Two steps forward and one step back. The new medication, Lyrica, is wonderful. The pain level, especially muscle pain has been dialed way down. I hesitate to make estimates on how much better I feel, but it's a lot. The vertigo and drowsiness were side effects of Neurontin. My rheumatologist warned me that it was twice as expensive as Neurontin but it isn't; it's about the same price. So yesterday I took off and walked distances I never would have attempted before, was the first to see my GP at 7AM without the horrible starts to the day I've had before, went out to lunch with J, and then bought a new phone since mine has been behaving weirdly and I've hated it from the day the Bear bought it for me (without asking me for my input), bought local apples, and came home fine. I did get hit with a wave of fatigue about 6PM and laid down for an hour, but then got up and flicked carded raw alpaca while I watched Hero (first series) and Battlestar Gallactica: Razor. Today it is cold (high of 14C) and wet and windy and my arthritis is complained but not the muscles. My hands are crook, but we knew that, didn't we. So, better but not "healed." That's never going to happen. I watched an elderly couple in the chemist's this morning and they were so frail that she couldn't put her glasses into her handbag and went home by taxi, which was a long walk for them just to get to the taxi. May I never get that far. I don't know what's happening inside their heads but I hope their life is enjoyable inside and not just acting as the pilot light. I would never want to be that helpless.

So I will allow myself to have a rest day, because there's precious little I can do that I need to do with sore hands. Get of the damn computer and lie down under the doona with a book. Currently Stephen Baxter's The Time Ships which is old but I have never read. It is a sequel to The Time Machine, written in perfect Victorian language. We will not talk about how the early version of the movie for the Time Machine was a movie that terrified me as a child (and the Bear loved threatening me with that, like he did with Dead Calm, another movie that scares me even when I know what's going to happen). It goes along with my fear of giant squid (20,000 Leagues under the Sea)which The Bear also loved to tease me with. When the folks across the ditch (NZ) thawed a frozen giant squid recently I knew he would be there needling me. I miss that even so.