Silver Lining

Ugh.  Such frustration!

I have a sore back.  You know, it's not dramatic. It's probably a wrenched muscle or a trapped nerve, but last night it was sore enough to give me the "what if it's my kidney?  Should I go to A&E?" angst.  I didn't, obviously.  But I did go to the GP today.

You probably remember the herniated disc, last year.  When I didn't really talk about my GP experience.  But after the London to Brighton bike ride, I'd obviously done myself a damage.  My right hand stopped working, which is a problem when you're right handed.  My neck hurt.  I had shooting pins and needles down my right arm.  Having left it 3 or 4 weeks to see if it was just one of those sporting things which gets better on its own, I went to the GP.  I saw the woman doctor, which is usually a plus sign for me.  Without leaving her chair, touching my hand, asking me to take my coat off so she could see my arm, she wrote me a prescription.  Well, two.  One for a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory.  Fair enough.  And one for temazepam.  Now, I'm the first to admit I'm a little neurotic, but really!  So I pushed that prescription back across the desk to her, and told her I didn't want it.  She looked puzzled, and rather affronted and asked why not.  I explained that (a) I have lived with addiction - albeit not my own - for long enough, and have no wish to open my door to it again; and (b) I am a single mother to 3 children, and it is therefore important that I am as compus mentis as possible in a crisis.  My understanding of tranquillisers is that they don't walk hand in hand with compus mentis, and therefore I felt it was irresponsible to take it.  Oh, don't be silly!  She laughed.  No, no.  I'm deadly serious.  I replied.  And promptly burst into tears, because I was cross.  I wouldn't dream of giving you an addictive dose!  She snorfled.  I won't dream of taking *any* dose, I sniffed.  We pushed the prescription back and forth across her desk between us for a couple more sallies of this before I left her office, leaving the tranx script behind me.

Later, I spoke to my Uncle who is a general surgeon and a bigwig at the BMC.  He was outraged, and rang the GP to press for a more sensible treatment, involving referral to a neurosurgeon as a matter of urgency.  The rest you know, and suffice to say that my hand is still not what it was before the bike ride, and I'm told it never will be again.  That's not the GP's fault in any way; I should have gone to someone more quickly.  But tranquillisers were never going to be an appropriate treatment regime for a suspected herniated disc, and delaying the treatment process by the length of time it would have taken her to realise this would have run the risk of even more lasting damage...

What has this to do with my sore back today?  Well, nothing per se.  Today I went in simply to get the kidney angle investigated.  Same GP (my fault.  I should have checked.).  I sat down, and said "I have a sore back.  I suspect I'm being a bit feeble, but I want to check it isn't my kidney".

"Where do you feel it?"  She asked

I rubbed my right lower back, just over the kidney area.  "Here.  It's a sharp pain, constant but increasing on an inbreath.  It's difficult to move away from."

"Are you having any discomfort when you pee?  Or open your bowels?"

"No"

"OK, well I'll give you something that will help, and if it's not any better in a week, come back"

Again, no move to actually *look* at the area, much less examine it.  No palpation.  No urine dip.  No nothing.  She tappety tapped on her keyboard, announced that she would also renew the prescription for my psoriasis ("Do you want to look at it?"  I asked.  "No, I can see you have a long history of it" she responded), and handed over 3 prescriptions.

I didn't look at them until I was out of the door.  One psoriasis drug (larger tube.  Good).  One non-steroidal anti-inflammatory.  And Diazepam.  For fuck's sake!!  So I went to the chemist, gave them the first two scripts to fill, and asked them to destroy the third. 

Now I've done a search on diazepam to see what prescription guidelines there are: it seems she's allowed to give it to me for muscle spasm, as long as she doesn't give me more than 4 weeks' worth.  But she's supposed to tell me it makes me drowsy (has a half life in the bloodstream of 8 days, apparently!  8 days!!!  Jesus.  I'd be catatonic for a fortnight!).  She's supposed to tell me not to take it if I have kidney problems.  Hello.  That's what I went to see her to find out!  She's supposed to find out if I'm on other drugs, or breastfeeding, or or or....  not just push a script across a desk without a word.

So, after the chemist I went to the other local practice to see if I could re-register there.  They're closed to new patients at the moment, but suggested I write to the practice manager, since I live so close. 

