Want not

Wow...another six hours almost solid sleep! Amazing! There are so many things that commonly stop this happening - various physical discomforts and pains, a range of nearby noises, the complicated logistics of bags and tubes... sometimes none of these seem to be to blame, and I'm not stressed or worried or even (unlikely!) excited about anything - just sleepless.

It's yet another condition associated with kidney disease, so maybe that's the reason. As I receive both modern Western and traditional Chinese treatment it's interesting comparing the different approaches and associations, but basically both agree that kidneys deal with your blood and as your blood is literally vital to the rest of your body then all manner of malfunctions can ensue. I've had/have a few and am extremely grateful a) that the symptom that affects me most is the debilitating daytime doziness and b) that quite often I'm able to give it free rein!

Nephrologists, urologists and oncologists all agree whatever is going on in my body I do seem to manage remarkably well on it... Some of them express it through gritted teeth as someone who doesn't do what they are told and still does OK is can be rather irritating, others talk of the important role of my PMA...which puzzled me at first as, though I may have it, I'd not heard of it before! Some even, off the record of course, say the alternative approaches I have to both treatment and life in general must be a contributory factor. I don't follow any particular regime, religion or recipe...thus today, in need of a change of scene and routine, and as even a mini break would max me out on effort, I decided to sleep on the sofa bed and then lie in it late eating rye toast and Nutella and watching clinically obese and alcoholically insane people on TV...and thus felt particularly healthy and wise...

There's been a tough life lesson to revisit today...in the first part of my life, when people were less than loving and kind I was led to believe this was my fault in some way for being something, or not being something else...or sometimes maybe even for not being someone else! Increasingly these days I'm thinking that actually   people can just be unloving and unkind and wherever they choose to lay the blame I don't have to pick it up... As long as I work on responding with compassion and understanding, including to myself, actually I'm more than OK!