Category Archives: Daily Life

Feb 05 2015
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Daily Life

Gone

IMG_0015Sometimes I hate how life works.

Someone thumped my door on a dark and wintry night this week. It was never going to be good news.

I mentally ran through who it could be. The Teenager was safely upstairs killing zombies, Ocado had already delivered and we never seem to get political canvassers here, although I was more than ready to take them on.

I answered the door, pulling my cardigan around myself. A frantic woman stood there, pointing at the road, ‘do you have a black cat? About this big?’ She made a tiny size with her hands. I could see by her face it was hopeless.

I rushed down the path but I was too late – my beautiful constant companion, Dora, had already died. She had been knocked over. Gone. Just like that, in an instant.

I hope I don’t sound too melodramatic. For me, cats are special when you have MS and spend more time than usual at home. She slept on my bed every night, we tussled over duvet rights, she brought presents of half-chewed mice and birds which she laid reverentially in front of me. When I slept in the afternoon, she would curl up on my feet on the sofa, her purrs competing with the nerve pulsing aches.

We listened to Tweet of the Day together every morning on Radio 4 before breakfast. She defended our cottage, a not insignificant feat for a cat so utterly tiny. She basked in the slices of sunlight beaming on to my desk when I was agonising over an essay for university. In short, she was present.

Outside my house, I gathered her in my arms, called my mum (aren’t mums great?), and we mourned together. Dora adored her and could hear her footsteps a mile off. In vain, we took her to the vets. The nurse checked her over, re-wrapped the blanket I had taken her in and sadly handed her body back to me. Would I like cremation? No.

My boss and friend helped me bury her today, just outside my window, in the spot she slept in during the summer months. We talked about when I adopted her from Cats Protection. When I got her home, she seemed so entirely comfortable within just half an hour, as if she was meant to be here. And she was.

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Jan 29 2015
30 Comments
Daily Life

Horrified and Humiliated

failI think, I hope, I have always been a conscientious parent.

Well, no longer.

For the first time in fifteen years, I have a black school-mark against my name.

I have helped to enter each competition, produced cakes, baked cookies, attended every single parent-child event.

I once spent an entire week recreating a medieval castle from cardboard, complete with stonework details and little characters and still came third. I forgot nothing. I prided myself on it. I  have been to every event, every information evening, every exhibition.

All week. ALL WEEK in my diary – important meeting re. half term visit. Thursday.

I forgot.

The Teenager reminded me 5 minutes before. I grabbed the car keys, yelled for him but he slammed his bedroom door and sulked. I was still in my work’s gear. He didn’t want me anywhere near the school.

Hearing him through his door was a bit awkward:

  • ‘I hate you’.
  • ‘What’s wrong with you?’
  • ‘Why don’t you remember anything important?’

I can’t argue with him – to do so would introduce too much he doesn’t need to know, in no particular order:

  • Have I fed the cat?
  • Why do I forget everything?
  • Have I ordered groceries?
  • Have I sent this/that/the other bill off?
  • Does he have enough warm clothes for school trip?
  • Does he have lunch money for tomorrow?
  • Will he have a clean school shirt for the morning?
  • What should I do about that mouldy patch in the bathroom?
  • Has he sorted out his sixth-form application?

And more importantly,

  • Am I there for him?
  • Why do I forget everything?
  • Am I present enough?
  • Is my work/life balance ok?

And at the end of the list:

  • How the hell am I coping with MS?????
  • Why do I forget everything?
  • Why are my legs cramping so badly they wake me up?
  • Why am I in pain?
  • What on earth does the future hold?

Being a single. divorced parent with MS was never going to be easy, but things like this bring me up short. I am failing. And how.

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Jan 22 2015
2 Comments
Daily Life

The One About the Courgettes

courgettesI am a walking, stumbling slapstick comedy.

I’m desperately trying to see the funny side but yesterday took the biscuit (or courgette, now I’ve gone over to the Paleo side).

The shelves in my kitchen are groaning under the weight of vegetables so yesterday I decided to tidy them into neat heaps, reds/purples to one side and greens on the other with mushrooms and onions somewhere in between.

I found myself with a courgette in each hand and paused momentarily to give them a gentle squeeze – ‘cook tonight? Can I bear another courgette spiralized into tasty noodles?’

Having made my decision, ‘nah, not tonight’, I turned to pop them on the green pile. However, my left leg decided to stay where it was (such is the contrary, tantrum-y behaviour of MS), next to a curtain hanging over the back door to keep out the Welsh damp and random mice entrails dumped by the cat – a rather fetching print of bookshelves. Anyway, the last thought that went through my mind was, ‘must save the courgettes’.

I twisted, pesky leg still refusing to behave, caught my other leg in the curtain, spun in a circle and landed face down on my kitchen floor, courgettes held aloft. I lay there, gazing at the ceiling before hurling the courgettes against the fridge, where they bounced off and landed on the kitchen table, knocking my coffee over and scattering post-it notes.

Courgettes are dangerous.