And I'm writing this in lieu of a letter to the GMC or the Family Practitioner Committee or similar.  I think it's so irresponsible!!  Particularly after I'd forcibly expressed my opinion the last time she tried to prescribe me them!

OK.  That is now officially off my chest.  I wonder what the rate of tranquilliser addiction in Whitnash is....

The beginning

For the last 9 months or so I had been questioning the degree of the (very comfortable) compromise that was my relationship with DBO, quietly.  Asking myself did I love him?  (I'm fond of him.  Not the same thing.)  Could I live with him?  (No)  Should I be in this relationship (well, he adored me and I was very spoilt and it certainly did me no harm.  Path of least resistance, I’m ashamed to say).  But it was becoming increasingly apparent to me that it wasn't enough.  I’m ready to settle down again.  I want my life to be settled and happy.  I want to be in a relationship that is permanent.  I want to be wholeheartedly committed to someone I love, someone I'm proud to be with; someone I can look up to and respect and value.  I want someone who is my intellectual equal; someone who will be my partner practically, emotionally, sexually, intellectually, spiritually.  I want to be able to seize opportunities and follow them with someone who is equally excited by them.  I want to be able to do things on a whim, just because I can, with someone who also finds that thrilling.  I want to live with someone who grabs life with both hands, and who expects me to do the same.  I want to be married again.  I want security and contentment and to be settled.  And when it comes down to it, DBO didn't meet enough of those criteria. I like him, I'm fond of him, but I couldn't live with him and I certainly couldn't marry him.  And that decision was easy.  The realisation was comfortable.  It didn't take long - I think it was in the back of my mind for a long time.  And as soon as I took it out and looked at it, I had to act on it - it would have been unfair to me and cruel to DBO not to.  So I ended the relationship.

 

And then I waited to be sad.  Waited to feel empty, or bereft, or as though I'd made a colossal mistake.  And I waited.  And I waited.  And all I felt was relieved, and then calm. 

 

So in June, I joined an online dating agency, on the basis that it would take me months and months to find someone I liked but it wouldn't hurt to start looking, and having some fun!  And I chatted online with a dozen men, and met four or five of them within weeks (because I'm a floozy!).  I went for coffee, I went for drinks, I went salsa dancing, I went walking, I went to the cinema, I went out for meals.  I had an enormous amount of fun.  HT was one of the first men I met, and I knew I liked him right away.  He's challenging, and entertaining and exciting.  But I carried on meeting up with other people - I wanted to play the field yet and anyway, it was going to take me months and months to find someone I liked, remember?  We carried on meeting, once a week or so, and by the time I'd seen him 4 times and we'd planned things to do in the following month and the month after that, but none of the others had made it beyond 2 meetings, I had to admit there was something in it.

 

The clincher was when we went to Liverpool.  We went to see the Klimt exhibition at the Tate - we'd had a conversation about art before we met up, and he'd remembered various bits of it, and saw the Klimt show being reviewed on TV, and that was it; we were going.  We had a magical time in Liverpool- a brilliant day wondering round the city, lots of really important conversations, a mind-blowing art exhibition.  We have so much in common.  We think alike; we have the same attitudes to things.  We have similar backgrounds (colonial families, powerful fathers).  We're both single parents, so we understand that about each other.  We like the same music (the first time I went to his house, I was looking at his CDs going "oh, I have that.  I have that.  And that.  I *love* that.  Oooh, I've got that."  Thinking to myself, this would be a really good music collection, but he doesn't have any Bowie.  Then I sat on the floor, and discovered the Bowie shelves. Those giggles took some explaining...).  We have similar tastes in art.  He walks, runs, cycles.  He's impulsive.  He's adventurous (currently in Tanzania, climbing Kilimanjaro).  He's open minded - thinks my reiki is new age bollocks, but having expressed that opinion isn't going to reiterate it every time I mention it and is even quite happy for me to practice on him.  We more or less agree politically.  And if we have a discussion, it doesn't matter if I don't agree with him - he won't tie himself in knots trying to prove me wrong.  So Liverpool was 4th July, and we've seen each other virtually every day since, and it's all rather wonderful.  Very intense.  He’s ticking all the boxes at the moment.  And for the time being, he’s in Africa, so we have a fortnight to reflect.   In a fortnight, he will come home and we’ll know how it is between us; how we feel.  It’s both exciting and scary.  And I miss him.

