My back operation at the end of October last year reduced a lot of my pain. But not completely. It was December before my afatinib cancer medication zapped the tumour in my pelvis or back that was, presumably, still making life uncomfortable.
As a result, I was stocked up on painkillers. Naproxen. Tramadol. Paracetamol. And, thanks to my physio’s recommendation, amitriptyline.
On the whole, I’ve not needed to utilise this cocktail much since. Pain does occasionally creep along and go away and I usually dive into the naproxen and paracetamol.
Over the last couple of weeks my upper thigh / pelvis has given me some minor problems. Not every day. Not all the time. But a bedtime naproxen, topped up with a couple of paracetamol, have helped.
Yesterday morning I woke around 8am. Decently late for me. The pain was back. Again, nothing as severe as I’d felt while the cancer attacked me last year, but uncomfortable. I reached for the magic naproxen, headed downstairs to make a cuppa and on my return noticed my quilt cover sat outside my room. I’d washed it the day before after a raspberry jam disaster and, after an unexpected drying contribution from my landlord, it was now dry and ready to wrap around the duvet.
Over the years I have established four key methods for getting a cover onto a quilt. These are varied and the first three seem particularly acceptable.
- Mother does it.
- Wife does it.
- Landlord does it.
- I wrestle with the bastard for half an hour and end up with a lumpy shaped pile of quilt on my bed which, after a couple of uncomfortable nights, somehow seems to take a fairly reasonable rectangular shape without the lumps.
This time it’s on me. As a modern man I googled “how to cover a duvet YouTube” and discovered a series of American housewives completing the act with finesse in about two minutes.
Turn the duvet inside out. Put the quilt on top. Roll both items together. Perform a magical act of witchcraft to somehow turn the cover the right way round and hold it aloft with duvet completely inside.
I failed at the witchcraft bit. Something in that split second process is lost on my male brain. So I resorted to option 4 above. Something I last implemented in 1993.
On completion I was quite excited. Lumps were minimal. Time used only about twenty minutes. But my leg hurt. A lot. Shooting pains. So for the first time since last December I took an amitriptyline to ease the sensation.
The next thing I knew it was Sunday afternoon. Five hours had past and I felt groggy. After thirteen hours sleep I should be fresh as a daisy but this was a real slow motion “where am I, who am I?” wake up scenario.
I think I’ll be cautious before taking one of those pills again!
Seeing the World 
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