Category Archives: My Ramblings

Aug 01 2014
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My Ramblings

Just Gimme The Cake (And No-One Gets Hurt)

41 and countingIt’s almost that time of the year again – whisper – hint – one more candle?

Yup, even before I’ve recovered from my 40th birthday (or to put it more starkly, the first year of my fifth decade), my 41st rolls round in less than two weeks.  Wouldn’t you know.

I’m at the very great age now that people start putting fewer candles on my cake, not more, i.e. four rather than forty. Perhaps making up the deficit with an indoor sparkler. Fire hazard? Sparing my feelings? Or just cheapskates?

And not only that, my cute, bonny wee baby turns FIFTEEN a mere week later, the effrontery. He was actually due before my birthday in 1999, but was so lazy he decided to doze off and hang around a bit longer before tidying his ‘room’, a portent of what was to come.

Anyway, with the onset of August, and the inevitable countdown to Christmas (grrr), it’s time for me to gaze at my naval once more. I do a lot of that. It doesn’t get me very far, but at least I’m seen to be trying.

So what do I wish for this birthday? Looking back at all those fruitless wishes of yesteryear (My Little Pony with the lightning strike, Cabbage Patch Doll twins, Fuzzy Felts At The Zoo), I won’t be getting my hopes up.

There are a few reasons for this:

  • I pretty much have all I could possibly want. My joy was complete when I brought my new bread-maker home a few days ago. And my new set of ceramic pans arrived this afternoon. Bliss.
  • I am grateful for all I have. Even when I hold my breath on entering The Teenager’s Lair. I’ve just been up to check – four plates, three forks (should I be worried?), a pyramid of coke cans on his windowsill, a pile of GCSE revision books stuffed into the corner and a pair of swimming trunks on the floor.
  • I have to save all my angst and energy for September, when I start my MA. I am now fully enrolled and fully scaring myself silly.
  • After it threw that curve-ball of vertigo at me a few weeks ago, MS seems to be on half-days for the summer. It won’t last, but I can pretend.
  • It’s raining. Hallay-loo-ya. Goodbye hot weather, heeeeellllllooooooo cool breezes and rain. Lots of it. Uthoff’s, begone.

Before The Official Date, I am chillaxing (ooh, get me), in the knowledge that this month will be Cake Month. Oh, and the next. It’ll be my two year Blogging Anniversary. How did that happen?

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Jul 29 2014
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My Ramblings

Is It Time For An Update?

image makeoverJust out of interest and because I’ve been bored in work recently (sorry, boss), I’ve been asking people what MS conjures up in their minds.

My random and unscientific survey threw up some depressing results; according to my motley panel of vox-poppers, MS is:

  • An older person’s illness
  • An illness that means you have to give up work as soon as you’re diagnosed
  • An illness with no treatment
  • An illness that will propel you into a wheelchair soon after diagnosis
  • An illness that absolutely everyone has a story about, normally, ‘oh my auntie/great-grandad/batty neighbour had that, dreadful it was. How they suffered’ (sad face)

It seems MS has a serious image problem.

When I tell them MS is the most common neurological illness in young people and is generally diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 40, they’re astounded and/or disbelieving.

So what’s going on? Is it that we’ve made astonishing progress over the last 30 years, but the image remains the same? Take my dad for example. He was diagnosed at the age of 28 and died at 35 in 1978 from complications arising from his MS. There was no treatment and he was sent home with a walking stick and back then, MS was even referred to as ‘creeping paralysis’.

Five years later, in 1983, the MS Society gave a £1 million research grant for the purchase of the first MRI scanner in the world to be solely dedicated to MS research, changing the way MS is diagnosed.

A decade later, in 1993, the first three MS specialist nursing posts were created. Today, there are 270 MS nurses in the UK. In the same year, interferon beta-1b was the first drug to ever be approved for the treatment of MS. There are currently 10 licensed disease modifying drugs and 8 more are in the pipeline.

Is it simply that MS is mostly an ‘invisible’ illness, only making itself apparent to everyone else at it’s more serious stages? What is the true picture of MS? Is it time to re-brand MS?

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Jul 10 2014
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My Ramblings

Let’s Pretend…To Be Poor

upcycling twFollowing in the footsteps of that other oh-gosh-I-may-be-a-millionaire–but-I’m-just-like-you, Jamie Oliver, Kirstie Allsop did herself proud on last night’s television show, ‘Fill Your House For Free’ (sic).

Don’t get me wrong, I adore upcycling; been doing it as long as I can remember. In fact, the only thing I haven’t upcycled yet is The Teenager, but give it time.

So, last night, the first couple was your archetypal, ‘So, we bought this huge house, oh woe is us, sigh, but we have no sense of style and we’re too tight to get proper help, can Channel 4 come to the rescue?’

The woman pouted, stamped her foot and tossed her hair, declaring that anything second-hand was naff. The husband merely nodded. The second couple, about much the same. Bought the house, couldn’t afford furniture. Oops!

Bring on the experts in ‘free’ stuff. They showed us minions just how easy it was to find free goodies, as long as you’re prepared to work for it, i.e have oodles of leisure time (and I don’t mean signing on for the dole once a week). Yup, you’ve guessed it. Pretty much everything ‘featured’ in last night’s programme was way beyond your local charity shop schlep, just after you’d bagged the last of the windfall apples from next door.

