Hypnos was the Greek God of sleep. Nyx was the Greek Goddess of night. They had a son - Morpheus - the God of dreams.


From this Greek word - Morpheus - was derived the term "morphine". Repeated studies have concluded that no substance on earth is more effective superior to morphine for the suppression of pain.

Having been given it at the hospital, I can agree with this. I can also see why it is derived from the Greek God of dreams - it puts you totally out of it. A nurse handed me a syringe (no needle) full of morphine liquid and told me to "get that down you". An hour later, an Osteopath with the bedside manner of Joseph Stalin told me that I didn't need an emergency operation so I can go home now thank you very much. The fracture clinic may wish to operate, but that's their job - not hers.

The jaggy bones - 3 pieces of them - in my shattered clavicle aren't life-threatening, and I haven't punctured any lungs. If the sharp bit of bone sticking up like a stalagmite decides to poke through my skin, then that would obviously be an emergency. Wow, thanks.

When I asked her questions about my shoulder, hat I should be doing and the like, she was very flippant about having to wait for the fracture clinic to get in touch. She prescribed Co-codamol for the pain and then, her extremely valuable 30 seconds having been wasted sufficiently, turned on her heel and departed.

Back in March, I developed this weird infection - I couldn't swallow anything. The swallow reflex just stopped working. We believe now that it was an infection caused by day after day riding in the freezing cold in wet gear.

Anyway, I went four days and couldn't eat. I lost weight - not that I have much to lose. Coincidentally, I had stopped taking medication (an anti-epileptic mood stabiliser) a few weeks before. One of the potential side-effects of this medication is a condition called tardive dyskinesia - spasms in the facial muscles. Perhaps related, perhaps not.

Anyway, I ended up in a doctors surgey in a walk-in centre in Southampton. The busy doctor got his prescription pad out and asked what I wanted. Me, in tears, told him that I wanted somebody to help me. He told me to drink lucozade, since I obviously just needed calories. I told him I couldn't drink either. I explained that I was bipolar, and that change things a little. He told me that "people like you are good at making accusations", and fetched a nurse. He then proceeded to give me the same message, this time in front of the (very very uncomfortable) nurse who was acting as his witness.

Me, I was absolutely dumbstruck. This guy is a doctor, and he's acting like a lawyer. I phoned The Missus, and she came down to the surgery - to act as my witness. This was getting daft now.

Time after time, the prescription pad came out - "what do you want me to prescribe?". Time after time we told him that we didn't know - I cannot swallow. The Missus asked if he had even looked at my throat. The doctor took out his wee scope thingy and a lollipop stick - he'll have a look now. One look, declared that it was some kind of virus that was going around. Now, what is it we'd like prescribed? Out came the pad again.

I called the Mental Health Team from my mobile. I explained that I couldn't eat, and that there was a fair chance my mood would completely crash as a result. They told me to get A&E immediately. Off I went.

I was rushed through A&E - straight into the major trauma unit - and was on a glucose drip within an hour. I was so dehydrated that they were unable to take blood. Not bad for a guy who, less than two hours before, was told to go home and drink Lucozade.

Is it me? Do I attract bad medical karma? Is it, as I sometimes suspect, that when people find out you have one of those illnesses, then you go into a slightly different category?

So I went back to th GP today. The Co-codamol, I tell him, doesn't work. I am in a lot of pain. Excruciating pain. Like somebody is trying to cut their way out of my shoulder - from the inside - with a chainsaw and a couple of sticks of dynamite. It's not just when I move - it can happen if I breathe too deeply. I was sick as a dog last night - the tablets they gave me can cause digestion problems - and the retching nearly killed me.

The doctor stepped up the medication to give me something called Tramadol. This is an opioid, available over the counter in a lot of countries, and is about 10% as potent as morphine. He said he'd give me 2 days worth - see how I get on. What he didn't say - what always remains unspoken - is that they will never prescribe to a bipolar patient a quantity of drugs on which an overdose is possible. Bipolar patients cannot be trusted in this way - imagine the lawsuit.

When I got the prescription from the chemist, the maths didn't add up. I have to take two of these, four times a day. That's 8 tablets per day. I was prescribed 8 tablets in total. The leaflt in the tablets (which I always read) tells me not to take them more frequently than every 12 hours. Something is not right here, so I called the surgery for advice.

There was a woman called Anne who I met in hospital. She had been sectioned. She was bipolar, and had taken an verdose of Lithium. Overdose = instant section. Open-and-shut case you'd think.

Not quite. She had been prescribed 20mg Lithium tablets, to be taken two at a time. The chemist dispensed 200mg - he had read the prescription wrong. She took them for two days - ten times the dose - without realising. When she collapsed and was rushed to hospital, she was sectioned - the burden of proof is always on the mentally ill. "Do you see things that aren't there?" - I rest my case.

Despite the intervention of her GP, who produced a letter from the pharmacist explaining the cock-up - she spent 6 weeks in hospital against her will. Because she refused the medication they wanted to give her (adjunctive medication - it makes you catatonic) they gave it to her forcibly. Sectioned patients have no rights.

So I am back up to the GP tomorrow - the Tramadol does not work either. I don't want morphine, but it's the only thing I've had since coming home from Morocco that seems to work. What I want - what I need - is the fracture clinic to get into gear and pin this bone together.

The bone is in 3 pieces - all of them jaggy - and the bit snapped off in the middle is just floating around. There is about a 1-inch gap between the pieces of bone that are atyached to anything - if there was ever a bone needing a pin, then its this one.

Martin rang earlier to see howI was doing. He liked the video, but said it was a bit mournful - he was waiting on the picture of a headstone at the end of it. The new AJP PR3 got a brilliant review in Trail Bike Magazine - there is a real buzz about how you can get so much 4-stroke power in a bike weighing less than 90kg. Any enduro rider who has ever had to drag their bike out of a ditch will testify to why you want the lightest bike possible.

The AJP PR3 (and the new PR5) will be at the Dirt Bike Show on 6-9 December. Please take a minute to say Hi to Martin, and you can wet yourself at his tales about trying to get a 125cc 2-stroke over 3-feet-high tree trunks at the Midwest Enduro on Sunday.

I may well be there too, but I am under instructions to stay away from the vendor stands if I am wearing the sling. For some reason, bodily injuries are not great adverts for bikes.

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