"And how do you feel?" MindReader says, on his daily lunchtime phone call to me.
"Tired," I said.
"What type?"
I smile.
For there is the type of tired when I haven't had enough sleep. Where thinking feels like wading through mud and waves of sleepiness sweep across me.
There is the type of tired where I have overdone it the previous day and my body feels three times heavier. That's the crawling-to-the-toilet type of tiredness.
There's the tiredness where I feel drunk, where I manage to stumble, unseeing to the kettle. Often results in sitting on the floor while it boils.
There's the constant head-rush feeling that lasts til 3pm on a bad day and then mysteriously disappears. What are you trying to tell me, body?
There's good old chronic fatigue, feeling normal until those warning signs kick in, my vision shifts, and I
have to lie down there and then. Even in Sainsburys.
And then there's - today. When I rolled over in bed this morning and the room span, and continued spinning.
I describe it to MindReader.
"I hope it passes..." he says.
"No, I hope it's not flu," I say. I don't know what happens to people with chronic illnesses who get flu?
I close my eyes, and try to hope.
Labels: illness, MindReader
I pad into the hall and scoop up the post.
A Christmas card, already? I think, as I slide open the silver envelope.
A wedding invitation falls out. My aunt. 20th December.
I put it aside, sighing.
And then I remember.
That's the thing, when something happens so quickly, you sometimes forget it has.
I can probably go to that, I marvel.
I squeal a little, and then buy
this dress, which is the most beautiful dress in all the land, is it not?
Labels: illness
"What can we do tomorrow?" I say to MindReader's brother's girlfriend. It is late on Saturday night. MindReader and I are lying on the sofa, him on his back, me between the back of the sofa and him, my head on his chest. Our earlier debacle in the car is long forgotten.
"Hm," she says. "You could go on a boat tour along the Thames, or you could go to the V&A, they have a war exhibition on."
I wrinkle my nose.
"Or you could go to Hamstead heath, and wonder around."
"Hm," I say.
"Or - Battersea children's zoo's really near here, they let you pet the animals."
MindReader's eyes met mine. I squeezed my hand very tightly on his stomach and my toes curled.
So that is what we did.
Labels: illness, MindReader
I am outside Picadilly Circus tube station and I send a text to BestFriend.
Let me know when you get here. I'm going to browse in some shops X.
It was in Accessorize that my phone died.
I waited by the tube station for twenty minutes. Nothing. Lots of people who looked like her, though.
I went to a Starbucks we had talked about going to. Nope.
I went back to the tube station and sat on the steps and huffed.
I stood by a monument and got asked to take a load of photos for tourists. Honestly, what did we
do before mobile phones?
I had taken an American couple's photograph when the idea hit me. MadFather had BestFriend's number. And I knew MadFather's number.
"I know this is presumptuous," I said, handing the camera back to them, complete with blurry picture courtesy of my photo-taking skills. "But I'm supposed to be meeting my friend, and my battery's died, could I just ring her..."
"Of course," the blonde American with the very nice teeth said. She handed me her mobile.
There is no need, I thought, to tell her the ins and outs of calling MadFather to call BestFriend.
MadFather doesn't answer.
Fuck, fuck, I think, and hand her back her phone. "No worries," I said. "It'll be fine."
The cold wind stirred my coat and I folded my arms, pondering what to do.
A few moments later she was back. "Um, it's for you," she said.
Oh bollocks, I thought. MadFather had one of those services that calls you back randomly. "Hello?" I said into the phone, only it was ringing out. I hung up, baffled.
"Do you want me to pass on a message, if she rings back?" the American said.
Oh God, I thought. "Just say - um, just say Billygean's by the statue!" I said.
Eventually I rang MindReader from a phonebox and cried. He happened to have BestFriend's number randomly and saved the day.
When I got back MadFather asked me why an American woman had told him I was by a statue.
I didn't quite know what to say.
Labels: blonde moments, embarrassing, illness
It is Saturday morning, and we are in London.
I am being Neurotic, in the way that only someone whose body has broken in the past can be.
"There is no other way I can do it," MindReader is saying, his face red and his eyes very blue. "If you want a lift I
have to drop you early."
I know he is being reasonable. And it is better than walking to the tube. But
what if my body... what if I collapse in Central London... thoughts whir around my head, even though nothing of the sort has happened for months. If only because I know the warning signs.
"Fine," I huff. "I'll just go now then shall I? No problem." The words come out full pelt, a hiss, a tantrum, and MindReader grips the steering wheel rather tightly.
