I went… I saw… I thought it was… okay.

Posted on March 13, 2009 by borysSNORC

As is often the case when a movie is all hyped up to buggery I tend to enter into the cinema going experience with a sense of slightly optimistic trepidation. You always know that going to see the latest big "it" movie the film will either totally justify all the hype or let you down hideously and be absolutely unremarkable. Based on your (very expensively purchased) expectations there’s not normally a lot of middle ground here. Lately if feels that the greater the hype a movie (or more correctly their PR mob) generates – the more the need to be prudent and manage your own expectations by decreasing your optimism accordingly. (God I speak some shit sometimes!)

We went to see the Watchmen… and my expectations weren’t high. I’m not into comics (you can call it a graphic novel until the cows come home – it’s still a comic book) and as such I’m not usually overly impressed by books or movies centred around superheroes of any sort. I fell asleep during one of those movies … Sin City? Dark City? something like so I went into the cinema expecting something that’s ‘just not my bag’. Which is exactly what happened. It wasn’t the worst 3 hours* of my life and I’m not standing around spewing indignant vitriole demanding them back… but it wasn’t in any way exceptional in my book, I’m not in a hurry to see it again and I doubt I’ll be rushing out to buy it on DVD or anything.

But it was allright….

*unless you count the god awful state my back was in
after sitting still so long in crappy cinema seats, because
then yes it definitely does qualify as some of the worst three
hours of my life. Additionally It is entirely possible that my opinion
of the film is slightly tainted (okay painted bright neon blue in
this case) for having been viewed through a haze of extreme
back pain and a headache I’ve had for four days together.

So much for that…. the elephant is still in the room.

Posted on March 1, 2009 by borysSNORC

I’ve discovered something rather unpleasant this last week. No doubt it’s become quite apparent to anyone who happens to be reading my crap – but I’m not coping so well as I would have people believe. It seems I’ve developed a habit of acting like I’ve got it together and all is as it should be. I only ever really go ‘ah stab me in the forehead with this fork!’ here… on this painful journal. So I was kinda taken aback last week when my Mum and BigSal came over and they seemed surprised to see that I was in a worse state than I’d been letting on…. and that would be because I know they don’t read this silly thing – sensible people that they are.

When people say to me ‘Hey how you doing?’ I usually respond with ‘Good thanks, what have you been up to?’ When people say to me ‘Hey how’s your back treating you?’ I usually respond with ‘Ah, same old shit. So how is your husband/wife/kid/job etc?’

I have become quite adept at deflecting enquiries about my health (years and years of practice when I was on IVF) and tend to swiftly change the topic to the point that the people I see socially don’t really get the full story. If I am frank about that there isn’t many people I’ve been socializing with at the moment as I’ve been feeling ummm… ill equipped to cope with ‘other’s’ of late.

Mostly it’s because I don’t really want to go into it every time I see someone… because if I did the conversations would go something more like this: ‘Hey how you doing, Borys. How’s the back?’ and then I’d respond with –

‘Oh hey. My back is royally fucked thanks for aksing 🙂 My neurosurgeon writes that ‘Ms Borys is unemployable and her condition is unlikely to improve’ but you get that. Oh and my orthopaedic surgeon has recently told me that my goal of being drug free again and preferably pain free is ‘totally unrealistic given my condition’ and yet neither of them have anything viable by way of treatment to offer me. I’ve become so desperate that I’ve been seeing a naturopath though she doesn’t seem to even be able to spell half the medications I’m on and diagnoses I’ve been given let alone know how they will impact on my future prognosis… so I’m not holding up much hope there. These days i am in pain from the moment I wake up until the moment I kick the insomnia by heavily medicating myself every night. I am becoming increasingly anti-social and misanthropic because there’s barely a handful of people whose company I can tolerate for more than ten minutes together given that I feel as though I spend most of my waking hours trying not to scream. Basically I am finding that I simply don’t have the energy required to ‘make nice and pretend everything is okay’. So I’ve been avoiding people and oh, hey can you tell I resent how my life isn’t turning out the way it’s supposed to and how much I deteste the fact that back pain is starting to turn me into some I don’t really like very much. But yeah… what have you been up to?’ I think not.

