the nurse had a chat with me. We looked in horror at my blood pressure. Then I waited. And waited. I talked with my ENT guy, he went over what would happen. Then I waited some more. The experience was not a fun one. The injection to numb my nose was extraordinarily painful and I shed several tears and had a hard time getting myself to calm down. Part of it was that they had to push my nose up to see into my nostril and the bridge of my nose has been very sensitive during this illness. The biopsy itself almost seemed like an after thought. They didn’t like that I was crying, but it has been a very long year and it was just another in a long list of painful indignities that I’ve had to endure. I also felt very much like sneezing so they provided me with tissue and advised me to keep my mouth open and always sneeze into the tissue.

There was information sheets about nose bleeds as well. Funnily enough I had a fairly impressive nose bleed in my right nostril the evening before and told them so. They took the tissue sample from the left. I’ve had another nose bleed from the right today following a couple of sneezes. I’m tired of bleeding all the time.

I got to go to a miserable recovery area where I had awful cheap white toast with jam and apple juice and listened to a poor little boy cry with exhaustion and pain following the insertion of two grommets. That was all I could take and Weasel and I made our way home, 3:40ish.

Then I packed fairly rapidly to come to Leeds and see Horatio. I was afraid if I stopped I would stop. I cycled up to the station with bag on shoulder just desperate to get to where I was going so I could crash. I got a slightly earlier train to Peterborough and a slightly earlier train to Leeds. Horatio has his Mum’s car this weekend so thankfully he was able to pick me up.

Sleep continues to elude me. I had two good nights this week. Night before last I woke up around 1 and had to have a shower to clear and calm my head and face. Got back to bed and slept until 9ish. Last night was worse. I woke up at 1 and 3 and didn’t get back to sleep until 5 then woke up at 11. I’ve felt very groggy today. I wanted some air so Horatio took me for a walk, that’s when my sneezes and bloody nose happened.

I’m not a very good weekend playmate and I’ve been so grumpy and I suspect that my mood isn’t helped hormonally speaking thanks to the new contraceptive pill they put me on because of the blood pressure.

I’ve had another shower and read a lot and I think I’m pretty okay right now. Horatio and I are making spag bol and fancy bread for dinner so maybe I’ll feel even better after that.

Work has been awful. They decided to try and give us all new contracts and an employee manual full of inaccuracies, grammar mistakes and inconsistencies. I wrote a note to everyone saying I wasn’t going to sign them in this state and if they wanted to have a team meeting to discuss everything on the 2nd that would be great. I really really really don’t want to be dealing with all of this right now.

I was trying last night to think of happy things to distract myself with so I could get back to sleep and I realised that my happy pool was pretty empty. So if you have anything happy happening in your life or that you spotted in the news – anything. Please comment and share with me. I could use some happiness.

Biopsy is tomorrow at 11. So I get the day off work. Woo. Apparently I will be unable to get home by myself so Weasel is going with me. I really really really hope it doesn’t hurt, but my logical self knows that it totally will. I don’t know why I do this to myself.

I slept all night last night again. Two in a row. I feel much more coherent, but I’m still so tired and pain filled. My nose has bothered me in particular last night and today [maybe it knows I'm getting the biopsy and it is sharing its worry this way] so of course my teeth throbbed just in case the nose pain distracted me from paying attention to them. I will say though that I haven’t had any plain codeine from my increasingly dwindling supply since Saturday [maybe even Friday]. I’ve had co-codamol instead which just combines the paracetamol [500mg] and codeine [8mg] in easy to take capsules. But to be fair I’ve only had a couple of doses in the last three days. I’ve been tired, achy and uncomfortable but I haven’t been in pain pain pain as compared to weeks previous.

At least I’m sleeping better. Please please please whoever you pray to or offer your hope up to or whatever you might do please beg the universe to let me keep sleeping.

Speaking of praying. When my parents were here, my Dad offered to give me a blessing. I had many misgivings things about faith, not wanting to give my Mom false hope, not wanting to take advantage of their god… I had many days of thoughts and many days of asking questions and I agreed. The whole time I was just begging whoever might be up there to please please please let me get better. I’m not sure that it helped, but equally, I’m not sure that it didn’t. To be fair, when we went to Ely Cathedral, I tied a little string to their pray net and sent a message up to the Church of England god too. Turns out that Weasel actually filled in a pray card for me too. Now I just need to find a Catholic to help me out.

I don’t think I’ve managed to successfully express to anyone how completely awful I feel all the time. Not just physically. I haven’t felt too good today so I’ve spent most of the day watching TV and working on the computer. After I finished Brothers & Sisters [fantastic, go watch] I decided I’d do the dishes. It took me 20 minutes and at the end my teeth hurt, I felt feverish-ish and I was so so so tired.

Weasel found us a gardener. I no longer have to worry about the weeds crawling in the windows in the middle of the night a strangling us both. He will come for the whole day on the 18th I think she said. One less thing to worry about is good.

Last night Weasel asked if there was anything she could do for me [apart from killing me which is my usual request]. I said maim or maybe unconsciousness she said we had some tranquillisers that might do the trick. I’d had one before and it didn’t do much so I wasn’t in love with the idea. So she wandered off and did some research and provided me with a double dose. I slept through the night! I’m delighted. I haven’t done that in months. I feel better, but I’m still pretty sleepy. I think my fever is gone. Feeling a bit dizzy though so not overly keen to get to work. At the moment I’m working on the better-late-than-never policy.

