THREE HOURS STRAIGHT

I have spent the last three hours trying to explain about a drug called Methocarbamol to a family member.

Three hours straight they have gone on about problems, in my family, in their family and with their partners family.

One family member that fell out at Christmas with another one, check my posts around that time, is now not speaking with another one. I got to hear all that because the drug I was trying to explain about was to do with this member of my family not speaking to the other two!

That was at the end and I was showing some posts to my blog.

At one point they interrupted me for the umpteenth time to tell me about something in the news and I cannot recall what it was, likely the NHS or could have been local councils. She is always telling me about stories I had covered weeks, if not months and maybe now even years before. This was just another occasion of the dozens and dozens this has happened.

Three hours straight this continued for.

They have just left and I am so stressed out over it I am actually smoking a rolled up cigarette, enjoying it and not putting it down out of disgust!

Shit! My fag has gone out and I cannot find the lighter I found!! Grr!

Marvellous! I just lost the lighter I spent thirty minutes trying to find!

I really, really do not know how I do that ... but I do that a lot!

I have an aspire battery with a kangertech subtank mini, or my E-Stogie, so I am vaping instead now!

This family member allegedly suffers from epilepsy and hyperthyroidism and anyone would think each was terminal cancer.

If I, or anyone else for that matter, and at any point, even two hours into hearing everything you have heard several times before, so much as mentions their own health problem, you guided through the gates of hell itself.

You will get interrupted several times at the bare minimum and suddenly something that would normally take anywhere from two minutes to teen minutes will take an hour to three.

What happens is that once you have badgered your way in because you realise your deliberately interrupted they start making motions that they now have to go.

Twenty seconds before going out the door they wrote down the name 'Methocarbamol' and as they were halfway across the threshold I said

"Don't you want to hear what it does then? Because it may help with some of the things you have been complaining about and with a problem [someone else's name in the family] and their back problem?!"

Then you get a slink in the body posture likes its a real effort to listen for 30 seconds but still half way across the threshold!

"It is a muscle relaxant that is not addictive, they are happy to give out and three days after taking it I noticed much less and even no pain in my back at times. So it acts like a benzodiazepine drug, like Diazepam or Vallium"

No interest, no surprise just an "Oh, alright then" and they walk out.

You know that sometimes people just love to complain about things, get something not that serious and quite common and it becomes a national focal point and the worst ailment in the world. They do not like it when I turn around and say..

"A bloody good job you do not have Fibromyalgia like mine then ..." and I get this annoyed look as if to say how dare you suggest something is worse than mine "...because you simply wouldn't be able to handle it!"

Then I get this lecture about how I do not know anything about hyperthyroidism before I tell them for the umpteenth time that someone I was pally with and they also knew had it and my mate old Ken, who died of kidney cancer, had it.

When you have looked after a friend dying of cancer when no one else that are tasked to do this it really opens your eyes up to many, many things.

He believed most of what I used to tell him, old Ken. He was a socialist lefty, we all knew it, but he loved my theories and agreed with most.

He was the guy I spoke about previously, many moons ago, that wanted me to be a DJ on Talk Radio (thought the two were mutually exclusive but there you go) and/or Prime Minister.

Te be fair at this point the two of us were stoned out of our heads and he would have had a fair amount of vodka in his system too!

he would always repeat these two suggestions and while swaying like a chimney without cement in a force ten gale he would say ..

"No, no, no ... you ... would be so good on the radio. The things you understand ... the things you see and how come up with your theories to solve them ... they would ... I am tellloiunnnng you, ethy would listen to you for hours! You would get so popular and sooo quickly! You should ... you should ... you know? Do it?"

I would be sitting the other side of this dining table which was a three times a week regular thing and I would be swaying about, tears running down my cheeks and laughing like a hyena at his suggestions. Lol.

I really miss those time and I miss him.

He was number four in people I could actually speak to and just as the others had done before him ... he died on me!

