No news is good news...

I'm still struggling along... but no big changes...

It still hurts to swallow. But all I can say is I've gotten used to it. I cringe every now and then and make funny faces and cough like an old man. But I know it's only temporary.

I'm eating regularly and reasonably well. I'm certainly not eating as much as I used to and not everything I used to. But I am eating three meals a day when possible. It just takes me forever.

Today I actually went out to my local café (Le Madrigal) where I used to eat regularly. I stood at the bar and had a ham and cheese sandwich, as usual, along wtih a panaché (half lager half lemonade). The sandwich tasted fine. But people started staring at me a half hour later when I still hadn't finished it. The beer went down OK. It certainly doesn't taste as good as it used to (yet). The biggest negative part about the beer is the bubbles which bother my throat. They don't exactly tickle. They more scratch ever so lightly. I'm sure English ale, which is generally warmer and flatter, will go down much better. Something to look forward to. However it was just a nice feeling to be standing at my local, eating and drinking like a "normal" person.

I've now finished most of my medication. The only things left are my laxative the morning (too much information?), my sleeping tablet (half) each night and my magic mouthwash.

I am finally, slowly but surely, getting back to work. I'm working maybe 2 to 4 hours a day. It's a good feeling to be cleaning up things on my desk and getting things done. Most of what I'm working on at the moment is my backlog. Five months of accounting, bookkeeping, tax declarations and end of year accounts are not a lot of fun.

My voice still isn't back to a comfortable level yet. People lean over close to hear what I'm saying and my mouth dries up real quickly. But I can at least talk a bit and tell someone what I want or how I feel... whether they want to know or not.

Every day I wake up feeling a bit groggy and with a throat screaming at me for liquid. But like all of these symptoms: this too shall pass.