I’ve managed to accomplish more in the last 30 minutes than I have in the last week. Thank god for good sleep.

Horatio’s dissertation is finally finished thank god. I re-checked it on Saturday, he re-re-checked it on Sunday, printed it and re-checked it again and printed it off. The second time through was 100x easier and I actually got a much better feel for the topic – it turns out it is actually interesting! We’re crossing all our fingers and toes for a minimum of 74% so he can have his master’s degree with distinctions.

I’ve been battling extreme exhaustion and a low-grade fever since last Wednesday so I’m feeling pretty rough. I saw the doctor last Thursday, the NHS ENT. We chatted, he did a mini-endoscopy and he said he thinks he knows what it is and rattled off a huge medically sounding name that I didn’t catch and he refused to repeat until the diagnosis was official. He did say that it was like having arthritis in my tissues. Not arthritis, like arthritis. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but if it is that he said it was treatable. He sent me off for blood tests and photographs after that. I’m supposed to have a biopsy of some nose tissue on Thursday and I’ll see him again on the 4th of October. I had to wait for an hour to have my blood taken, the photographs were kind of neat. The reason for them is that about a month ago I noticed a dent in my nose. Right below where the bone ends. He was concerned about my nose collapse too and wanted photos. So I guess we’ll see what happens next.

My Grandpa and Stoat have both been in hospital too. My Grandpa has viral encephalitis and has a 50% chance of survival. Stoat has an infection in his spinal cord fluid that moved to his labyrinth – giving him labyrinthitis! That joyful illness that I had back in April. He is home now and has big medicines to take and should be much better in 6-8 weeks. Very scary.

My ear has started leaking again, it is very uncomfortable. It is like having water in your ear that won’t shift… but instead of nice clear water, it is sticky brown-ish gunk. Bleck.

My fever isn’t going to let me write anymore right now. Perhaps I’ll be back later on.

They went home yesterday morning. I think they got home about two hours ago, I haven’t heard from them yet though.

I’m utterly exhausted. I’m so grateful I only have to work today and only after my doctor’s appointment. This is the NHS ENT. I sent a letter to him last week explaining the history of this so hopefully we’ll be able to dive right in.

I’m sure that I’ll be able to recount the two weeks of holiday in pictures over the next few weeks, but right now I am so completely drained.

I have been thinking about the high blood pressure thing, I don’t know if it can show up because of stress? Because I have been stressed about my parents, about Horatio’s paper, him moving out, work, this illness and lord only knows what else. But I’m scared to hope this is temporary because I might just end up disappointed.

I finished my first read through of Horatio’s dissertation last night. I had a fever all day yesterday so I expect I missed some things and made changes that didn’t make sense. He is going over it again today and I’ll check it again over the weekend and then we’ll officially be finished. He gets it all printed and bound on Monday and hands it in on Wednesday.

Horatio has moved into his new flat. He refuses to take photos for me, I just have to wait and see it next weekend.

Must go get ready now, I’ll have to catch up more later.

I am having my first alone time in over a week and I feel bad because I didn’t use it to read the boy’s dissertation.

I haven’t checked any of my websites, I haven’t been to UKA since before I went to Leeds three weeks ago. I have lost touch with all my fun things that I like to do.

Everyone always wants something from me and I am failing on all fronts. I haven’t been spending as much time with my Mom as I should because of all the questions and I get so quick to annoyance and I don’t want that to be our relationship. I haven’t been reading Horatio’s paper like I should, I haven’t been able to support him as much as I want to with his move. He’ll be all in on Monday and I’ll be in London with my parents. I can’t even go up next weekend because I have a doctor’s appointment on Thursday and I want to have some time at home to reclaim my space and get everything back in order.

The car went away this morning so hopefully I’ll get some more exercise. Not that I’ve been resting on my laurels, we have been walking for miles every day. I’m so tired of attractions. Of people. Of being a 4-some. Grocery shopping is normally very easy, Weasel and I move through the aisle efficiently and get exactly what we want without worrying about the price. My Mom wanders off and we have to go find here they’re unwilling to split up like Weasel and I do when we miss something. Everything is an event.

I love them and I’m so happy they’re here. I haven’t seen them since Christmas 2005 and after this I won’t see them until July 2009 so I know this time is precious. BUT. I wish that I could see them for a few days, send them off for a day then have them come back again over a month instead of putting all the togetherness in two weeks every single day.

I can’t swear, masturbate, tune out, listen to silence, read, call the boy any time, shower any time… I’ve wanted nothing but normalcy this year and it keeps moving further and further away.

I have blood coming regularly out of my nose again. My teeth hurt fairly constantly, they woke me up at 3:00 this morning and I couldn’t take any more drugs until 4 o’clock so I read in bed. I’m tired of feeling so … watched. Which makes me sound paranoid, but I’m not, I’m just overwhelmed.

I tell myself it is only a week to go and that makes me want to cry. I miss them when they’re not here. I’m not sure what I can do.

I don’t like that my Mom doesn’t like my adopted country when I love it so much.

Sorry this so it jumbled, I don’t have time.