"No," he says. "It
is a problem, because I love you and I want to spend my life with you. So can we sort this out?"
The words sooth my burning rage like an ointment.
You're beautiful, I want to say. Only I can't, so I settle for saying nothing and letting myself be held.
Labels: illness, MindReader
It's been ten months since I last saw a train.
The weather is just the same, but the station is totally different. The signs are now
digitial - the next train will be appearing in 5 minutes. Baffling.
The train pulls up. It is pink, and not a Virgin train. Four people next to the windows have laptops. I feel a little like I have been in a coma. Which, in a sense, I have.
I catch the train to Birmingham (and the bus to the station before that), and all the shops have moved. I am a tourist, a visitor as I wander down the dark streets lined with unfamiliar shops. And, if familiar, somehow glossier, more efficient, selling things I hadn't thought of yet.
I see MindReader's blond head coming out of his office. I stride towards him, bags in hand. "Hello!" I say.
"Billygean," he says, his face crinkling up. "You're in
Birmingham."
We get a coffee, holding hands at the venue of our first date, and shop until we
want to stop.
Labels: illness, MindReader
"Make sure you check on the spuds, too," MindReader says, about to close the door. I love that he calls potatoes
spuds.
I am cooking
on my own. My ability to stand up for a while, combined with the restless boredom that only the end of a chronic illness can bring, means I have - shock horror - taught myself to cook a bit.
I say a bit.
"I can't," I yelp.
It's true. The barbecue sauce (containing fennel seeds!
Fennel seeds.) is very complicated. I am chopping fresh garlic, measuring out soy sauce and simultaneously frying onion. I am also de-seeding a chili and roasting vegetables.
Suddenly I am very hot.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the misted-up window. My hair is huge and full of humidity.
"You can," he says. "Just check them every five minutes or so to check they're not - you know - burning." A slight pause, just long enough to indicate perhaps he doesn't like burnt dinners.
"Okay," I say. "Every time itunes selects a new song, I'll check the potatoes."
"Okay. And then toss them a bit, in the olive oil?"
"No. I can check them; I can't guarantee I'll act on it. Okay?" I frantically crush the garlic and throw it in a pan.
He smirks slightly. "But then they might go funny..."
"So I just - toss them?" I say.
"Yeah - just - " he gestures tossing a pan.
"You would toss them. I might turn them all very slowly and autistically. Which I don't have time for."
Radiohead comes on.
"Fair enough."
Labels: baking disasters, illness, living in sin, MindReader
I dash across Birmingham's black streets, slick with rain, my shopping bags banging against my legs.
MadFather and I have started the Christmas shopping early, because MindReader is away tonight, and I was feeling festive and (dare I say) energetic and begged.
"So," MadFather says. "It's November, what's your plan?"
We do this every month. September's plan was to be able to go to a pub if I rested the day before and the day after. October's plan was to be able to go to a pub
every day if I wanted. I now resemble a human being from about 6pm every day, so October has been successful.
I open my mouth to say that I want to be sitting up all day by the end of November.
And then other responses get tangled in my mouth. I remember reading
Things I Want My Daughters To Know in the bath, a wet patch of black ink on my thumb. The mum dies, leaves her daughter a series of letters which I devoured on my side in bed, being spooned by MindReader last night, my eyebrows raising further and further as I thought -
This could be my book.
And so it has occured to me: if I do not write it soon, someone else will.
These are, I think, the last months of my illness, and then, food shopping and clients and dinner parties will take over and it will drop further and further down my list of recent documents, eventually dropping off altogether.
"Well it's National Novel Writing Month," I say to MadFather. "So who knows."
Labels: Dad, illness, novel
Last night, I went to a
house party. With alcohol and other people and not always available chairs! Plus, we "popped into" Asda on the way there. Popped in! Not: went to Asda and lay down all day but: went to Asda
on the way to a house party.
Hurrah!
Me, as a half hearted cat, in that I wore what I wanted to, but added ears and whiskers.
A friend, MindReader and I
I thought you might enjoy a shot of MindReader and I interacting (about why he can't smile for photos)
Labels: illness, MindReader
I walk down the street briskly, having got cash out for the bus. I am on my way to get my fringe trimmed and it is
cold.
I turn the corner and a bitter wind stirs the leaves that line the street. My beautiful new coat swings around my thighs.
I look over my shoulder and see the bus coming.
"Fuck," I mutter.
I break into a run.
I only realise when I'm safely on the bus how significant this is.
Labels: illness
I had forgotten what cities were like.