I watched him wither away and writhe about in pain. Some dunce nurse that used to turn up was nothing of the kind, couldn't even pronounce the names of the drugs, let alone explain what they were for. Oh, and she used to steal and hide his spoons!

When he told people this they thought he was mad. Two other friends, both friends of mine, came to me and do you know what they said?

"Martin, he is losing his marbles. He keeps going on about spoons being stolen and accusing the nurse?! Look, he has asked each one of us to get you. He says you would be the only one that would see."

So I went around and found there was a key hidden in some code thing. Eventually the so called nurse arrived, thought she was a local with a broken leg and she was already late as she limped towards my mates door!

I had ruled her out as the nurse when I first spotted her. I immediately turned away and said in my head "NOPE!"

Trust me I am a very good judge of character and I can normally read between the lines, something that two other friends have found out about and two people have been playing games with me and they think I am totally oblivious of these acts.

What? Because I do not mention them on here?! Total twats!

I walked into Ken's bedroom where he had hid himself away and lay dying.

He rolled over in pain and see me standing their just inside the doorway and his face lit up as I tried to get over the sight I saw before me!

The so called nurse walked in the room.

"Ooh, your in trouble NOW! See this man here, he is a genius! He will know what your doing, he will find out what is going on and now he is here I feel so much more secure"

It was the only time during this period of slowly withering away that he smiled.

"Whats this drug for?" I asked.

"Ox...ox...ox..." she stuttered.

"It IS OXYCONTIN! I can fucking read, what is the DRUG for?!" I demanded.

"I ... don't know" funny for a nurse is it not?

So the spoons, I hear you thinking out loud?

Yup, she was indeed hiding five fucking spoons!

When she was placing the spoons in the kitchen downstairs on the draining board she get the shock of her fucking life when she looked up and I was standing in Ken's garden, while speaking to someone on the phone!

I was there for 7 hours, so when the lady returned five hours later I was in the house when she let herself in, grabbed five spoons, four of them totally clean, took them downstairs and placed them side by side on the draining board.

I told her NOT to remove his spoons. At one point she asked me not go get her sacked while her boss was on the phone while I dragged the code to his door key out of her.

I was not going anywhere until I had that code!

So yeah ... I really don not want someone telling me how ailments are when I have had fibromyalgia most of my life, serious back and knee conditions and watched my bets mate slowly die of cancer.

I wouldn't wish any of those things on the devil himself!

Where was all the help? Where was all the cancer trusts? Where was all the home help? And where 'o' where were all the cancer charities? All those adverts on TV? Where was any of them?

You may well ask?

Effing nowhere, is my answer. I spoke to a nurse with a broken leg who was fashionably late and hiding spoons and some idiot on the phone.

Days? Weeks? I cannot even recall how long it went on for but certainly awhile. My daughter was down here when he died but was not when I was first looking after him.

I! ME! The man that the NHS had consistently lied to, treated like garbage, lied about on letters to the DWP about and refused drugs, diagnosis and treatments of his three disabilities. The disabled friend who is not paid nor tasked with caring for people dying and never had to do anything like it before. I DID IT!

RIP Kenneth Walter Bunn!

The funny thing is, is that it is everyone else that gets accused of not giving a shit about them and their health and has learnt not to talk about their illnesses. Yup, I had to listen for over three hours about how they do not talk about their ailments.

So yeah ... Methocarbamol?

If you have any back pain or indeed anything to do with pain that is linked to muscles in any way, shape or form and you might want to ask your GP about Methocarbamol?!

In fact I have been wondering whether or not my back has decided to behave for awhile just as I started taking this drug?! I mean it was that instant, a day or two. I stand in am mates shop and I can either have back pain before I walk in or get it anywhere up to thirty minutes after standing there chatting.

No way I do not get it and just like one of the pains I get in the heels of my feet ... it really gets aggravated by standing still.