Things have been quite stressful for me lately. My little brother was beaten up while he was asleep in bed, suffering a broken nose and a broken eye socket (in two places) requiring surgery. The evil degenerate who was responsible was my other brother, whom I don’t think I will ever be able to speak to again as a result. This whole mess went to Court last month for a full trial with a jury and everything. The trial was moved from our hometown to another town at the last minute due to another case running over. at the new Court, we had a “new jury” who deliberated for seven hours before they returned an unbelievable verdict of Not Guilty. I was shocked. I am told the Judge was too. There was a witness placing him in the house at the time of the attack, to whom he spoke, telling them that my little brother (a kind-hearted soul) got what he deserved. A further witness (our mother) placed him in the house the day before the attack shouting angrily and displaying aggressive behaviour. But still the jury returned a verdict of Not Guilty. I will never understand why.

This all happened only a few weeks before the anniversary of my Dad’s death six years ago. I can hardly believe it has been six years, probably because I re-live the whole three-month ordeal every year. I hate re-living the most stressful three months of my life over and over, but I don’t know how to stop it. It was the last week that was the worst, when I had to stay in the side-room with him and watch him die, knowing there was absolutely nothing I nor anyone else could do about it.

This year, however, in stead of re-living the last day of my Dad’s life, I welcomed two new additions to the family; Wilf and Suki

Wilf

 

Suki

Aren’t they just gorgeous? They were a welcome distraction on the Sunday they arrived, and have been such a comfort to me since.

Yesterday I had an appointment for physiotherapy. Anyone reading this who suffers from chronic pain, fibromyalgia or anything similar will know that a physiotherapy appointment is a painful experience, even though the therapist is only trying to help. Fortunately I had a sympathetic young lady who was extremely apologetic about the pain she caused me. I found that in stead of being referred for my arms as well as my legs, I had only been referred for help with my knees. Fortunately, Cheryl recognised that my knee, hip and back problems are probably interlinked with each other, and so I have been placed on a waiting list for full rheumatological hydrotherapy, which means I might get a call in February about an upcoming appointment date. She could have just sent me for general hydrotherapy, but she understood that this would be of little or no benefit to me and that in order to actually help me I would need the full course of treatment. Her advice for the meantime was the same as every other doctor/nurse/therapist I have seen: continue doing the pilates exercises I am able to do without causing myself extreme pain. Do they not understand that I am in extreme pain nearly all of the time even with the maximum dosage of pain killers that I am able to take without resorting to morphine?

When I got home yesterday I wasn’t able to do very much at all. In fairness, Cheryl had not done very much to aggravate my pain, merely checked my reflexes, sensitivity and the movement in my knees and hips. That was enough, though. Although I hadn’t needed to demonstrate my hand problems, they were still sore, so that ruled out cross stitch, crochet, knitting, well, everything really except being on the computer. So that’s what I did. I booted up, logged on and surfed the net for a while. I accomplished a lot before the pain in my back and neck persuaded me to knock it on the head for the day. I managed to update my other blog and write a few new pages for it, update Picasa and Flickr update my Ravelry profile and import some music to my harddrive. But then sitting on the uncomfortable dining chair got the better of me, so I went and sat in the living room and re-read Cross Stitch Gold magazine until I had to dish up the dinner. Miraculously enough, after dinner the pain in my hands had subsided a little and so I was able to sew up a crobot‘s head. We watched another episode of Torchwood (I’m not sure I’m all that into it to be honest) and I managed to sew some embellishments onto the crobot. Today I have photographed the finished crobots and uploaded them to my photo feeds. I don’t think I’ll be able to make the orange crème caramel cheesecakes for pudding that I wanted to make, or make up any more crobots today because my hands are so sore. In fact, I’m going to have to knock the computer on the head shortly. Maybe I’ll play with the kittens for a while…

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