It is 5pm, the sky darkening to that vivid blue behind buildings. The shops are lit up, not the cold, fluorescent lights of Tamworth but fairy lights and candles in the little boutique windows.
The streets smell of hot dogs and fireworks.
DoctorSister and I have been shopping for
an hour and a half.
I push open the doors of
Lush, my most favourite shop in the whole world. My bags rustle against the door as I push through, and immediately regret wearing a huge coat in the tiny, warm shop.
"Oh oh," I say to DoctorSister, handling a pumpkin and spicy orange-scented soap. "I want to work here and spend all my wages here... sod being a lawyer."
"Lawyer?" A voice says behind me.
Turns out the VeryCampShopAssistant is studying to be a lawyer, too.
"So why haven't you joined FutureLawFirm this year?" he says as I pick out a coconut and vanilla shampoo.
"Oh, I got glandular fever," I say, and then, as his eyebrows raise, and before I can even think about it, I say "I'm fine now."
And, in that moment alone, it is true.
Labels: illness
"How are you then?" MadFather's friend says.
"Fine," I say, when I clearly am not. My nails leave half-moons in my palms.
"Funny, my friend has
chronic fatigue and she looks really well, too!" She says brightly.
"I - er -". I tilt my head to the side. I am beyond being offended. My heart thumps and my mind floats up to sit elsewhere.
Funny, how it happens. A bout of stomach flu (always known to provoke anxiety in me). A handful of MindReader's problems feeling like my own. An icy hand around my heart in the middle of the night.
And then here we are: time raining on, fists clenches, not knowing who or what I am.
Labels: illness
WELL. I am sorry about that. I have no idea what happened. I, too, got the random blank page and began contacting my hosts (who were RUBBISH). MadFather put my ftp details into an ftp thingy (technical term) and it all worked and last night I woke up at 5am and decided to try just... republishing. Et voila! Cheers, blogger.
I have had 66 emails from readers telling me it was down. It's nice to know how much I matter. But WHAT are you going to do when I have to stop blogging?!
My recovery continues. I have now successfully trained body into sitting up most days from about 7pm which means pubs! restaurants! bowling! late night coffees! Most days I can also do one or two things in the day, so, yesterday, I walked to the shop, baked and then went out for a quick shop and a coffee. Some days I feel
almost normal. Some days I don't get it right and my body responds by vomiting. But there you are.
MindReader has some stuff going on that I don't really want to talk about on here, maybe not yet anyway, and it has resulted in a few tearful nights (mostly me, because I am a selfish girlfriend!). It seems as if it has been one thing after another since we started out. Firstly Mike was
quite upset about the whole thing, and then I moved in with housemates and I was unhappy, and then MindReader had surgery, and then I got sick, and then MadFather lost his job and got depressed, and then ... well, I was still in bed ten months later. Life hey? But enough of that, because MindReader is mostly still smiling lots and being sarcastic, I just wish I could wrap him in cotton wool, away from the storms.
I think you're probably up to speed.
Labels: illness, MindReader
I am wearing my
beautiful new skirt and standing in a bar that is playing thumping music. It appears I cannot quite get enough of socialising now I can do it (a bit).
"Billygean!" one of MindReader's friends says. "It's so good to see you."
"I know," I smile, as he hugs me and I remember what people other than MindReader and my very close circle of visitors smell like.
"What
happened?" he says.
I give him a
don't you know? look.
"Oh MindReader's told me bits and pieces - glandular fever - but fuck's sake, ten months!"
I smile. "It knocks some people about a bit. I had to lie down for 6 months. Now I lie down a bit less."
"God. I had skin cancer ages ago. They thought it had spread, but it hadn't."
And I realised it is exactly as
Dooce said. Every crisis you go through can be summed up in three seconds.
I got really sick, and then I started getting better.
And it's true.
Labels: illness, MindReader
"Here's fine," I say and get out of the car, pulling my beautiful new skirt down.
I step out onto the street, and the night lights catch my tights and shine.
Birmingham smells of curries and smog and the smells drift onto my clothes and into my hair.
I get cash out, stride along, call my friend and apologise for always being late.
I catch the eye of an admiring man and smile.
It has been
eight months since I last walked in Birmingham, my home. I had forgotten what my home smelt like.
The man is still staring.
It is at precisely this point that I realise my skirt is tucked into my knickers.
Labels: embarrassing, illness
"I am not going to leave you," MindReader says, "but I don't want to be in a relationship where we fight like this."
"What does
that mean," I say, my voice sharp, like lemons.