Sissy came to stay, bringing the nibling with her!  Hurrah! 

It's the first time I've spent a significant amount of time with a baby who isn't my own; where I don't have to get up in the night to feed and change nappies; or change nappies at any time of day.  It could catch on, I have to say!  Sissy must be encouraged to breed more!

The nibling is a love, of course.  Nearly the sweetest baby that ever there was in the whole world, ever.  If I hadn't had any of my own, he would hold the undisputed crown.  Even Dan and Daisy loved him.

We went to a farm park, where mostly the nibling screamed.  To be fair, it isn't the very best farm park in the world.  And he had a belly ache, as it turns out.  A combination sufficient to make the most laid back amongst us scream, you have to admit.  Dan and Daisy thought it was pretty cool, though.  Dan lay in a long line of children on the damp grass, and a European Eagle Owl swooped low over his head; low enough to ruffle the curls.  I thought that was pretty cool, too.  They both panned for 'gold', but were forced out of the medal line when I spotted them bickering and jostling the other miner 49ers.

I finished the Easter quilt - it is truly beautiful.  I suppose I should add some photos to somewhere....Ok, here it is.  Oh, and I made me a website, too :-)

It was good to share some time with Sissy.  We haven't spent a significant chunk of time just the two of us in ages.  It's nice to be around someone you don't have to explain stuff too, and you can just relax.  And she has even worse wind than I do, too, which is always good!

I raced home today, pitting my wits against the storm clouds and the sunset.   The arcing canopy of trees down Gibbet Hill  - still wearing their skeletal winter clothes - were starkly lit, their trunks deep, heathery purple and their tops flaming burnt umber.  The  occasional smattering of cherry blossom stood out in stark contrast - a tinted negative of the road.

Onto the main road: storm clouds lowering and roiling behind me, the sky ahead laced with seductive traces of orange, caressing the fields and flirting over the tops of the trees.  It was a strange light for the road: bright and summery above and ahead, but headlights cutting through the gathering gloom at eye level.  A man stood on the verge, part of a gang clearing overhanging branches.   His high-vis jacket was stained to a murky-vis in the twilight.  He looked spectral; an aura marking the spot of the day's labour, flashing past in peripheral vision.

I turned east, onto the motorway, and the sky swapped over.  Driving into the gloom, I had to dip my rear view mirror to avoid being dazzled by the orange netball, hovering around the rim of the horizon before dropping below.

I beat them both home; turned on the lights in the kitchen, and watched the house become gradually enveloped in the greying quilt of the storm.  Raindrops fell fatly on the window, as I opened a bottle of wine.

If Klimt were a cubist

I woke up on Friday with an urge to sew.  Clothes, preferably.  Only, by the time I got down to the shed I couldn't be arsed to trace a pattern, mark a pattern, select some fabric, dye some fabric, all before I got to cut.  Cut, cut.  It's all about the cutting, you know.

So I chose a fabric I bought on ebay last year for no particular purpose.  It's loud and brash and I've never known what to do with it.  Cotton, with some lycra in (which has made keeping the edges under control interesting, at times...).  I grabbed it hungrily off the shelf and headed for the quilt shop.  Once there, I bemused the nice lady by selecting the loudest, leariest palette of fabrics we could find, and headed home again.

Simple squares were my aim.  Squares within squares, perhaps, to make it a bit more interesting.  So I began to cut my 2 1/2 " strips.  2  1/2" x 6 1/2", and 2 1/2" x 2 1/2".  I wanted a  nine patch of the feature fabric, and then the feature to figure in two squares of each of the other fabrics.  And then I would just mix up my complementary fabrics.  I did no design work, little preparation.  Just cut and stitch, cut and stitch.

It nearly came undone when I had enough squares (63, since you were wondering) and couldn't find a way of setting them that didn't give me a headache.  Eventually I settled on purples and pinks round the feature fabric, greens in the opposite diagonal corner, and yellows everywhere else.  It went together well, but needed a little je ne sais quoi.

