Tag Archives: the boss

Building A Future?

woodUntil fairly recently, I had dreams of taking a Doctorate in Creative Writing.

After the utter implausibility of finally mastering a Master’s through much trial and error (plus a decapitated mouse which appeared in my first, futile attempt at short fiction), I thought, ‘why not?’

I duly collected leaflets about available courses and being a mature student. I scanned blogs of those gone before, downloaded information and looked into funding. I even attended a Postgraduate Student Fair and found myself surrounded by kids I was old enough to parent. But. I could do this?

I can’t.

I’ve read the case studies. Bright-eyed eager (young) people with many, many awards under their belts and obscure research titles to their names. I’ve read the tiny success rates about securing funding and have looked in to alternative sources of funding, i.e. living like a pauper for six years, existing on Super-Noodles and crackers.

I would love to surrender my life to this dream over the next three years, or six years part time as I still have to work. I want to be immersed in writing and carry a notebook confidently into the nearest cafe, flick open a fresh page and jot down suitably astounding and genre-defying remarks.

I can’t.

There’s not much funding out there for a getting-on-for-mature MS blogger who fancies herself as the next Sylvia Plath.

So, I have a brand-new, shiny idea.

After much googling and sending-off-for-information, I have decided to retrain (perhaps) as … a carpenter.

Brimming with excitement, I laid out my life-altering plan to The Boss, aka My One-Time Best Friend over a coffee. After he stopped laughing, he asked why.

Well. After project-managing many building projects, I felt confident that I could carry out such an artisan craft, all by myself. And a training course would merely solidify all that I have learned these last years?

I like the word ‘artisan’ and pictured a future workshop where I would wood-turn and create dove-tails and suchlike. It would be a dusty, arty place, with deliberately mismatched chairs, a Scandinavian name and hand-thrown pottery mugs.

He mentioned that I could already cut architrave, lay floors and use a drill. I was even a passable tiler (praise indeed from The Boss, although I am an excellent tiler, if the space is small enough and I can sit down).

He queried my MS – would I be able to cope with the course? Yes – he could be my helper, if needs be. This didn’t go down so well, so I won’t be telling him when I go for the interview.

What do you guys think? Have I got enough drive to cut it in the World of Wood?

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Simply The Boss …

mugJust when I think my life is bad, The Boss proves me completely wrong.

Not only is he juggling three jobs at the moment, he is also without a van, his phone and his hair.

I’ll explain:

A few weeks ago he was in a crash at a notorious roundabout. Luckily no one was badly hurt and it wasn’t his fault (it was an 84-year old, on his way to his birthday party, poor thing).

Sadly, his beautifully sign-written van (designed by moi) is a write-off and was sent to the Crusher Yard last week – a day of sad reflection for us all.

So he hired an interim van after much grumbling about lack of shelf space and roof rack. Last week he had to sort out the plasterer at one of the jobs, left his phone on the dashboard for a minute (d’oh) and came back to find the van broken into, the phone gone and half his tools as well.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, after sporting a Donald Trump-esque haircut for a while, he went to a new hairdressers and came out with a razor-thin cut, looking like someone I saw recently on Crimewatch.

And finally, to top it all, he’s had to put up with me going through an MS floaty-exacerbation-of-symptoms.

I worry about him.

At work today, I tripped over countless times. I took ten minutes to doze in the corner. All the while, he was on my phone, sorting out a new van, chasing up his new phone and working out which tools have been taken. He collects them as a hobby so this in itself was a monumental task.

Anyway, as I was packing up to leave, he said he’d worked out a plan for the week and ran through it for me. I gently reminded him I was having a blood test on Wednesday and seeing my neurologist on Friday, so wouldn’t be in work those days.

I left pretty sharpish.

As I got in my car, The Teenager sent me a text, ‘Sixth form party tonight, can you iron my jeans? Can I have some money?’

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Ya Flu Sucks …

fluLast Tuesday in work, the boss stared at me in a somewhat odd manner.

‘Oi, Half-Shift, you here or what?’

‘Oh, er. Yes, that colour scheme looks great. White looks fab with, um, everything don’t you think?’

‘Nice, but we’re talking about the roof plans?’

I tuned back in from wherever I was. I felt … wrong.

I left work early with, ‘ta-ra Quarter-Shift’ ringing in my white-noise ears.

At home, I collapsed onto the sofa (a recurring theme) and lay there, dazed (another recurring theme).

Strangely though, I didn’t feel like eating any chocolate. It was probably then that I knew something fairly serious was up.

That night, I crawled into bed and spent hours tossing and turning, covered in sweat and having the strangest dreams. I woke up long enough to cancel two appointments and went back to bed.

When I woke again, I couldn’t get out of bed. I tried. Then tried again. Eventually, I tumbled downstairs and collapsed again on to the sofa. I was feverish and aching.

Hours later, I dressed in yesterday’s clothes and dragged myself off to a chemist. He noted my long list of symptoms and finally told me I was one of the unlucky, ‘Had the flu jab, got the flu’ peeps.

I questioned him closely:

‘And that would explain the aching joints? The insomnia? The nausea? The headaches?’