His eyes snap open and then close again, a venus fly trap. "Nothing," he says. "Just that I hate this."
"There is a difference," I say, days later, lying in the unusually warm October sun, "between knowing you have to do a good job at work and being warned that you have to do a good job."
"I know," he says, his blue eyes looking dark and velvety. "I didn't mean it like that. I was very upset."
But MindReader doesn't
do upset.
I took a walk today, in the amber, slanting autumnal sunshine. It has been 6 days since I snapped, griped, or guilt tripped. I have been deep breathing, remembering MindReader's scrunched up face, realising it is the illness I am angry with.
All the leaves are turning. Red ones, like flags against the sharp blue sky, yellow ones with singed red edges like embers glowing.
And, as they change, it is exactly as if I am slowly changing with them.
Labels: illness, MindReader
"Billygean!" a message flashes up on Facebook.
It from someone I went to school with. I vaguely knew him, until he dropped out to go to juvenile jail.
Told you my school was rough.
"Long time no speak," he types.
"Yes..." I type back, wondering why someone I exchanged two words with when I was 14 is typing at me.
"Looking for a lawyer and hear you're one," he types.
Ah.
"I'm probably not your woman," I type back. "On a bit of a sabbatical..."
"C'mon," he types back. "I'm up for affray and GBH in the magistrates court tomorrow, what am I looking at?"
I know the answer.
I smile, and begin to type. At last.
Labels: illness, law
HomeFriend's daughter is chatting away. She has been travelling, and wears associated
pashmina, bracelets that tinkle, and baggy trousers. Oh to be 18 again.
Her friend apparently fell off a waterfall in Nepal and broke her leg.
"Plus we went to a rave last week in Cambridge," she is saying. "My friend went on her crutches."
"I thought she wasn't weight bearing?"
HomeFriend says, sipping her tea.
"She's not. But it was - like - not
sidetrance, it was more jungle so more chilled out. So she just held on to the speakers."
I glance sideways at
MindReader. "I feel old," I whisper, and he squeezes my knee.
"
MindReader did law,"
HomeFriend says, and I feel my spine stiffen.
"Oh yeah?"
HomeFriend's Daughter says. "How is the whole law thing? I'm not exactly looking forward to it."
I open my mouth, and then I look from her to him, and back again, and close it. My neck goes bright red, and the red creeps into my face.
"Oh," he says. "It's okay, peaks and troughs."
I sit next to him in silence, looking at nobody, my eyes fixed on a point in the middle distance. Tears prick my eyes.
MindReader says something more about the workload but I have stopped listening. There is something in his shoulders, his very still hand on my leg that understands.
But still.
"
Erm, excuse me," I say, and leave the room.
Labels: illness, MindReader
"So what was the best bit of your weekend?"
MindReader says. We went our separate ways for the weekend in aid of football and
girly chats respectively.
He rolls over and pulls me towards him. Behind him, the sun is setting, gingery-pink. We may or may not have been in bed for the last three hours.
"The best bit was at the Safari park..." I say. "A huge deer stuck its head in the car.
MadFather had been telling me to keep the food box away from the animals cos they'd eat it. So I stuck it between my legs and the deer - like - lunged at me and grabbed the box from between my legs. So then
MadFather yelled
noooo and started a tug of war, and drool was going all over my legs and ears were flapping around the
rear view mirror..." I start laughing.
"
MadFather's ears?"
MindReader says.
Me (with newly dark hair!) and BestFriend
Labels: illness, living in sin, MindReader
The
bus and I became acquainted early last year, when it was always late and always raining.
I waited for it in Spring rains, when I didn't know what to do about MindReader, and during Summer sunsets, when the world was glittering again.
I got the bus again today, I have sort of missed it :)
Labels: illness
That's the thing about being ill. People find it interesting.
MindReader and I are on our first night out with his friends since December. He is parking the car whilst I totter down an alleyway with his friend.
We have been to three pubs.
Three pubs! I am wearing stilettos, and make up and do a pretty good job of impersonating a human for four hours a day.
"You gonna come out with us more now then?"
MindReader's friend says.
"Yep," I nod, trying to convey 8 months of wanting to in a single gesture.
"Been a bit of a nightmare, has it?" he says, in typical boy fashion.
I nod again.
We are at the bar now. A man brushes past me and tells me I'm "fucking leggy", which is strange because I'm not.
I normally tell blokes like this to fuck off. But, you know, I still enjoy getting caught in the rain; it's been too long.
"Are you glad - in hindsight - that you got ill?"