A brief and unsuccessful hunt through the rack for some devore velvet I could swear I have somewhere led to a piece of silk velvet.  About 1m.  Undyed.  OK.  Rummage through the dye drawer.  Marine violet could be interesting.  So marine violet it was.  Prewash the fabric to clear out the preservative and dressing on it, then sling 3 tsp of dye into the drum of the machine, 4 tsp soda ash and 250g of salt.  Knock it all through the drum, bung the wet fabric in, and set it off at 60 deg.  Worked a treat and I had a lovely, lush, imperial purple piece of velvet at the end.

Emboldened, I decided to dye some cotton for the back.  Didn't bother to prewash this, though, and upped the quantities a bit (3m of fabric vs. 1m of fabric).  Put the fabric in dry.  Didn't knock the dye through the drum, either.  Result?  A slightly unevenly coloured length of teal cotton.  Very pleasing.  Not obviously uneven, like batik, but pleasing variations of shade across the piece.

Anyway, this quilt top has flown together - though poor DBO may disagree - and I'm about to start work on piecing the back - teal cotton with a chiffon strip, to pick up the sophisticated silk theme.  Oh, there's pictures down there in the quilt album, if you want to look!

By way of light relief, we went to Oxford last night to see Eels.  It was an incredibly good gig - the 'support' act was a film about Mark Everett's father who turns out to have been a groundbreaking quantum mechanic.  Surprisingly touching film, too, though DBO thought the science was a bit 'light'.  Odd, that.  I'd've thought quantum mechanics could easily be grasped by the average joe on the Oxford street!  Anyway, the set was incredibly good.  Stage dressed like a garage jamming session - rugs and random instruments lying about; and E and Chet on their own moving from piece to piece.  It's an incredibly good band with a hugely eclectic range of music.  They did the obvious (well, most of the obvious): Souljacker pts 1 and 2; Novocaine for the Soul; My Beloved Monster.  But not Susan's House or Mr E's Beautiful Blues.  Very moving version of It's A Motherfucker.  And a lovely version of the one whose name I can never remember - I'm Going To Stop Pretending??  But the show stealer was Flyswatter.  It's one of my favourite songs anyway, but they did a real WOW performance of it.  So now it's going round my head: Field mice, head lice, spiders in the kitchen...

Brilliant night.

Driving to work today, I was held up by some cows, who had escaped from an animal carrier after it crashed into the central reservation, and decided to go for a stroll down the motorway.  On the way home, I tried to pinpoint the spot where it happened.  After all, if something held me up for 45 minutes on a 10 minute stretch of road, there might at least be a sirloin steak left to show for it, no?  So I paid attention to the verges and hard shoulders.

It's the time of year for feeling out of sorts, it seems.  While I am torn between looking out and looking inwards - cross eyed soul - the road verge is showing its true colours.  Too early yet for the fresh green of leaf bud, and too late for the bareness to look arty, the roadside is a camouflage splodge of khaki olive green and brown, with areas of sere black.  As I passed the first, I thought there'd been a burnout - the ground, grass, trees and branches covered with black soot, to about 3 trees deep.  A couple of hundred yards later, the same again; and then again and again.  It seems cars burn out at regular intervals along the A46.

Or not.  It's just dirt, of course.  The accumulated crap thrown up from the wheels and spewed out of the exhausts of a couple of thousand cars, vans, wagons over the winter months.  Thinking about it, there's less surprise in the level of filth in the dark areas - rather more surprising are the areas which have hung onto their minimal levels of green, despite the roadfilth.

I cannot work out, this week, whether I'm a green bit or a bit of burnout.

I wish I could train myself into some more appropriate expression of anger than tears.  It is confusing for the people I'm angry with; I *say* I'm angry, but I'm crying so I must be upset.  Sometimes this works in my favour, because they want to make me feel better so we can deal with the anger-making thing as a solution to my perceived upsetness.  Mostly it doesn't work in my favour at all - it makes me feel frustrated (incapable of properly expressing my anger); humiliated (I don't *want* to cry in front of this person who's made me angry  - it takes the power out of my emotions and argument); belittled - by myself!!; and ineffectual.

Today, I went to the hospital to get the results of my MRI scan, and discovered that the neurosurgeon sent the results to my GP in November.  November!  That's 3 months ago!  The scan showed that the herniated disc is resolving itself and no longer a problem.  However, there's a cyst on my thyroid which needs explanation.  You'd think the GP might have liked to mention this to me, wouldn't you??

