Improving

 Well, yesterday I woke up with hardly any pain - which felt very strange as I've been constantly in pain for months and months.  Still loads of stiffness in my back and hips, but I'll take stiffness over pain any day.  I had a couple of pain twinges now and then, just to let me know not to get complacent, but generally it was a relatively pain-free day.  This morning, though, I've had quite a lot of pain since the early hours, although it is now easing off a bit.  To be fair, this is the first time I've actually taken prescribed pain relief tablets consistently, every day - in the past, I've only taken them when I can't stand the pain any longer.  I'm not a fan of taking pain relief medication every day normally, I'm of the opinion that your body just gets used to the medication and builds up a tolerance to it, so you end up having to take more or a higher dose, just to get the same level of relief.  I'll keep taking the tabs for now, certainly until after I've had a couple of sessions of osteopathy, and then review how I'm getting on.  I really don't want to be taking prescribed medication for an indefinite period.

My lovely GP, Dr Joe, rang me yesterday to see how I was getting on - wow, how often do you get doctors doing that nowadays?!  He said to ring him in a couple of weeks to let him know how the osteopathy is doing.

I've not been idle the past few days, I've been doing one biggish job each day - changing the beds (husband helps with that, no way I could lift a mattress and change a big duvet cover on my own) one day, emptying out pots of summer bedding plants and replanting with Spring bulbs another day.  I did a freezer rearrange and tidy up - the contents, I mean - the freezers are full to bursting, we certainly won't need any meat, frozen veg or really any frozen food for weeks and weeks.  I've been trying to use up homemade ready meals every day, just adding veg to them - freeing up a bit of space in the freezers and meaning I don't have to stand in the kitchen every day making a meal from scratch.  There's still probably a couple of weeks' worth of frozen ready meals - some while back I spent a couple of days doing a load of batch cooking and freezing.  Just as well I did, it's been such a help these past few weeks when I've been in so much pain and not felt like cooking.

I've also drawn loads of Christmas cards, some are a work in progress at the moment, I'll put on pics when I've finished.

It's my birthday this coming Saturday, I told husband I'd like a takeaway, he suggested we go out for a pub lunch instead (I suspect it was at least partly because he didn't want to have to drive to town in the evening to collect a takeaway - there's no Deliveroo/Just Eat type deliveries here, we're far too rural!).  Anyway, it's a nice idea, so we'll be going out for lunch on Friday - my choice, less people (and children!) about then.  Haven't decided where yet, but think I'll choose somewhere like a garden centre, or pub in a nice place with shops, so I can combine it with doing a bit of shop browsing....something I don't get the chance to do very often.