Aka Monday 2nd May - Sunday 15th May 2022
I spent the first Monday to Thursday feeling pretty under the weather, on Monday the headache and the alternating feeling hot/feverish and feeling cold had pretty much all gone, and I was left feeling nauseous, tired and v lightheaded, and the next few days those went as well. On Tuesday I felt able to have a fishfinger sandwich for dinner, which made me feel better, although I didn’t feel up to eating anything more substantial. On Wednesday I had a proper dinner, a sausage salad, which had make to half-strength.
On Thursday I did a little research and brushed up on my pharmacology and looked into the side effects of the new medication I was prescribed. And now I know why I felt so out of sorts! It’s a sympathomimetic, which are drugs that stimulate the sympathetic nervous system, which, in a nutshell, handles the fight or flight response, which include reduced appetite, increased heartrate, paranoia, and awareness, hence the symptoms I was feeling!
Sympathomimetics include the amphetamines, so in a way I’ve been speeding for the best part of a fortnight without knowing it! No wonder I was feeling so *weird*. And the patient leaflet doesn’t really mention this! But, I’ve stopped taking it now and hopefully should start to feel better soon…and it did! On Friday I felt much better and by the second week I was mostly back to normal…and slightly pissed that it appears the GP had ignored or not read my case notes and prescribed something that could (and in my case most certainly did) exacerbate my symptoms!
…on a more pleasurable note these are all of the glorious comics I got this fortnight:
…I also got the latest ‘Lego Star Wars’ for the Tusken Raider:
…and I was really tempted to get a load of this issue, so that I could have a little Tusken village, but I didn't...yet! I also picked up ‘Luke Una Presents E-Soul Cultura’:
…an excellent compilation of "House/Disco/jazz/Funk/Latin/Brazil…Outer cosmos, transcendental music for the late night disenfranchised holding on together. Rarities, lost B-sides, odd numbers, new discoveries & underground cult classics." Aka cool stuff that doesn’t get pushed in the mainstream, that you can groove to late into the night and early into the morning and back on into the evening…I also got a few magazines, issue 80 of ‘Posterzine’:
…as it features the excellent Modern Toss, with a nice interview with Jon and Mick, and I my copy of ‘Scary Monsters’ 124 arrived, which I git because it features ‘John Carpenter’s The Thing’ and the ‘50s original ‘The Thing From Another World’, although I haven’t read it yet…
…I also got The Rolling Stones ‘Live at El Mocambo 1977’:
…part of which got released on the ‘Love You Live’ live album. ‘Live at El Mocambo 1977’ is a great club set the Stones played in ’77 (as it says in the title) and it captures them playing a set that focused more on their classic songs and blues covers, although they are a fair sprinkling of more recent (for ’77) Stones songs. I also got ‘Bad Actors’, the latest Slow Horses novel:
…which was a stonking good read, thrilling and exciting, while remaining very believable, as if it could be playing out in real life! Aka the usual Mick Herron excellence. And my copy of Global Communication’s remix of Lamb’s ‘Gorecki’ arrived:
…I’d heard good things about this remix and it’s not bad, not as ground-breaking as I thought, but a nice jazzy, spacey, drum n’ bass tune…and I did the first week’s G2 Crosswords:
…Monday’s crossword gets the week off to a storming start as we didn’t have to cheat on any of the 18 clues! The little grey cells were on top form, which was odd because physically we were feeling dreadful. The headache had gone, but we were tired, irritable, anxious, hot/cold flushes, heartrate was a tad erratic and we had lost our appetite and hadn’t had anything proper to eat in days…
…meanwhile Tuesday’s grid went just pretty well, we only had to cheat on a tenth of the clues (two out of 19). We learnt that ‘Zephyr’ was the ‘Greek god of the west wind’ and that ‘entr’acte’ means ‘interlude’. Physically we still feel awful, but the little grey cells are still kicking…