MindReader's friend says as he passes me my orange juice (yes).
I stir my drink.
Some chronic illness sufferers, or former chronic illness sufferers, smile and glibly say they are glad, because they gained new perspective, because they learned X Y and Z. And so on.
To be fair to it, it's made me more interesting, less obsessed with what percentage I got in my Geography
GCSE, and unable to imagine working past 6pm. I've written half a novel, started to learn Italian, cemented my relationship with the love of my life.
But I missed all of March's cold rains and May's blossoms. I was too sick to eat Christmas dinner. It sometimes feels I missed a lifetime of possibilities; of lost handbags and misunderstandings, of tequila and all
nighters, of the spray of sprinklers on my legs.
We sit outside, the last of the summer fireflies dancing on the
Shrewsbury river. It is a spectacular backdrop.
I learnt what true despair is. Not moping, not wallowing. Of clutching my hair, of not stopping myself falling, of feeling time sweep past and pull me under. I have cried a thousand tears for this illness. And I know there will be more. We have come some of the way, but not all of it.
These lessons - they are not worth that. Was there no easier way to learn them?
Eventually, I snort. "Of course I'm not glad," I say. "Would you be?"
Labels: illness, MindReader
"I've had enough," I say irrationally as MindReader walks in through the door.
He makes an mmming noise and presses his lips to mine.
"I've done washing, made meatballs, done ironing and I'm
still bored," I say. "Meanwhile everyone at my law firm are going to court and meeting clients."
He nods, an arm around my shoulders.
"I'm
not having babies. I've done my year's maternity leave. Just - without a baby."
"Okay," he says, slightly unnerved. "I know."
I take a deep breath and ask him about his day. It is getting easier, to hear the familiar legal terms roll off his tongue and not mine. But it is not yet easy.
"Fine," he says. "I got you this."
He hands me a red package.
"Because you said - you said you'd like to learn Italian," he says, "and then maybe we could go there when we're well and you could show me what you've learnt?"
I smile as I unwrap the
Take off in Italian! book and CD set.
"Thank you," I say, unbelievably touched. "This is why I love you."
And slowly, I feel less left behind, and more - on a different path.
Labels: illness, MindReader
"Could you indicate to me which items are gluten free?" I say to the waitress.
"Of course," she says.
"How you feeling?" DoctorSister'sHusband says, and I am touched.
"Well," I say, and I take off my glasses, because only these people around me matter.
We eat three courses. And then move onto a bar. As the nasty disco music thumps through my core I finally feel like a human again.
It is about time.
Labels: Dad, illness
It has been quite a week. After 3 months of misery and unemployement, MadFather has finally found a job. It's temporary and it doesn't quite pay enough, but we're thinking about that in December.
MindReader moved in (good) and started his job (good. for him.). I conveniently forgot what an effect MindReader becoming a lawyer would have on me. It has, selfishly, only served to remind me that my life is not going in the direction it's supposed to be going in. Or indeed any direction.
We went out with MadFather last night, to the pub. As we were leaving, MindReader dropped back and got my bag, because I am forgetful. He handed it to me and slipped an arm around my waist.
"You okay?" He said, pulling me towards him in the middle of the pub.
And for a moment, nothing had changed.
Labels: illness, living in sin, MindReader
"I'm going to bake an apple pie," I say to MadFather. "And - bake my
own pastry."
"Fucking hell," he says, following me into the kitchen.
We do it in three stages, with lying down time for me. And let me tell you, it is very stressful to have to leave a disaster to go and lie down.
But I digress.
The breadcrumbs stage goes okay. If you squeeze the "breadcrumbs" it does become dough but we can't all be perfect can we?
The adding eggs does not go so well. I do not understand the term gradually, and my chronic illness hasn't, as I'd hoped, taught me any patience whatsoever. At the end of the egg-adding (which by the way took lots of concentration for me to add the yolk and not the white) the dough is so sticky that when we put it into the fridge to 'chill' it sticks to everything and when we get it back out again - oh dear God - out come mustard pots and jars of jam IN THE DOUGH.
Cue rest.
Rolling dough obviously does not go well. Dough that is consistency of chewing gum does not "roll".
Am supposed to roll out pastry until twice the size of baking tin, drape over and pat down to form a case.
Just like that.
This reminds me of when my year nine art exam said "draw a person and be sure to get the proportions right!"
I got 29%.
Pastry rips whenever we pull at it. Obviously it does not form a sheet. So. We cut out four rectangles and STICK THEM WITH BUTTER onto the insides of the baking tray. Then we make a base.