It wasn’t the best MS day yesterday – a lot of my symptoms are ramping up and it’s getting harder to keep them under control. After the Courgette Incident, I had to go to the surgery for my monthly Alemtuzumab blood test. Perhaps sensing I had a day off work, my feet decided to do a little American line dance rather than behave. I jigged into the surgery, danced in front of the electronic booking-in computer, took a seat and watched as my feet twitched and jerked. Fun.

It was also, of course, my first day back in Uni after the Christmas break. We were a packed class, rapt as we listened to the history of the Flâneur (basically a nosy people-watcher from the last century who then writes about it). Trying to look semi-intelligent, I rested my face on my hand, elbow on the desk. Out of nowhere, my fingers started to twitch so badly it looked like I was sending dodgy signals to the tutor.

I sat on them. Wish I’d done the same to the courgettes.

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Jan 15 2015
8 Comments
Daily Life

Paleo for Schmucks

paleopicThis Paleo malarky is taxing my brain.

I’ve read everything I can get my hands on, I’ve raided the local fruit and veg shop and The Teenager can’t find his yoghurts in the fridge without foraging through bags of curly kale and spinach.

I’ve scoured Gumtree and am now the proud owner of a juicer (ok, not strictly Paleo, but I’m easing myself in gently). I have also bought a spiralizer gadget thing which I tried out yesterday; after grating my fingers over and over I finally figured out how to make carrot ‘spaghetti’, yum.

I made a packed lunch for work today, eschewing my usual carb-laden fare and pulled out my brand new salad box (with detachable dressing pot) and started munching away on my carrots before moving on to four chicken drumsticks. I also turned down a pastry and snacked on nuts instead. Unheard of.

So far, so good. I’m feeling virtuous and renewed, and it’s only Day Two. I’ve read that Paleo can be excellent for MS although some of the internet posts verge on the fanatical and are a little worrying. According to some of them, by not doing Paleo before, I’ve been compromising my health and making my MS worse. I even – if you can actually believe this – read that the Paleo lifestyle, i.e. living clutter-free and calmly, can cure MS. Oh, really?

I like the idea of Paleo, eating a more natural diet, cutting out the wheat, etc. It’s basic and it makes sense. And that’s where it stops for me. None of this forum nonsense with people posting questions such as, ‘I weakened and had a Dairylea Triangle and now I’m devastated, how can I overcome my feelings of shame?’. Or, ‘can I feed my cat a Paleo diet?’

For now, I’m going to stick to the 80/20 rule, i.e. for newbies like me, Paleo 80% of the time and treats the rest, even a Dairylea Triangle if I fancy it. Or some chocolate cake. Sigh. Will I stick to it? I reckon so, as long as I relax about it. Since my thyroid’s been playing up I’ve had the unparalleled joy of losing two stone rapidly then piling most of it on again. I spent a couple of weeks in my skinny jeans and loved it, but it was the wrong way to lose weight.

This time, I’m going to do it properly. And reward myself along the way …

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Dec 27 2014
4 Comments
Daily Life

A Codeine Christmas, Meh…

SantaA couple of days before Christmas I was booked in for a thyroid appointment.

I’d injured my back quite badly the day before (long story, pesky foot drop).

Blinking back tears of self-pity, I begged the doctor to put me out my misery, aside from confirming my fears that my thyroid was indeed back to normal, hence my superwoman appetite and sudden fondness for strips of beef jerky. Ewww.

She took in my tragic face, hunched posture and outstretched hand and wrote a prescription for codeine.

I stumbled to the chemist, had it filled, took the precious box home and popped out two. And waited.

Within minutes I was floating away on a cloud of pink sparkly bubbles; the pain had all but disappeared and I was gently bobbing along, sighing from absolute bliss. I floated on to my sofa, snuggled down and decided to have a quick kip.

I woke three hours later, drugged and mumbling incoherently. Oops.

The pain returned the next day, and the next. On Christmas Day, I limited myself to two (out of a possible eight, eek). My mum gave me The Dangers of Codeine Lecture, which I half-listened to while stroking the packet in front of me. Pain? Or codeine? Hmmm.

The Big Day was wonderful. Me and my cousin popped out for a couple of hours, and I dragged Santa Clause away from the hotel lift where he was desperately pushing the up button ahead of a horde of kids following him. ‘Yay! Santa selfie!’ You can see his, um, friendly reaction to my ambush.

Back at my mum’s I started to feel odd(er). Whoozy. She took off my Santa hat and tucked me into her bed (bless) and told me to sleep. Another three hours went by, meh. After waking, groggy, puffy-faced and semi-coherent, I reluctantly agreed to wave goodbye to my Codeine frenemy. MS meds and codeine don’t mix plus I was getting a bit fed up of floating in and out of reality, however tempting.

So now, a couple of days after Christmas, I am semi-pain-free, but taking every opportunity to say ‘oof’ every time I move, i.e. a metre to the left to grab the box of Quality Street I’ve hidden from The Teenager under a throw (breakfast).

I miss the codeine. I miss the oblivion. I just hope Santa isn’t telling his Elves, ‘honestly, this weird Glaswegian, like, attacked me. Thank goodness it’s over for another year.’

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