When did you last pop into Oxfam to buy an aeroplane wing? Simply super for turning into a (rather horrible) desk? Or make a stepladder into a ghastly bookcase? And of course you have a whole workshop with state-of-the-art tools at your disposal  to turn said crap into rather less crap things?

In the end, this was just another example of that tedious wave of ‘austerity chic’ TV drivel, exhorting well-off peeps to weep/gnash teeth/rant at the camera. Although I did have to admire the second couple for bravely not crying when they saw their wall lamp fashioned from a spray-painted, rusted barbecue. And don’t get me started on the first couple’s twee/1950’s ambitions for a sewing room (her) and a man-cave (him). Why can’t she have a she-cave without having to sew?

If these guys really want to experience what it’s like to have no real furniture, look no further than the 1 in 5 of us who live below the poverty line. Furniture is the last thing on the list. So, yes, it may be fun to live like the poor people. Liberate a chair from the skip down the road. Congratulate yourself and pop open the Farrow & Ball chalk paint. Make a notice board out of all your champagne corks. Pinterest has a lot to answer for.

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Mar 16 2014
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My Ramblings

What Would You Say?

life insuranceThe worst thing about my job is having to listen to commercial radio all day long when I’m on site.

Ten songs on a loop, one inane competition, kerrr-aazzy DJ’s and endless adverts.

But one creepy advert has piqued my interest. It’s by Legal & General, the insurance company. They ask, ‘What would you say to your younger self?’.

i.e. would you tell your 20 year old self to buy life insurance as you will in all likelihood die one day or sign up for critical illness cover as you will probably become very ill at some point? You get the picture.

They trade in fear. Sure, it’s great to have fun when you’re younger, but It Won’t Last and if you’re not ‘protected’, then tough luck. And yes, it’s wonderful to find that special person, but hey, they could die. Suddenly. And then where would you be? Tsk.

Anyway, this got me thinking. At the grand old age of (whisper) 40, do I really have anything earth-shattering to say to my younger self? Seems a bit of a pointless exercise, but fun nonetheless. So here goes:

  • Never wear stripy tights. And blue eyeshadow doesn’t suit you.
  • Your heart will be broken but it will mend.
  • Childbirth is gobsmackingly painful. Be prepared.
  • Experiences are worth far more than material goods.
  • It’s more fun to have a glass of water in The Dorchester than a glass of champagne down the local.
  • Today is the youngest you will ever be, so make the most of it.
  • Don’t waste money on self-help books. You already have the answers.
  • Accept every single challenge life throws at you with grace.

I’m feeling every single one of my years right now. The Teenager will be flying the nest within the next couple of years. I have wrinkles. In odd places. I’m a mere ten years away from being eligible for a Saga holiday.

But the whole point of youth is to explore, make mistakes, make more mistakes. Love and lose, fight and fall. It’s when we forge our identities. So if I was offered the chance to go back in time, I probably wouldn’t take it. All those ‘mistakes’ taught me valuable lessons.

And would I tell myself I would be diagnosed with MS in my 30’s? No way. Why spoil the party?

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Mar 06 2014
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My Ramblings

This Is Me

Ta daI have had some insightful conversations this week with people who have only known me since my MS diagnosis.

Without wanting to inflate my dented, bruised ego, they have all remarked on how positive I am.

Who, me? (looks behind, just in case). Well, yes, I guess I am in some ways.

“O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us” as Robert Burns, that famous Scottish poet wrote – or in other words, wouldn’t it be fab to see how we appear to other people?

Well, this has certainly helped my little, fragmented and shattered to smithereens sense of self. I too often concentrate on my shortcomings, my weaknesses, my complete inability to fit in with my socio-economic grouping.

So, hey, this is me. This is me with MS, this is me living with MS.

I’m not actually doing that badly. The dark tunnel I went through is coming to an end. I’m not the same person I was, starting from that definitive date in July 2011, the day I woke up unable to speak properly (I mean, really, how dare MS do that to me?).

I have been through every single grieving stage, and then some. I have held countless pity parties. I have gulped and cried into my wine glass  too many times to mention (plastic glasses, now, of course).

But when I say, This Is Me, who exactly am I now? Am I new and improved? Am I better than before? Hmm. Let’s switch viewpoints. How do I appear to others? That might give me a handy guide as to how I am doing.

Well, I am Campaigning. I am Getting Involved. I am Informed. That aside, what does the future hold, for me, personally?

If I thought I had enough problems trying to date as a divorced single mother of 40, how on earth can I push my way through the dating Meat Market as a 40 year old, divorced, single mother with a degenerative illness, MS? Ahem, not that finding a partner is uppermost in my thoughts (much).

No. As I said to someone today, the best thing MS has done for me, is it has allowed me to battle something alone. To find my own strength and find comfort in being Alone. I don’t want ‘Another Half’. I don’t need to ‘Feel Complete’.

When I find that career and that special other person, it will be on equal terms. I don’t need to be rescued. I just need someone to say. ‘You are you, and I like you’.

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