…and it’s a similar positive story with Wednesday’s grid, we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 24). Fumbling on ‘heinous’ from ‘extremely wicked’ and learning that the ‘Hawthorn’ is a ‘hedgerow shrub with red fruits’. We still feel physically awful, and our head is catching up and we’re beginning to think that the new medication, recently prescribed by the GP, may actually be the cause behind this feeling awful…
…Thursday’s grid goes pretty darn well, we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 23), but the two we missed we should have got – ‘clammy’ from ‘unpleasantly humid’ and ‘carried’ from ‘borne’. And after do a deeper dive on the side effects of the new medication I know why! It’s a sympathomimetic, so it stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, which in a nutshell handles the fight or flight response, hence the symptoms I was feeling. Sympathomimetics include the amphetamines, so in a way I’ve been speeding for the best part of a fortnight without knowing it! No wonder I was feeling so *weird*. And the patient leaflet doesn’t really mention this! But, I’ve stopped now and hopefully should start to feel better soon…
…Friday’s grid goes gangbusters, we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 25). Physically, we’re feeling a tad better and the little grey cells aren’t feeling as on edge, although we missed the obvious ‘Sydney’ from ‘New South Wales capital’. We didn’t know it was the right answer, but we should have least tried it. And, although we didn’t get it, we did enjoy the answer to ‘line in Catch-22’ ‘hyphen’! Such a pure answer, but we sent ages thinking about the book!!!...
…and it all catches up with us with Saturday’s grid! We had to cheat on a fifth of the clues (five out of 24). We defo feel much better physically, we’re even backing to eating! And get a little bit of proper sleep without the weird dreams! But it’s taken its toll on the little grey cells, mentally we’re also catching up with a lack of sleep and nutrients and we missed a couple of easy ones, but we did learn that ‘Keys’ are ‘low-lying Caribbean islands’ and that to ‘ululate’ is to ‘howl in grief’, roll on next week and being back to normal…
…and I did the second week’s G2 Crosswords:
…Monday’s crossword got the week of to a pretty solid start, only had to cheat on an eleventh of the clues (two out of 22). Physically we’re still feeling a bit out of sorts, but the little grey cells are mostly taking it in their stride, although we should have remembered that ‘pectin’ is a ‘natural starch used as a setting agent in making jams and jellies’ and we should have gotten ‘lilt’ from ‘jaunty musical rhythm’, especially as we had the intersecting letters…
…Tuesday’s grid continued the trend of solidness, we only had to cheat on a ninth of the clues (three out of 26). Not a shocking performance or a stunning one, just average. We missed ‘intricacy’ from ‘convolution’ and learnt that a ‘bracelet worn for ornament or identification’ is called an ‘armlet’ and that ‘Amaryllis’ are a type of plant…
…things dip a tad with Wednesday’s grid, had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 24). I guess the warm weather and lack of sleep is catching up with the little grey cells, draining them a bit. But we did learn that ‘bagatelle’ means ‘something of little value’ and I’m not 100% sure that ‘berate’ is the same as ‘censure severely’, although I had the intersecting letters and should have guessed that ‘berate’ was the right answer…
…and things bounce back with Thursday’s grid as we only had to cheat on one of the 24 clues. We failed to get ‘elapse’ from ‘slip by’, which we should have guessed at when we had the intersecting letters, a clean sweep that slipped by…
…Friday’s grid went just as well, we only had to cheat on one of the 21 clues, only slipped on not getting ‘penalise’ from ‘sanction’, which is a bit of own goal and obvious in hindsight…
…it seems the little grey cells have gotten used to the warmer weather, as for Saturday’s grid, and the third time in a row, we only had to cheat on one of the 23 clues. Yeah, the little grey cells are cooking on gas now, we only stumbled with not getting ‘alternator’ from ‘dynamo’. All in all, a good week, physically we’re feeling much better and the little grey cells are chomping through clues like Pacman through ghosts…
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