Veg in

I give thanks for last night's curry tea. I've been brought or bought lots of vegetables lately, and I've worked out during times the sciatica is amenable to sitting I can do so at the kitchen table to chop, and perch on a stool at the hob to stir. The processes don't necessarily take place in the same part of the day, in fact I started making yesterday's tea on Sunday by parboiling some veg, then yesterday I sauteed some other ones and put half of each together with some spices and water, and a bit of peanut butter and gram flour to thicken it up. It was a nice meal, and it was a nice feeling to be able to create a meal..

I give thanks for sleeping better, though the down side of that is that bad things happen when I sleep and I have to wake up in the cold damp dawn and sort them out. I give thanks the stoma team have promised to come and have another look, likewise the district nurses...and that the surgeon has offered to see me too. Trying to explain to secretaries and admin staff that the technical difficulties making me need to see him also affect my ability to attend right now was frustrating, and they told me to ring my GP's surgery who told me they don't deal with that stuff either any more and gave me a number that I could tell wasn't worth ringing...but finally I got through to patient transport who agreed I tick enough boxes for a free ride there and back with vaguely medically aware people who could cope if anything untoward were to occur.

I give thanks for a little less pain and a little more mobility. I'm fairly sure this is due to the Actipatch I've been using as much as possible since Sunday evening. More would be possible if it weren't for the unsticky situations but maybe we'll get to that stage before long now eh? Given the number of sore points more patches wouldn't come amiss either, but at over £20 a throw there's a limit...and I don't want my fillings to come out and attach to my knees! I give thanks I'm convinced enough to send for another anyway, which is alleged to arrive somewhere later this week though when I'll get my frantic fingers on it goodness knows. I give thanks for managing to do a couple of things not utterly essential like washing my hair and winkling out a few more autumnal garments from the unsorted pile I thought I'd be well enough to have all allocated to appropriate places by now.

I give thanks in incremental stages during the day I've also made a cheesy pasta bake with the rest of the veg and that's heating up in the oven. After pain and stress, the third most all encompassing feeling of recent times is hunger - it's so much effort to get the food I need twice as much when I do!

I give thanks for watching the leaves change colour, the changing light through the day, the shapes of clouds and vapour trails, the variety of looks of the sea.