Cue rest. And deep breathing. And a text to MindReader which reads "PS. If you mention that I attempted to make a pie today I will deny all knowledge."
The filling stage goes (relatively) well. Soak sultanas in orange juice (?) until plump. Soak them for two hours longer than it said. Sultanas not plump. Nevermind.
Apples which MadFather chopped in advance are VERY brown and resemble CRINKLE CUT CRISPS. Add them anyway.
Time to make a LID for the pastry. Roll out remaining pastry. It is still like chewing gum and does not roll.
I rip up the half-rolled-out "lid" and begin to stick it in lumps and clumps all over the top of the filling.
"What are you doing?" MadFather says.
"I think it is called LOSING MY SHIT."
Labels: baking disasters, Dad, illness
The room is filled with people and laughter. A half full bottle of red wine is on the table next to empty glasses, a huge bar of dairy milk and left over
MindReader's homemade curry.
It has been an eventful evening.
"To you on your engagement," I say to my good friend, clinking my glass with everyone. We toast and sip the wine, it runs, heavy, down my throat. I have missed wine.
I snuggle closer to
MindReader and feel a vague lump in my throat. My life is standing still.
"How's your sister, by the way?" I ask after a moment.
"Oh she's okay, a bit better. She's dumped the twat..."
"That's good," I say.
"I keep telling her she just needs to find someone who's not - fiery - like her. Someone who'll calm her down."
I smirk at
MindReader.
"You know,"
GoodFriend continues, "someone who'll mellow her out and will just take it if she shouts at him."
MindReader clears his throat.
"Sorry," I say. "It's just - you're basically describing our relationship."
Everybody laughs and I escape to the kitchen for a moment to provide more drinks.
MindReader opens a can of cider and pulls me into his arms. "Hello," he says, kissing my nose, my eyelids.
"I'm not sure I've been in love before," I blurt. Such is my way. "Have you?"
He is quiet for a while. I shouldn't have asked. Of course he has.
"Not like this," he says eventually.
And - even including the mind numbingly frustrating illness - I feel like everything in my life is as it should be.
Labels: illness, MindReader
This weekend I have:
* Been to the CINEMA. And, it was such a foreign experience for me that I had to look around to see if normal people sat up straight or rested their heads on the headrests. I don't know what's normal!
* Been to the PUB. For an hour.
* Been SHOPPING and got stuck in a dress. That I then bought. Because I realised it had a zip you could undo.
This is the sort of picture text message
MindReader receives. He was smirking rather a lot when I emerged and bought the dress.
At the pub
At the cinema :)
Labels: illness, MindReader
BestFriend from Law School is sitting opposite me. I have not seen her since results' night over a year ago, where we drank pints of wine and danced with no shoes on.
Since then, she has stroked Lions in Africa, gone tubing in Laos, got her roots done in Sydney, met an American in LA and travelled around Mexico with him.
And I've - well - you know.
"I can't believe this has happened to you," she says, pushing back the beads that adorn her wrists. Her hair has gone bright
blonde.
"Yes, well," I say, "I'm getting better now."
"But still - it's
awful," she says, and it is nice to hear. It is sometimes much better than 'stay positives' and 'but you can do more, now.'
"I know," I smile. "We'll be doing the
LPC at the same time next year too, now," I say.
"God yeah."
"We've had quite different gap years," I say quietly.
"Same result though," she says.
"
Hmm?"
"Oh you know, development, sense of self, emotional progress."
"You think?"
"Definitely," she says, putting her tea down and looking directly into my eyes. "I don't think I could cope with what you've had to. Trust me, you'll be glad it happened one day. Trust me."
And I do.
Labels: illness
"I was telling my Mum about your situation," BestFriend says. "Sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound like you're -
pregnant."
I laugh. "Oh no, it's fine. What were you telling her?"
"Just about your illness, and how MadFather's lost his job and is a bit depressed..."
"Ah," I say. "That."
"Yes. Anyway, she asked whether your mum was around and I was like - can of worms - but basically no, she left ages ago. And she's bonkers."
I laugh again. "True."
"And you know what she said?"
"Hmm?"
"She said it just sounds like you need someone to - you know - look after you. Without anything in return. So you stop feeling guilty."
The sentence is so true that the air stills around it. Tears well into my eyes and spill into the bath.
"In an ideal world," I say.
Labels: illness
MindReader and I are sitting on bales of hay that are probably full of spiders. I am maintaining that while it was me who suggested a day (40 minutes) out at a petting zoo, it was him who saw the lambs were being bottle fed and suggested we go and join in.
