final countdown

You find me on my last working day of the year. As you can tell, there are many pressing issues which need to be dealt with, so I'll keep this brief.

For instance, as soon as I've finished writing this, my desk will be getting a damn good cleaning.

Before I get started, I just wanted to say thank you to anyone who has read this blog this year, especially if you left comments. It is so cool to know that I'm not just talking to myself!

So what's been going on?

I've realised that posts have been so sporadic on here that I haven't shared the final findings of my adventures in Urology. A couple of months back I was signed off so it's now all down to me – but before then, I switched from Oxybutynin to Solifenacin Succinate (which is apparently pronounced "Sol-if-en-ass-in suck-sin-ate", which really appealed to my childish sense of humour).

According to my nurse SS is a more sophisticated drug than Oxybutynin – it's designed to only affect the bladder, as opposed to REMOVING ALL MOISTURE FROM YOUR ENTIRE BODY.

I seem to be getting on with it really well so if anyone is going down the urologist/bladder retraining route, ASK FOR IT BY NAME TODAY. And now you know how to say it too. You're very welcome.

Recently we all had a dose of the old Norovirus – which was just SMASHING.  I had this before and wrote about it but it was exactly the same deal as previously – so, forewarned, it was easier for me to deal with this time.

Same as before, I found that my MS symptoms were ramped up to Relapse level – which is terrifying when you don't know what's happening.

In one particularly glamorous moment, I knew that I was about to be sick – but as my legs were being completely uncooperative, the only way for me to get there was to:

• Shuffle off bed
• Stand/wobble
• Calculate distance to bowl as being in the same ball park as my own height
• Fall over
• Place head in the bowl
• Vomit

Quite a sight for my wife to walk in on, I think you'll agree.

This particularly nasty little virus has gone through (as it were) me, Mrs D, my daughter, my parents, my brother, my sister-in-law and mother-in-law.

This was all over a week ago – my appetite is only just returning to normal, and I've lost a frankly shocking amount of weight. As this is something I've talked about before, I'm genuinely looking forward to getting properly stuck in over the Christmas break.

God help anyone who gets in the way of that last sausage roll.

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In other news, my latest post on MultipleSclerosis.net is A ChristMS Carol – the language is cleaner, the message is more optimistic, but it's still me, I promise!

However you mark this time of year, I wish you all the merriest of Christmases and a Happy New Year.

all fun and games until someone loses their mind

So we've all had a good old snigger and giggle about the Oldest Swingers In Town, who - if you need reminding - are now a couple, living in the houses which are either side of us.

Oh, they get drunk and flirt, and have brutish (if short-lived) sex! How very hilarious!!

Well, things have taken a turn for the more serious - last weekend we had to call out the City Council's Noise Pollution Control people on a Saturday night because of RIDICULOUSLY LOUD MUSIC from Her at 1am. Although the music stopped as the council people showed up, they did hear it as they got out of the car, so the following week they wrote to our neighbour informing her that a complaint had been made.

Which is why it was so surprising to have to call the council again last weekend - are they really that stupid or are they just incredibly vindictive? Again, the music stopped as the council pulled up outside.

Our neighbours know that we have a toddler and they know about my MS. Furthermore, I've been explicit with Him about the fact that, if I have a bad night's sleep, my level of disability dramatically increases on the following day.

Basically, they might be having a laugh but they're genuinely harming my health.

So why would they continue to do this, unless they just really don't give a shit?

This last weekend we have set up a bed in our downstairs study and have continued to sleep down there - it's pretty cosy but at least we're both sleeping well.

(DON'T WORRY: Obviously the monitor linked to our Daughter's bedroom is cranked up super-loud when we're downstairs)

My wife and I have been irritable and snappy with each other. And we're starting to hate living in our house because the late-night discos are continuing most days - now with additional shouting .

Rubbish.

Meanwhile, in other news, I FRICKING LOVE THE INTERWEBZ.

From when I was growing up, one of my favourite bands ever has been Throwing Muses. They were on the 4AD label and toured the UK with Pixies in the 80s.

Obviously Pixies went on to become this big (you could say "Gigantic"... but don't) culturally significant thing, while Throwing Muses continued to plough a lonely furrow - possibly because they were a three-quarters female rock band in a predominantly male scene, mostly because they were writing joyously gnarly and twisted art-rock songs which depicted the internal world of Kristin Hersh, a teenage single mother who had bi-polar episodes leading to at least one suicide attempt before the age of 20.

Sounds like fun, huh?

Well, I LOVED them - the songs were constantly changing gears, so clever and inventive and not like anything I'd ever heard before. Wherever I went after that I always carried with me a C-90 cassette tape with Surfer Rosa on one side and House Tornado on the other - that's a stone-cold STEVEDOMINO FACT.



Anyway, Kristin Hersh continues to be a force for good in the universe, so she's one of the 'famous-ish people' I follow on Twitter.

The other day she posted a funny little statement and I responded - in what I thought was a charming and witty manner:

She must have agreed because she FAVORITED my tweet (that should be "favourited" obviously, but we'll let it go for the sake of Twitter).

Obviously I kept my reaction super-cool:

And I got a LOL (and a kiss and a hug) from one of my true musical heroes - it was a good day.

Made even better when my first blog for MultipleSclerosis.net was published later that evening. This is something which the legendary Jackie Zimmerman had put me up for, and even though it's an American site, they liked my stuff enough to let me have a play.

My first post is called The Anniversary Waltz.

Be not afeared: posts to this blog will continue in their own irregulary lackadaisical fashion.