Edward Allen

Dear All,

It has been a ghastly week, a quite ghastly week. My horrid little immune system flared up monstrously at the start of the week making it very hard to walk, and then conveniently I got a really evil little cold just when I was able to walk normally again. Into that mix has been a whole load of weird emotional stuff to deal with from westerners in our community; kindly folks who are “emotionally a little bit strange”; chosing my words with some forethought…

Battling Reactive Arthritis is still utterly tedious, it is a vile thing to get. My good days are very good, my bad days are incredibly bad; within 30 minutes a day can change. My energy reserves are so low. Unfortunately the drugs I’m on sometimes give me insomnia, about one in 5 or 6 nights I don’t sleep at all which doesn’t help. But my key drug, a thing called Salazopyrin, is nothing short of a wonder drug as it has improved my quality of life dramatically. It upsets my stomach every morning, makes me sensitive to sun (my nose is almost always slightly burnt) so of turns me a bit yellow, but it gives me my life back.

Vientiane, in the run up to National Day on 2nd December always gets very spruced up; everything is being repainted and Party and National flags are being hung everywhere. Vientiane continues to develop, with almost all the work done in the dry season which we are now in again. Congestion is a problem, with very few parking spaces, but as it is still a small city getting around town even in rush hour is so much easier than any of the neighbouring capitals. Vientiane remains a very happy place for me, I love how rustic and gentle it is.

Many of the things I hoped to do this week I wasn’t able to do so I’m hoping for a good week coming up. My next hospital trip isn’t until next weekend. It should all be very routine, but the trips are quite tiring. My doctor has been quite wonderful at diagnosing and treating me; only once I got the right diagnosis did things really change for the good.

I won’t go back up country this year, I’ll be back in the UK for some family time just before Christmas and I’m still not well enough before then. I’m giving a lot of thought to moving back down to Vientiane next year, perhaps in the summer. I think I perhaps need to move back down for emotional reasons, though being closer to good medical care in neighbouring Thailand is obviously a consideration too.

Life is still beautiful…

lots of love,

Ned