Sunday 5th October

We all suffer with aches and pains and when we are young these are quickly shrugged off but as we get older they tend to linger and often seem more painful.  Who knows if they really are; maybe our general sense of weariness as we age contributes to our appreciation (or lack of it) of pain.  And why, oh why does it get so much worse at night, the very time when a good night’s sleep is essential.  And yet as we all know the most minor niggle can become almost unbearable at night.  When you lay down and just want to relax into that bliss of sleep along comes a twitch in your mouth and you have the dreaded toothache, which incidentally you hadn’t noticed at all in the waking hours.  And when you have a cold, the accompanying sore throat is nothing but a minor irritation during the day.  But lights out and laying on your back and you are suddenly racked with agonising pain and you can’t stop coughing.  Sleep is kept at bay by that sore throat, and despite swigging copious volumes of cough mixture you keep waking in pain again.

And it is the same with whatever minor ailments one suffers.  So why is it that our bodies are our worst enemies and the sleep we desire,  and which might actually help to heal us is broken time and again by these exaggerated aches and pains.  At the moment I have a niggling pain in my upper arm; it started a couple of days ago, and during the day I hardly notice it, but at night it is so painful, whichever side I lay on I am conscious of it and even flat on my back my brain is full of the pain receptors flashing away.  I have resorted to ‘deep heat’, hoping that this might work and at least I will get some sleep tonight, even if the smell is pretty awful.  Often when I cannot sleep, toothache or sore throat or whatever I eventually get up and make myself a cup of tea and try to read.  Funnily enough, sitting propped up in bed with the light on I often do nod off, only to be woken in an hour or so as I have slipped under the covers and the pain returns.