Hi Gerry, you are such a dear friend, I would be lost without this forum.

I took the extra 5mg Valium with the 2 sublinguals and surprisingly I've been able to move around the kitchen, prep the roast and decant the stew DB started off at 4am this morning before leaving for work at 5am. (He was quite chatty this morning, our little exchange of words yesterday over who is doing what, how much compared to how little had a positive impact.) But the pain is still very noticeable and the minute I sit down, to stand back up it hurts greatly. I'm stiffening up already and I only took the Valium and sublinguals an hour ago.

I think I'll move from the couch to the electric recliner which stands you up. I rarely use it, I did the day mum & DB took me to hospital but I can see it will make sense for to to start to use it more, it marks the wooden floor though. DB bought felt casters for it yesterday and asked me if he held the chair up could I get down on the ground and put the casters on, I just looked at him!

That lead to this dialogue; I'm trying harder than anyone to keep life ticking over in this house when I'm riddled with 24 hour pain & no amount of painkillers offer relief. Im doing washing, cleaning, cooking, making beds, folding clothes, feeding animals, doing their poo and water. I'm stacking and unstacking the dishwasher. I'm taking rubbish out, I'm trying to do all of this with not one ounce of sympathy or empathy from you.

Ask your colleague again what his wife does, how often does she keep the house ticking over including the cleaning and the laundry, what does she do for him and his animals. Remind yourself how shocked you were when you realised how little she does (nothing, not even cook) when your colleague came home from hospital he had to tend to himself and the animals, she sat and did nothing, it's why he went back to work so quickly, he was sick & tired of her asking him to do every little thing.

All you can think about is what your life is like and what your missing out on.

Life is there for living, I'm trying hard not to give up. Live an hour in my shoes and then come tell me how happy it's made you, how it's made you want to have happy cheerful conversations with people, how you've been able to stroke someone else's ego to make them feel good about themselves.

Peace comes from within. Peace is what you can offer someone with a smile. Peace is showing care and offering to help.

So anyway, about the facet joint injections, I don't think these last ones had the same epidural content the previous ones did. I don't have the terrible headache or that feeling of on the edge of having a seizure. I don't actually know what was in these ones, but I definitely didn't have the reaction I had with the last ones and you're right, I won't be subjecting myself to those again any time soon. And I know my current PM won't do the L4/5 S1 area, he's said so repeatedly. So it's possible I need to have another "awake" procedure by the radiologist again? It's all so much, I'm over it, so over it all. I understand why people give up on life, when it hurts this much and no one cares to contact you, I can see why they make that last & final decision & request euthanasia.

Well I must away, the roast won't finish itself and I'll drive a plate along with a container of stew over to mums. Cheer her up xx