Lamb steak, roasted courgette and baby potatoes, and salad / sweet chilli veg stirfry, veg gyoza, prawn crackers

Many thanks for all the kind, supportive comments on my last post, about my chronic illness journey.

On re-reading yesterday, I realised I left out a key point: the reason I eventually fell and couldn’t get up, and that I spent a miserable few weeks in hospital entirely dependent on nurses to do everything from rolling over bed to wiping my bum, was that I had developed a condition called rhabdomyolitis.

More usually seen in extreme endurance athletes, this condition develops when muscles have been pushed so far that they start physically tearing themselves apart from the strain. Unwittingly, all the doctors who told me to do more exercise contributed to me temporarily – and nearly permanently – losing the ability to walk.

My consultant is sure the condition won’t come back, but you won’t be surprised that every twinge of pain in my legs sends a jolt of fear through me.

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Anyway, I promised a return to your regularly scheduled rambling, so here we go.

For the last two mornings, I have struggled to wake up after spending the night tormented by little people stabbing hot forks into my feet. Today I sent an email to the Chronic Pain Clinic, asking if I could re-join their waiting list, having only a few weeks ago told them I no longer needed their assistance.

Hopefully they will respond soon, as sleeping badly doesn’t pair well with being woken by mum with requests for help because she’s “feeling ‘orrible”. For the past few days, I have suggested to mum that she get up, drink some water, and eat something.

Each day, mum objects, plays the “what have I done to deserve this?” card, before finally taking my advice and discovering that it does indeed make her feel better.

Food has been a bit unimaginative recently, although yesterday I tried a trick I saw online somewhere and roasted tinned new potatoes. I can highly recommend them: they don’t have the texture of normal roast potatoes, being much softer and slightly fudgy in texture, but very tasty. The lamb somehow managed to be both anaemic in appearance and overcooked in texture – one day I will learn to cook lamb steaks, but yesterday wasn’t that day.

Today was even simpler: just some frozen veg cooked in a pan with the last of the bottle of sweet chilli sauce [note to self – must add this to tomorrow’s grocery order], some ready-made veg gyoza (Itsu brand, and very nice), and some Sharwood’s prawn crackers, which taste somewhat like prawn cocktail crisps (not that that’s a bad thing, imo).

Now we’re watching tv, I’m muttering answers to quiz questions under my breath while writing this, and tomorrow we (🤞) receive what mum calls “the nice food” – coffee ice cream – which as you can imagine makes me feel just great about the meals I produce every day.