Sunday 19th April 2009

So, no real developments again this week - I've had a bit of all my symptoms as usual, interspersed with some good spells.

Another chat with the dietician hasn't really shed any more light, except for the fact that there are multiple layers of things which could be causing all the problems, so it makes life very difficult unravelling everything to find the best regime. She has referred me to the MacMillan Palliative Care team - not for any sinister reason, but just because they are the real experts in mitigating nausea etc for terminal patients, so they should be able to help me too - they have a wide range of anti-emetics they can prescribe and hopefully it is just a case of experimenting until I finally find ones which work.

I managed to do the gig on Friday, which was good fun, but harder work than even I expected. I had to sit down for a breather on more than one occasion, but overall I'm glad I did it - my lack of energy was the main issue on the night - I wasn't affected by nausea or diarrhoea luckily.

The event was a "goodbye" to Booth Hall Children's Hospital in Manchester, which is closing down and transferring to Manchester Royal Infirmary. 500 guests enjoying a meal and entertainment at the new Middleton Arena.

Because this was a full stage event with large PA and lighting system, we decided to video it so we could use some clips for our publicity. However, being a "local council" venue, the inevitable jobsworths told us we were not allowed due to "copyright reasons". I could understand why someone else wouldn't be allowed to video us, but stopping us videoing ourselves for our own use seems a bit ridiculous!

Martin went ahead and took some footage anyway of the first set before he was sussed and threatened with expulsion - if you want to see some clips you can see them here:

The New Originals video clips

Unfortunately these were taken early on in the first set before the show really got going (sober, hungry people don't dance!) which is a shame because the second set was much better, with a packed dancefloor, which always reflects positively on the band and gets our energy up too (for some reason I felt more exhausted during the first set than the second - you can see my emergency chair behind me!), so the clips aren't really representative, but they give you an idea of what we are about. Unfortunately it is difficult for friends to come and see us in most cases because the gigs are usually corporate events or weddings or other private do's, so this is about as close as I can get!

Spent most of Saturday in bed recovering, but I definitely feel a sense of achievement having got through it.

Mood has been further enhanced today with warm sunshine and a Spurs win over Newcastle (sorry Andy) to redress the balance after throwing away the return fixture earlier in the season as you may remember from my ranting!

Overall, I am still making grudging steps forward. If I could only get on top of the nausea properly, I could handle everything else, but it is this that is stopping me really moving forward. Hopefully the referral to the Palliative Care team will have the desired result.

In the mean time I have started committing to some work engagements and I'm hoping that this will get me mentally stimulated to help fight off any psychosomatic contributions to my illness - I'm worried that I might sometimes feel nauseous just because I expect to - it happens too often and at such erratic times that I know it is not all in the mind, but if there are any elements of me bringing it on myself, I want to dispel them as soon as possible, and I think the best way to do this is to get my mind and body as active as I can, even though this is quite hard when you have low energy levels.

Anyway, enough for now - I hope you are all able to enjoy the sunshine wherever you are!

Cheers,

Colin.