Misery Mates (2010)
Being ill is no fun. And I kno w you can't expect it to be a barrel of laughs, but having a chronic long-term illness can mess up every part of your life. Apart from dealing with the actual illness - and whatever symptoms, medication and fear it kicks up - you can also find yourself suddenly out of work and completely cut off from friends and relatives. It's a time when you realise that some of your friends are just people you once shared an office or a classroom with. One of my former teaching colleagues did send me a very polite e-mail. 'I don't like being around people with your sorts of problems. It's too scary' she wrote, 'so it's better if we just leave it there.' I did keep in touch with one of my work-mates from local radio. He'd phone me now and again and we'd chat about the daft stuff we used to do: the crappy ads for crappy companies and having to deal with the even crappier sales people. Then he went through some problems...