Turns out, also, that the GP should have referred me for nerve conductivity testing so we can locate where the problem *is*, since it appears it isn't in my neck.  The neurosurgeon was expecting me to have the results of those tests today.  But I've never been referred for them. 

The neurosurgeon also wrote to my GP in January, saying I should be referred to a shoulder specialist.

Today, then, was largely a waste of my time, and the lovely neurosurgeon's time.  He looked at what my hand does now, compared with what it did in September when I last saw him.  I have more movement in the little and ring finger than I had then, but still not a full range.  I have recovered strength, but still not full strength.  The muscles of my hand are showing signs of wastage, which is now unlikely to recover, in his opinion.  As I am right-handed, the base of my palm below the right thumb should show significantly larger muscle bulge than the left hand.   It doesn't.  Both hands are the same - the right may be slightly smaller.

On the upside, it's good that the disc problem is better. 

On the downside, I am very, very pissed off that the GP hasn't contacted me!  I went straight there after the hospital and asked why they hadn't contacted me.  They say they haven't received the January letter, but they have had the MRI results.  They didn't say whether they were planning to talk to me about the cyst, but said if I ring them tomorrow they'll make me an appointment tomorrow.

I'm not going to ring them tomorrow; I want to go to work.  I'll ring them on Wednesday.  I hope by Wednesday I'll have worked out a way of not crying when I speak to the GP.  I don't want her to think she's upset me.  I want her to know I'm bloody angry with her!

Donkey day

I made myself a working from home deal today; if I started early, I could take a break mid-afternoon to do something I enjoy, and then come and finish off my work this evening.

So I worked from 7.30am - 3.30pm. 

Then I finished this:

After tea, I came back to the computer and finished the business plan I've been working on.  And now the children are on their way to bed, I will baste the quilt, ready to finish this weekend.

And in all that, I've been at home, with the kids, and able to be interrupted for random chats about hamsters and playstations. 

It's about perfect, for a working day.

Three colours contradictory

Enrolling student one:

I have enrolled anyway [including signing a statement to agree to pay all her academic fees for the year], but I wanted to tell you I have deferred my entry until 2008.

Enrolling student two:

I'm a second year PPE student.  I want to know if there's any reason why I can't re-enrol for my course this year, and at the same time enrol in a new full-time course in Denmark.

Me to Moo:

I've bought you a packet of condoms to take to University with you.  I'd prefer it if you didn't use them.

Has the world gone mad???

When he said the words, they were of little more than academic interest.  Nice to have a name for it.  Not a trapped nerve, after all, but a ruptured disc.

It wasn't until he started the nerve tests that it began to sink in.  A ruptured disc?  What does that mean?  Where in my neck? What do we do about it?  The nice neurologist man banged me with hammers to test my nerve reflexes, hummed a tuning fork against my ankles, stuck pins in my arms, and scraped a pen down the soles of my foot.  Resulting squeals entertained the waiting hordes...

I know where, now.  If I touch it with my left hand, I can make pins and needles shoot down my right arm as if I've banged my funny bone.  What we do is get an MRI scan.  This begins to feel like a big, important thing.  Not just a silly old trapped nerve.   I have to sleep in a soft collar, with only one pillow, and adjust my computer and TV.

It's not until I speak to the physio this morning that I have it all worked out, though.  The scan will show us the direction of the rupture.  On the plus side, the fact it's quite high in my neck means it only has to bear the weight of my head - lower down my back, and there would be much more of me stacked up on top of it.  The other side of that, though, is that if the rupture spreads inwards to compress my spinal cord, well.  Then it becomes more serious.  We all think it's a sideways rupture, though, to have affected only one arm.

Surgery is back on the agenda, though it may be containable with an injection.  I'm sure it will be containable with an injection.  I don't want to have surgery on my neck.   

It's difficult to sleep with a collar on, and so I'm very tired, now.  Tired and sore, and therefore disproportionately frightened and emotional.  Ruptured discs are things that, in my head, only happen to older people.  Guess I'm all growed up now, then?!

Experiments with booze and painkillers are on the agenda for this weekend.  Sleep is becoming an imperative...