Not consciously awake. The first sensation is just existence but it’s swiftly followed in a two second time zone into the reality of hurt. Legs flayling under the duvet in a futile attempt to escape the pain flooding through my muscles like the rush of an incoming tide. The pain monkeys prod and poke with stiff, insistent, jabbing, little fingers until my brain joins in and wakes up to the full realization of what’s going on. Ribs sewn together again with cat gut and rusty wire, spine just a mass of hurt hammered to bits by the hind legs of the midnight mules. The bad news presented impassively on the clock face. 3.30am again. Always the same no matter what I’ve done in the day, no matter what time the curtains pulled tight across my mind. The only relief I get from those numbers is when I fail to fall asleep before they arrive, doggedly trudging on through the night because that is somehow better than 3am awakenings.
And a rush of thoughts come tumbling, unbidden into my mind like the debris carried by flood waters.
This isn’t going well is it?
Stop.
No. It’s not getting any better, it’s actually getting worse. Any elation from a slight step forward is punctured by the reality of several steps back.
There’s no where to go from here. Well there’s always the end of the track, we know that. Tempting and obvious just difficult to execute.
Coward. Cowardice. Cowardly.
Am I taking too much or not enough? Do I need a different stet of pills? F**K knows.
F**k knows. Whoever he is. And he’s a he that’s for sure. No woman would do this.
Three months in and one day of relief. One day of three steps forward, heart-singing on the bike. It wasn’t easy. Force fed sugar (gels) by patient partner in crime and pushed up the climbs whether I liked it or not whilst trying not to hear my limbs tearing themselves to shreds. But, still. Fifty-six glorious miles under the belt. And my mind let go, expanded, inhaled and wrapped it’s arms round the possibility of the moment.
And then it’s gone and that’s it. And it’s now 4.30 am (again) my arms are heavy, fingers stiff and swollen. Legs and back stubbornly refusing to embrace the 50mg of Tramadol thrown down the hatch. I suspect the full dose is needed to make any difference but at this time, that would write off the morning before it’d even begun, stuff the lining of my mind with chloroform and cotton wool. No win.
So shoot me, nice and clean between the eyes or better still the heart for all the trouble that’s caused.