Aches, tabs and a jab

Deep pain in my lower back and a throbbing in the sternum as I prepared for bed last night induced me to surrender to the embrace of paracetamol. My head hit the pillow full of apprehension that I would not be able to get a decent night’s sleep, but mercifully my fears were not realised and in the morning I awoke reasonably refreshed.

It was difficult, as I rose from bed, to distinguish the usual sacro-iliac misery that I have in recent years addressed—with some success—by means of Pilates from something that might derive from the tiny G-CSF jabs I had administered over the last few days. However soon stabs of an unaccustomed discomfort that seemed to arise within my bones and throbbed with my heartbeat persuaded me that more paracetamol would be justified. Two more tabs down the hatch, then, followed by jab 7.

Pain subsides and then creeps back around lunchtime and it feels as if someone has rigged up a vice around my sternum. I manage before that to post a notice up on St Olave’s website and catch up with some work emails, as well as learn that Dr Peter Turner has made appearances this morning in The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail and—that acme of the zeitgeist—wikileaks. I have had relatively few opportunities in my life to be close to a media story and it is fascinating to see how the ripples of information spread. Major news vultures are still of course circling around the corpse of The News of the World and minds turning increasingly to the importance of media diversity to a healthy democracy. Politicians are proving horribly easy to satirise at the moment, but maybe a broader good will emerge from the fetid swamp of sleaze.

"A bright future awaits you in my media empire,  Ms Wade"

I have finally finished the printer contract comparison study thingy and sent it off to the decision makers. It is now after 9pm and the aches are not too bad at the moment, so holding off on more tabs until bedtime. Tomorrow brings the blood test that will decide whether I am ripe for harvest!