mostly david ephgrave

Today, the DWP rescinded the PIP I'd been "awarded" for two years - that gave me a semblance of financial assistance and a sense that my health conditions of severe chronic depression, anxiety & vestibular migraine/vertigo were real - despite my providing more evidence than ever. For starters, they decided the detailed reports they'd received from the mental health team I've been under for seven years (including my psychiatrist, therapist & GP) and information on my prescribed medication & ENT analysis of my vertigo was no longer enough and I now required a PIP assessment. Despite expecting my evidence WITHOUT FAIL by a given date and absolute assurance I would attend my interview, they gave me under two weeks notice that I had to get to an appointment in Borehamwood (I don't drive). If I missed it/wasn't available, I had one more strike or my PIP would end. This morning, a letter arrived, telling me "I've looked into your claim ...

I'm struggling a little with my meditation at the moment. For a few years, I've meditated almost daily, though admittedly, I've fallen off a bit recently. Perhaps that's the problem, although I think it's only part of it. While the motivation for meditation's often to calm the mind and ease stress and suffering, most teachers suggest not seeking goals; if a byproduct of your practice is a quieter mind then great, but if it isn't, that's fine too. The aim is to accept what's happening at the present moment and move on.  The reason I do it is to create space; for me, it's a breather. It's so easy to allow things to build to the point where you can't see the wood for the trees, and it's then I tend to step away from what I'm doing for ten minutes or so to restore clarity; it's not about creating false serenity so much as returning to now. Sometimes, distraction plagues your head, and when it does, you're meant to acknow...

Today’s show was my favourite of the run so far, which was surprising, as I felt particularly tired when I got to the venue this morning. I think I’ve reached the point where my fatigue is magnified, purely through being this far into the Festival, plus my vertigo has become more evident over the past few days. Usually the first sign is my feeling anxious before realising the root is actually the dizziness that’s begun to surface, which was exactly how I felt yesterday, which is not surprising considering my hectic work rate; tiredness is one of the biggest contributory factors to my dizziness, which in turn makes me feel vulnerable as confusing signals are being sent to my brain. My walk to the venue this morning wasn’t particularly fun because of this, plus I got there a lot later than usual. I still managed to set everything up in good time, but I wasn’t exactly feeling my best, so it was pleasing that the audience - which despite being pretty m...

Today I went into London for an MRI scan - apparently they don’t have the technology around our parts - which felt and sounded a bit like I was being 3D-printed; that, or I was being sent through the internet via a dial-up modem: let me know if you find me anywhere. The reason for the scan was to try and shine more light on my long-term dizziness, though I’m concerned they may also have noticed my tiny, tiny brain in the process. It was a strange experience, though I used the time to meditate, partly as I thought this would make me less likely to move. Thankfully it only took around half an hour, which was pretty bearable as the noise and sensation weren’t exactly conducive to meditation really. I couldn’t help but think of my dad’s rather extreme visit to Lister Hospital a couple of months ago; a day that started with the police breaking down his door and ended with him being whisked off to Addenbrooke’s by ambulance in the early hours of the morn...

Today was long but productive, even if was filled predominantly with admin. What pleased me most was I managed to do a little work on some material that, while brief, felt promising; at least I seem to be slowly and gently heading in the right direction with it. I’m trying to do just the right amount of tinkering with ideas without working for so long I become stale and frazzled with it, which suits my currently slightly battle-worn brain. My main mission today was to try and settle an issue regarding medication that had been prescribed to me by the specialist I saw about my constant dizziness a few weeks ago , which ran out yesterday, but I couldn’t get a repeat because the write-up for my appointment hadn’t been forwarded to my GP yet and I had no clear record of what had taken place. While all parties concerned were extremely helpful it still took two phone calls to the hospital where I had my appointment, two calls to 111 to seek authorization ...

I had an appointment at the Royal Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital today - which is a subsidiary of the Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes Institute - to look into my ongoing vertigo (which is some kind of John Virgo / Alfred Hitchcock amalgam). It was good to finally have extensive tests to try to get to the bottom of something that affects me almost daily. I first experienced this level of extreme dizziness while working on Dreamboats & Petticoats in the West End, which literally hit me mere minutes from curtain up. All of a sudden, I felt like I was going to collapse, and had to be taken out of the show for fear I would faint mid-performance (which was all included in the price). My GP at the time suggested it may be labyrinthitis, but they never quite got to the bottom of it. The dizziness didn’t pass for weeks, which ultimately led to me leaving the cast of Dreamboats to recover, and ever since then, I’ve suffered long bouts of vertigo so often...