It’s bad enough being in pain all fucking day and spending your every waking moment thinking about being in pain all fucking day without talking about it all fucking day when anyone enquires about it. So yeah. I’ve learnt to deflect questions and try and keep it to myself. I hide behind bright coloured clothes a lot (people don’t tend to notice the pained look about your eyes so much when you’re in candy pink so bright they need sunglasses) and it’s only about three or four people who when they ask me ‘Hey How are you doing today?’ that I find myself burying my face in their chest or sobbing on their shoulder saying ‘Boo hoo hoo. I’m so fucked. I can’t take this anymore. Poor me. Poor me.’ or something to that effect.

And so much for me not going blargh about my back tonight… staunch like marshmallow I am.
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I’m just about to get ready for bed…

Posted on February 28, 2009 by borysSNORC

… and even though I’m feeling positively exhausted my back is already telling me that I’m going to have trouble sleeping tonight. 🙁 I’ve been having so many consecutive nights of very poor sleep the last week or so that I’ve been upping my valium and other drugs in an attempt to overcome it. And when that still hasn’t been working so great I went and made myself a ‘Counting Sheep’ playlist on my iPod which consists mostly of Tony O’Connor relaxation music. The Rainforest Magic album I acquired recently but the Seashore Sunrise one I’ve had for ages.

But that doesn’t seem to be helping a great deal either though… need some more strategies to get some decent sleep. Preferably without alarming drug induced nightmares in the wee hours.

How’s the serenity….

Posted on February 27, 2009 by borysSNORC

This afternoon I had 20 mins where I felt absolutely NO BACK PAIN. It was amazing almost unbelievable to not be feeling the usually constant pain even for just that short period of time. I can’t remember the last time I felt like I had no pain whatsoever. It was wonderful. Blissful even… and a whole 20 minutes!

And what was it that bought about this momentary miraculous mid-afternoon sojourn? It’s a worthy question. What could possibly accomplish this incredible feat where intestinal fortitude and modern medicine (including morphine) has failed? Well I’ll tell you. I went and had my legs waxed. 😐 And as soon as she started ripping my body hair out of it’s folicles with hot wax… well the back pain just melted into the background. It was the most relaxed and pain free I’ve felt in I don’t know how long.

And it last for a 20 whole glorious minutes….

Solitude! Schmolitude!

Posted on February 24, 2009 by borysSNORC

It’s been two whole days that I’ve had no one around to talk to and to keep me occupied and entertained… and I think last night’s post demonstrated most admirably that I’m driving myself crazy already. Though some of the blame for that maudlin mess can be laid squarely at the feet of most of a bottle of Yellowglen Bella – it would have been a whole bottle if I weren’t so un-co and dropped the half empty bottle on the kitchen tiles and splashed champagne all over the floor, the walls, the pantry doors and even on the ceiling 😐 but that’s neither here nor there.

I have always known that I’m not overly fond of my own company. I’ve always felt a need to have other people around or I get ridiculously bored. That or (as is happening at the moment) my back pain is totally getting on top of me because my brain isn’t engaged and I’ve spent a large portion of the last two days crying and rocking in a corner somewhere…. well not quite literally but you get the idea.

Yes it’s a conundrum… I don’t want to go out and don’t want to be with ‘people’ and am generally feeling very antisocial, yet I’m not even remotely enjoying the solitude. Add to that my own particular little weirdness about being really fussy about who I want to spend time with at the moment and I’m all at sea. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers’ my Mum would say… but I am sometimes unreasonably picky about who I want to let into my weird little world and have in the past gone to extraordinary lengths not to be stuck with certain people for more than ten minutes together. Strangely enough it’s often been noted that people find me easy to talk to and often feel comfortable confiding in me… but at the same time I’m told that I’m sometimes very hard to get to know. Yeah I know that doesn’t make any sense at all and I’ve no idea how that works.

Anyway two days of my own odious company and it’s already laughable. I was so desperate for someone to talk to that I called my cousin (who is in the middle of a traumatic court case) knowing full well that she’d keep me on the phone for at least a good hour which is something I’d normally avoid at all costs! And this morning I went shopping for parfait spoons and even though I knew exactly what I wanted and found them within two minutes of walking into Myer… I pottered around for an hour and a half so I wouldn’t have to go home and be by myself.

I’m so not myself at the moment that I nearly phoned a hairdresser in Carina to make an appointment to have a haircut. I mean seriously!?!? If that isn’t a red flag going up I don’t know what is! I haven’t been to a hairdresser since 1995!!!

Sigh… I do know that hanging around the house by myself after only a couple of days is already having detrimental effects. I’ve find that I’ve been talking to myself which in itself isn’t so bad – except that I don’t always agree with what I have to say and that is exhausting!
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