Last Night In Filey

Well today is my last full day in Filey and the weather has been fantastic, but I’m still suffering a bit and I’ve decided not to push myself and stay for two nights.  I’ve been relying on exercise to manage my mood and I’ve rubbed a blister on my little toe, so I can’t walk much.  To compound the challenge I don’t have the concentration to read for long, so without these two tools to help me control the withdrawal depression I think it’s safest to come home tomorrow and I am so looking forward to it! 

Last night I managed to get in touch with Steph for the first time in a week or so and we chatted away on Facebook messenger for about an hour and it really lifted my mood.  I’m both excited and nervous about visiting her next week, excited because I get to see her and to explore Amsterdam, nervous because it’s a long journey on the coach and a strange place, where they don’t speak English, I’m not good with new experiences.  Still I have Steph there to look after me, at least some of the time.

I slept fairly well last night despite being down to 50mg of Lyrica from a high of 250mg a couple of months ago and no cocodamol for several days now.  I’m still suffering badly from restless leg syndrome which is one of the withdrawal symptoms, but I can control it by running the bath full of cold water, ankle deep and then when I can’t bear it any longer I jump out of bed and stand in the bath for 5 minutes.  After doing this once or twice I fall asleep ok.  Fringe has been my faithful TV companion on this break and I’m really bonding with the characters, I remember falling in love with Fringe while travelling to Zurich every week a few years ago and it made all those lonely nights and long waits at the airport quite enjoyable, it’s doing the same for my evenings here!

I woke at about 8am this morning and what a glorious morning it was, I decided to have breakfast in the apartment to use up the food, rather than go out to my cafe.  This also had the advantage that by the time I’d finished and tidied up the tide was far enough out to walk into Filey along the beach.  The quality of the light was perhaps the best I’ve ever experienced here, deep blue sky with bright white wispy clouds, it made for a fantastic walk.  When I was nearing the north end of the bay I cam across quite a few large crab shells on the beach and then a fish on the sand.  The fish, about 8 inches long, had just been washed up and was still gulping, so I scooped up the sand underneath it and walked it out to sea.  I expected that it would die, but I was surprised to see it swim off and when I walked back a few minutes later there was no sign of it.  My feet (shoes and socks) were of course soaking wet so I walked to the promenade gardens, stripped them off to dry and sat reading for half an hour, feeling quite the hero.  I then walked up into Filey and then back along the beach to home. 

As I was walking back on the beach I noticed my toe slightly hurting and when I took my socks off back at the apartment I had a big blister at the end of my little toe.  As soon as I saw it it started to hurt much more of course, so I put a tube plaster on it and resigned myself to not walking for a few days.  Instead I jumped on my bike and went for a 40 minute ride on the winding hilly back roads, including visiting Reighton Sands holiday village and Hunmanby beach.  On the Brompton even mild hills provide a very high intensity workout, but I was pleased I made an effort.

Last night one of the podcasts I listened to was discussing the explosion of research into psychedelic drugs, especially the natural substances that ancient peoples used.  It turns out that there are many therapeutic uses for them, some of them quite astounding, including helping people recover from PTSD and Opiate addiction.  The interview was with two doctors and one of the topics discussed was the over-reliance that doctors have on mind altering medications (like the pain killers I’m withdrawing from currently) they both mentioned how poorly doctors are trained to help people titrate off these meds and how difficult it can be.  They specifically mentioned the fact that doctors are hugely incentivised in their 12 minute appointment slots to prescribe and how dis-incentivised they are to them take people off the drugs and help them through the withdrawal process, because it just can’t be done in 12 minutes.  The last time I visited by specialist I mentioned my intention to withdraw from these meds and asked if he had any advise on how to do it, he offered up ‘’slowly”, I don’t think I could even muster up enough enthusiasm for these words of wisdom to say “thanks”.  These two doctors by contrast have spent years working with patients to develop treatment protocols in this area.  It was quite a coincidence to to be listening to this discussion after blogging on the same topic a couple of day ago.

I’d brought some flour with me, so I decided that as this was my last day I would bake some bread and it turned out pretty well, although the ‘fancy’ oven here always seems to burn everything, I’ve no idea why as our ‘cheap as chips’ oven at home is great.  Anyway as I love home bakes bread I will put up with it,  I’m about to make myself bacon sandwiches for my tea, pack my bags, ring Debbie and indulge in more Fringe.