"So which boys and girls want to feed the lambs?" the loud and annoying farm lady says.
I exchange a wry smile with MindReader. The phrase
boys and girls makes it slightly difficult to go and join in.
And then. And THEN -
"Who wants to sing a song?"
I am dying inside. This is probably not what MindReader wanted to spend his annual leave doing. What will all the other lawyers say?
"Baa baa black sheep -"
"There's only one thing for it," I say, pulling MindReader up and dashing out of the barn, negotiating lambs and sheep and pushing past toddlers.
Labels: embarrassing, illness, MindReader
MindReader and Sally the dog playing keepy uppies.
MindReader playing frisbee
Bedtime
Cuddles
Usurping my sofa/bed
On a forty minute walk!!!
The man I want to marry
Looks like the 3kgs have gone onto my stomach. Damn empire waist lines
Labels: illness, MindReader
"You need a walk," MadFather says to the dog we are
babysitting. For a whole weekend. It is the best sleepover I have ever had. Scared of horror films? Watch them with a dog! Want to make spilling your breakfast down you funny? Get the dog to clean it up!
It is 10pm and black and raining.
"Coming?" he says, and I contemplate it. I have walked to the shop today, and baked. I shrug.
"Sure," I say, pulling a warm cardigan around me.
I do no wear a coat. Not because it is August and the rain is warm, but because I still am not fully reacquainted with the world and the weather and the idea of getting caught in the rain is still romantic to me.
I grab a hot cookie from the baking tray and venture out with the dog and MadFather.
We see a fox and a hedgehog. The rain and wind pick up, and whip my hair into my face so I cannot see.
The dog poos on a neighbour's garden. I smirk and sink my teeth into the warm cookie as MadFather clears it up.
And there it is. That intangible emotion. Not the ecstasy of being able to do something. Not the intense happiness I feel with MindReader, where seconds rush by like shooting stars. But -
contentment.
Finally.
Labels: illness
MindReader and I are in my local shop. Having WALKED there.
The sole purpose of our visit is to buy me a bar of Galaxy. That's right. It's been 6 weeks, I accidentally consumed some ham with milk in (ham!) and lived, and it's about time I reintroduced something. Besides, my Doctor, having seen my weight gain, thinks it might be gluten. He then did go on to say he wanted me to be 60kg instead of 50kg which I think since I have gained 2kg in 7 months of eating four meals a day and sleeping 13 hours a night, is a bit ambitious.
Anyway. I get to the counter and the woman says, "that's three pounds sixty seven please."
(Okay, I didn't
just buy Galaxy. I also bought other boring things. Like ground almonds.)
I fiddle around with my bag. The problem is not that my bag is huge and all important things drop to the bottom. Nor is it the old chronic fatigue dizziness (which I am pleased about, Glands, please do not think I am getting ungrateful). It was the simple fact that -
It has been about six months since I used money!
I thought for about 8 seconds. Which is a long time when you're at a till, performing a simple task. I gave her £3.50. And then
MindReader had to take it back and add to it. But
from my money so the problem clearly wasn't that I was poor. Which I would prefer.
So that was embarrassing. But OH MY GOD the Galaxy was worth it. Sod my intestines. I'm buying a can of condensed milk next. With
exact change.
Labels: blonde moments, embarrassing, illness, MindReader
I am in JJ's office. I have worn my silver flat shoes and my favourite underwear, because he has a tendency to upset me. And I like to be wearing nice underwear when upset.
I embarrass myself in a number of ways. I utter the following two sentences:
1. "My Dad has exactly the same figure as me."
2. "Is my recovery likely to be exponential or linear from hereon in?" to which he replied, "this is what happens when a lawyer get chronic fatigue."
He also came out with some gems of his own, such as "have you considered Celiac disease and Addison's disease?" And I thought I had gained enough emotional maturity in this roller coaster to nod politely but I haven't, and I said, "
Months ago," like the snooty lawyer I am.
He was, overall, pleased with my improvement, (also that I have put on weight for the first time in about 5 YEARS which is a bit telling on the Celiac front) and the fact that I was significantly less neurotic than last time. By significantly I mean RELATIVELY, since there will always be a healthy dose of neuroses with Billygean.
Halfway through he sent me off to have my blood pressure taken (plumb normal, except the nurse was abnormally relieved to be putting the cuff around 'a skinny arm and not an obese one') and blood samples taken (horrible, but no rash!).
