EMBARRASSED BY DISEASE

 I do not feel good. As you all know until recently I have handled my disabilities really well. That was when it didn't really get in the way that much.  Now it is really beginning to bite.

Our desire to visits Stockholm has gone out the window because there is no way I can drive there.  I used to be able to drive to my friends in Copenhagen in one day.

It has always been the case that dog shows exhaust me the following day. Now it is taking me longer  to recover than the one day it used to. I got up at 1 PM and of course I have taken my drugs.

 I said to John that my friend Gail who took me to the show yesterday  has gone to the cinema and my other friends Wendy and Drew are going back to Crufts.  What I was really trying to tell him  was that this upsets me and brings home the fact of my disease to me. I would love to be able to go out today. It is a beautiful sunny day. John did not react to what I said in the way that I expected and it felt to me like he didn't understand at all what I meant by what I said.

I know there is nothing I can do about my condition but I really do wish that people would take into consideration more than they do. Of course when it makes people laugh they do not notice it is only when what I do could be construed as being rude to they seem to notice.

I had forgotten that veterans are shown first at Crufts. I suddenly heard clapping so I turned around and I saw that dogs had been placed. I panicked thinking it was the puppy class and that Alexander should be in the ring ready to be judged in the junior class so I ran in with him, well hobbled as quickly as I could, only to the steward to tell me that I didn't have my ring number on so I rushed back and my friend passed it to me and put it on. So I went back. Only for the steward to tell me that I wasn't in this class. I said yes I am and I have the tickets to prove it and I showed him that I had entered the junior class he said this is not the junior class this as the puppy class. Of course people found that very funny and I wasn't embarrassed at all I've got used to that part of my disease.

But other people have not got used to that part of my disease. I felt embarrassed to tell John how I felt  and so got upset with him for not realising what I was saying about my friends being out today.

Yesterday didn't start off well. I didn't feel well at all. And it wasn't until after I had taken my second lot of drugs that I began to feel glad to be there. For the first few hours I just sat and knitted. It took all my strength not to tell people who came up to me to talk about my knitting to fuck off.   It would have been very unkind of me to do so because I do understand that people come up and talk to me about it because they are surprised to see a man knitting and they are surprised to see that I'm knitting a very complicated Aaron or what they see as very complicated and many of the people who ask are genuine knitters themselves so that is why they are talking to me about it.

 Yesterday, when I did start to feel better it was because I had taken a double dose of tramadol. I'm going to talk to my doctor about this because I discovered that tramadol is available in 50 mg 100 milligram and 200 mg tablets  so I felt it would be safer me to take another hundred milligrams.  it made all the difference it even made a great deal of difference to the pain I was in.

I also made the mistake of not taking my drugs until I arrived at  Crufts.  I did this because I didn't want to take a lot more than my allotted dose. I am allowed to take more morphine but yesterday would have been  meant taking quite a lot more over my allotted dose. It was a stupid thing to have done because I am not a good driver if I am not medicated and it possibly contributed me to feeling crap even after I had taken my drugs.

On a positive note, people were very complimentary about my outfit and I have lost count of the amount of people that are asked to photograph me some of which I think were professional but most were using their phones. I was very surprised at the amount of men who complimented me on my dress sense. I enjoy that. And I think that these men who come up and tell me how classy look to have a lot of courage doing that. All of these men are straight as far as I can tell and as far as I can tell no gay men have ever done so! Life is strange.

So I feel not brilliant today, a bit down, and more than a little upset that even my nearest and dearest have to have it spelt out to them how I feel.

 None of you know her but my friend Gail was of such enormous help to me yesterday and I would have found the day extremely difficult without her. In fact I wonder if I could do Crufts at all without a helper.