‘Yes.’

‘And also the feverish dreams?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about the complete lack of appetite? And do you think this might be a lasting symptom (ever hopeful)?’

‘Yes. And, ah, no.’

Right. Panic stations.

I haven’t felt this ill in a long, long time. I can always somehow truck on, but this, this was on a different level. I was reduced to a gibbering wreck. No longer could I hide these symptoms from The Teenager when he found me on the sofa staring at ‘Judge Rinder’ with glassy eyes.

‘Hi! I don’t seem to be able to get up off the sofa. Not MS, just the flu. Nothing to worry about.’

The Teenager patted me on my head.

‘Mum. You know, you’ve always been kinda brave by keeping your MS symptoms away from me. I know that. I’m not like, stupid. But, like, let me help.’

It was hard, but I did. He cleared away glasses and cups, put out the rubbish, tidied up the kitchen and got me juice. He fetched my unread book-club book from upstairs, fed the cat, closed the curtains.

The next two days were a blur of willing myself to get better. Flu seems to exacerbate all manner of MS symptoms, so along with the aching and feeling of being run over, I was coping with more foot drop, bonkers balance and an interesting speech slur.

And now, five days on, I’m getting slowly back to normality. Or something like it.

One thing’s for sure. This has been a terrible year so far – surely I’m due some good news?

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A Grave Decision

yayIf you choose to have Alemtuzumab treatment as I did, you’ve got a one in three chance of developing Grave’s disease, a thyroid disorder.

I got the illness and yet another insert in my medical file.

It’s fine – when I was rapidly losing weight and feeling like I could take on the world with the excess energy I had, it was sublime.

The severe cartoon-like heart palpitations were another matter however, and were sadly followed with beta-blockers to bring me back to earth with a thud.

Since then, I’ve been on varying doses of thyroid meds to calibrate me back to normal. Up a little, down a little.

I had a consultation with an empathic and lovely endocrinologist today who fortunately has a great insight into Alemtuzumab-induced Grave’s Disease.

I’m to stay on the meds for another six months, but the likelihood is I will have to choose between losing my thyroid or becoming radioactive (for a week).

Hmm. I googled, and wish I hadn’t. One post started, ‘so, you’ve elected to have your throat cut – are you aware of the risks?’

I met The Boss for Emergency Talks tonight (long, sorry work saga) and explained my dilemma.

I took a sip of wine and said, ‘and I’ve looked in to it, you know, if I get the thyroid taken out, I could, like, lose my ability to … shout.’

‘Can you go private? I’ll pay.’

Charming.

I asked him how he was, what with his broken arm, dodgy knee and headaches.

That obviously reminded him and I waited as he popped out a few pills from their blister packs.

‘Well ..’

‘Yes?’

‘You know my dodgy knee?’

‘How can I forget, Boss?’

‘Erm, well, the doctor thinks its, well, um …’

What?’

‘Gout’.

Ah.

‘Isn’t that what older people get?’

If looks could kill …

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Right-Hand Woman

armThe boss is suffering.

Not just any old suffering – this is full-blown ‘I’ve broken my right arm – I’m a builder, a builder! – and I’m wallowing‘ kind of suffering.

Add in a lot of cursing and sighing and you get the picture.

We met for coffee before work this morning, as usual; a kind of mini-debrief to go over what I’ve missed as I ‘only’ work part-time.

In the shuffling coffee queue, when I was debating whether or not to have a chocolate twist, I asked him how his arm was. Mistake.

‘Gah. Ah. Ouch. Am in sooooooo much pain.’ He holds his grubby cast up so I could see it. Eww.

‘Have you taken anything?’

‘Taken everything. Nothing touches it. Could you pop two sugars in my coffee and stir it, ta?’

‘How are you feeling, you know, in yourself?’

Horrible. Lousy. D’pressed. Can’t do nothing. Have to shower with my arm in a plastic bag. Dropped my fried eggs on the floor last night. Can’t type. Can’t … do nothing. And the nerve pain. Gah. The pain. You wouldn’t understand.’

I let that one go.

‘What did you do with the eggs?’

‘Huh? Oh, I just somehow scooped them back on to the plate, painfully, dusted them off and ate them.’

Lovely.

Later on, in work, we were having our early-afternoon coffee  and carrot cake, chatting through the project when he suddenly laughed and said, ‘that’s really weird, it’s like we’re one person’.

Hmm. The boss is a good friend of mine, but I wouldn’t go that far.

‘Yeah, it’s like, I’m invalidated, invalided, whatever it is and so are you, so we’re like half a person each. Half and half is, like, one person, innit? We’re down one whole person. S’funny.’

Well. I waited for him to stop laughing, then stopped myself from replying.

I’ve always said laughter is the best remedy when it comes to coping with life-changing events. I have a laugh in work and I know I’m fortunate enough have a flexible, fun, inspiring job, working with my best friend. He was only responding in the same way I do, joshing at himself. Ok, and me, but you know what I mean.

The owners came over shortly afterwards to have a look around and made the mistake of asking how he was.

He held up his grubby cast. I put my earphones in and got on with work.

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