Right at the end, he put down his pen, ran a hand through his fluffy hair and said, "you won't be one of the unlucky ones."
I turned and looked at him. "You've started improving now," he said. "I would bet my private patient income on you being well by Christmas."
I could have kissed him (but I didn't).
Labels: illness
I am in the Post Office. Having WALKED there, oh yes.
I drum my fingers on the counter.
"Yeah so he just said he'd booked this holiday with his mates and - " she clicks her fingers. "Gone."
I raise my eyebrows.
Rubbish boyfriend.
"Put the next one on the scales please," she says.
I must confess I don't really understand the Post Office. The weighing, all the stickers, pushing parcels under the counter, the wet sponge they often push their fingers into. It is a very strange ritual.
I peel off my proof of posting receipt and stick it onto one of my parcels (a beautiful UK size 6 Gingham top that is of course too big).
"No no," she says, peeling it off again. "That's
yours."
I blink. "I thought they needed proof of posting."
"That's what the parcel's for," she says, rolling her eyes. "
That'll be £1.37 then."
"Bargain," I say, looking at the three big parcels I'm posting. I had, irrationally, got £20 out of the cash point, because I have no idea of the value of money.
I look at the form I'm holding and realise with a thud that it is the returns form that needs to go
in the parcel.
"Um," I say. "Sorry - but - this needs to go
in the parcel. Can you - put it in?"
She sighs and begins hacking away at the Sellotape I have plastered the parcel in. "Sorry," I say again as she tugs and rips at the parcel. "I'm really stupid."
"You
are stupid," she says.
Labels: blonde moments, embarrassing, illness
"What are you reading at the moment?" I say to DoctorSister.
It is Friday night, and I am surrounded by family and candles and MindReader. Perfect.
"Oh this book - it's a bit Judy Blume," she says, and I wrinkle my nose.
"Judy Blume wrote some really weird books."
"She wrote
Deennie, which I enjoyed," DoctorSister says. Of course she did. It's about a girl with a medical condition. And if that's not enough it's the same medical condition DoctorSister had, and why she has rods in her back today. There's something you didn't know?
"She
did," I say, and glance at MindReader. It is somewhat of an in-joke between us that I have forgotten how to behave in public. He raises his eyebrows at me. I start again. "She
did write weird books. Deennie used to masturbate with a flannel!"
His head sinks into his hands as DoctorSister's mouth drops open. "I - I don't remember that bit," she says.
Labels: illness, MindReader
"Well I need to buy shoe ties and new razor blades,"
MindReader says over the top of his car, and I stare blankly at him, still in the euphoric stage of appreciating the wind on my neck, and not quite knowing what shoe ties are.
"Okay," I say. "Shall I meet you back at the car in a bit?"
I can tell he's surprised. The last time I went out entirely alone, with nobody to catch me when my legs stopped working, was February the seventeenth.
"Alright," he says, tossing the keys to me which I, of course, miss and drop. The day cannot be completely perfect.
Except it is. I must look like a normal shopper. And then I stop and think that that perhaps means, for this half an hour moment, that I am.
I finger spines of books I'd like to buy and - thank God - gone is the impulse that just because I am sick I can hemorrhage money in order to keep me entertained. Normality is slowly coming back. I do however buy gluten free crisps at a check out because I will never change entirely.
I am feeling audacious, or not sick, so I walk on round to Next, and look at bras and lacy tops that I still imagine wearing to summer parties, a thousand candles glowing like fireflies in my garden as I toast all those who visited me, who let me shout at them, who fended off my emails with graphs attached analysing how long I'd been ill for. Although it is clear I am getting better it is also painfully clear there will be no parties this summer. It is a fact I am surprisingly okay with.
The world becomes real to me again as I carry on around to Boots.
Deodorants are no longer ordered on our shopping list with me vaguely trying to recall the scents of the ones I like. They are real and cool in my hands and all smell quite the same. I buy three. I push my finger into silky foundations and try on lipstick.
I start to feel ill in the children's clothes aisles. Which tells you that I have exhausted all of Boots and am rather bored. Boredom! And not because there's nothing on TV! The day that leaving the house becomes a boring chore will be the day I know I'm well.
I feel I will, though, carry this wonder around me forever. When people who have not seen the dark places I have - not to mention feeling exhausted by lifting their arms up to read in bed - dash about, not thinking, I feel I will always carry a kind of glow, like the glittery eyeshadow I have covered my eyelids in.
I pass a mirror. I look a bit like a clown. I clap a hand over my mouth and realise what matters.
Labels: illness, MindReader