Does anyone else ever feel like they’re walking around in someone else’s clothing or is it just me? (And do you like my mini-dress?) It may be a byproduct of my labyrinthitis, but sometimes everything I’m wearing just feels wrong. When my dizziness is at its worst, my eyes constantly flick from side to side literally all day and all night - and I don’t use my literallys like a hyperbolic teenager - which makes me feel like I’m in the wrong body; it’s like stumbling across a vat of half-set jelly: I'm the epitome of self-aware. It probably doesn’t help that I’ve put on weight lately, but that combined with my vertigo makes everything a little skew-whiff. I only left the house once today to pop to the shop and when I did, my gait resembled that alien in Men in Black who takes up home in that redneck’s body; young Bambi on ice had more grace than me. It must be nice to spend just a few minutes a day not feeling self-conscious; oh, ...

My washing machine decided to die mid-spin yesterday, which is ironic, as my vertigo’s currently so bad I may as well have my head stuck inside it. (If it was still working, but had no water in it; oh, you know what I mean.) To be fair, it had a good innings, as I’ve owned it for seven years (the washing machine and not my head, which has been about my person for thirty-six and counting). I kind of knew the game was up when I did a general wash in the morning, for it to make a screechy rattly sound, the like of which I’d never heard before. Like all pretend adults, I shrugged and told myself it would be all right later, but this was my first mistake; my second was to attempt a jeans wash in the evening for it to decide enough was enough and claim my trousers as its own. I managed to convince it to relinquish them eventually, but now the door’s locked again with a small puddle of water in the drum and nothing I can do about it. (What an exci...

Today I confirmed four work-in-progress dates at next year’s Brighton Fringe in May, thus setting in motion the whole ‘putting together a new show for 2018’ process. At the moment, I’ve no real idea what this show will contain, but the action of getting some dates in the diary is at least a bit of a catalyst. I’ve not been doing much in the way of writing over the past few months as I haven’t really been in the mood for it, but I know I need to start chipping away at new material so I can make the most of the time I still have to try things out; there’s plenty of opportunity to do this, but the sooner I get going the better. I hope I can opt for a similar process to this year, when I managed to get just the right balance between working precisely on it and keeping a light touch; this more relaxed approach made the whole thing a lot more fun than previously, as well as making for a better show (in my opinion). The other thing I did today was...

Annoyingly, after some consideration, I had to cancel tonight’s Leicester Square Theatre show too. The reason for this is my labyrinthitis has come back with a vengeance over the last few days. I’d hoped taking yesterday off would help - it certainly did in the sense I didn’t have to go into London and throw myself about while doing my show - but if anything, I’m more dizzy today than I was then. It hasn’t helped that the last few weeks have seen a lot of staring at my computer screen or my phone, primarily to settle details for Jack Dee and Ivo Graham’s appearance at Mostly Comedy next month. It’s a great coup for the club and we’re both very excited about it, but there’s been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between us, their agent and our venue to finalise details, along with setting up the pre-sale and general sale links for the event so they were all ready to go. That, along with the admin for tomorrow’s show at the Market Theatre and my aborted sh...

My labyrinthitis kicked in with a vengeance today, which is something I could do without. Quite often when it rears its ugly head, it’s the dizziness I notice last and the emotional response I notice first. Around lunchtime today I was overtaken by anxiety. Initially, I assumed this was due to the enormity of what I have to do over the next few days and the more mundane fact that I was waiting for Parcelforce to pick up the parcels I was shipping to Edinburgh. I thought it was just 'The Fear': the moment your body decides to exhibit the nerves you’re subconsciously feeling that haven’t bubbled to the surface yet. Of course there’s nothing wrong with feeling anxious about the job ahead when you have a lot coming up - that’s natural - but it wasn’t until I walked into town to do some shopping and started having problems coordinating my way past dawdling pedestrians that I realised my head was spinning and that was why I was on edge. The most frustrating thing about...

For the past few days I’ve been feeling unusually dizzy, which is very frustrating. I’ve mentioned here before that I suffer on-and-off from the balance-related condition labyrinthitis, which first floored me ( almost literally) toward the end of 2010 when I was in the West End musical Dreamboats and Petticoats. It hit me one night while I was on-stage waiting for the curtain to go up for the first half, when all of sudden, I felt like I was going to collapse. I warned the Company Manager instantly, but there was little time to set about the understudy changes for me to come off; I told him I’d be all right, but eventually had to leave the stage at a subtle moment mid-show, as I didn’t feel I had control of the situation, and could easily faint. It was very frightening at the time, as I’d never experienced anything like it. When I went to the doctors’ they explained to me what it most likely was, but warned me that it could take months to pass. Unfortunately they were righ...