Category Archives: The Teenager

Mar 05 2013
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The Teenager

The Teenager Speaks…

I’ve got a pretty special guest blogger today – my son, The Teenager, asked to get involved and this is what he wanted to write, no editing:

When I first found out my mum had MS, I didn’t know what it was so I thought it could’ve been anything so I was very worried.

It was the day that I was coming back from London after seeing my dad and instead of my mum picking me up my mums friends did and I didn’t have a clue where my mum was. I was told she was ill but I didn’t realise that she was in hospital.

I was dropped off at my Nana’s and she explained what was happening. I went home after my mum came back and because of the MS she couldn’t speak properly and we had a good laugh about it, taking the mick. It was still worrying me though because I didn’t really know what was totally going on.

But as time went on things got better I realised that there were worse things in life than MS and that my mum didn’t have as bad a MS as lots of people do. Me and my mum have met lots of lovely people through my mum having MS which is a good thing. In October 2011 when I was 12, we went to a MS march in the city centre which was a lot of fun and there were lots of nice people there.

I have learnt a lot of stuff through my mum having MS. Of course I still worry a tiny bit but nowhere near as much as I did. My mum’s best friend, the builder, has helped a lot and it is nice to have him as company.  After a year of my mum having MS a lot of good things have happened. My mum has been very lucky to have Campath (Alemtuzumab) treatment in the local hospital. It did sound scary at first but it helps my mum a lot.

I am hoping that in the next few years me and my mum will meet a lot more people with MS and go to lots of different MS based things. In the town centre the shopping centre has been sponsoring the MS society and they are selling ‘MS wrist bands’. A lot of my friends are now wearing these and it is nice to see support shown for this and hopefully more people will start to wear them.

Overall even though my mum has MS she is still the coolest Mum ever and nothing will ever change that.

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Jan 30 2013
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The Teenager

Muddy Hell…

The Teenager had a rugby match on Sunday. After the snow thawed, the torrential rain came so we were convinced the match would be cancelled. A pitch inspection was due the day before and after the groundsman had waded through inches of mud, he declared the pitch good to play. Of course.

The Teenager had a lift with the trainer and off he went with his Lucozade and boot bag. Three hours later he was returned, a huge blob of mud standing on the doorstep.  The only un-muddy bit of him was a grubby bandage wound tightly round his wrist, which he held out sadly with a pained expression.

He’d only played for ten minutes (so who knows how much more mud he could have gathered if he’d played full time), as someone had trod on his wrist during a try and he was out for the rest of the game. Anyway, he stripped, I picked up the sodden clothes and chucked them in the machine as he squelched his way to the shower. Within ten minutes, there was a yell:

‘Muuuuuuuuuuuum!’

‘What?’

‘I’m in aaaaagony. But we won, 43-0.’

‘Glad you won! Ok, I’ll bandage it up, don’t worry. Then you can go and do some homework.’

‘Too sore. I’m dying’.

‘Ok, just do it quietly’.

Believe me, I was sympathetic, but this continued in a loop all day. He’d appear in front of me, a wan-faced vision. He’d lie on the sofa, asking for help to pick up the remote, but oddly not needing the same help to play on his iphone.  I made him a hot chocolate with a dollop of Fluff on top and helped him pack his bag.

Monday. I bandaged, unbandaged and bandaged his wrist so many times I lost count. It got in the way of his x-box controller. I got a bigger bandage (ha!) and wrapped that round his wrist instead. I’m not a horrible mum, honestly, but my nerves were stretched.

One sulky Teenager plus one (slight) injury has made for a very unhappy household these last few days. To top it all, after helping him with his school jumper yesterday morning and packing his school bag once more, I offered to bandage his wrist again. ‘Nah, don’t worry, it felt better on Monday, I just enjoyed wearing it, everyone was asking me about it at school……’

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Dec 05 2012
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The Teenager

Because I said so…

‘In my day’ are words I never thought I would say. But I do, a lot. As well as ‘when I was your age’ and ‘because I said so’. When did this happen? It all makes me feel rather…old.

When I was pregnant, I swore that I would never turn into a boring old parent. I would be cool and trendy (these words alone are a dead giveaway of my age).

I would give my child freedom to express themselves, to follow their own dream all the while gently nudging them along the right path. Then he turned into The Teenager and I find myself trudging the same old path as my mum did.

The Teenager and I communicate in single sentences. I say, ‘put your coat on, you’ll get cold’, ‘turn that racket down’, ‘close the fridge, you’re wasting energy’ and ‘I gave you coat hangers for a reason’. He normally replies, ‘yeah, whatever’ with exaggerated rolling of the eyeballs. One day I asked him to turn off his computer and get on with some homework only to be met with ‘like, duh, I’m just emailing it to my teacher.’ What?!

I told him ‘in my day the internet didn’t exist’. He looked momentarily stunned. Wide-eyed, he asked me how I survived, did we have Sky Planner, how did we meet up with friends? Yup, I felt practically prehistoric, a dinosaur.

Now we have MS in the whole equation, it’s slightly tricky to get the balance right. I make up for my bad days with treats. The chip shop will no doubt be sending me a Christmas card this year. I buy little cakes for after school, I let him have more sleepovers than usual and I still wash his rugby boots. I don’t want him to feel his childhood is overshadowed by MS, and luckily for me a lot of my symptoms are invisible.

But for now, we are trucking along just fine. If you’ll excuse me, I’m just off to settle down with my People’s Friend and a cup of tea. Ooh, and a nice Garibaldi biscuit. Lovely.

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Nov 24 2012
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The Teenager

Going on a Long Guilt Trip

Still no let up from the crushing MS symptoms. Still don’t want to say ‘relapse’ out loud. Worst thing is though, all the guilt has come flooding back.

The Teenager has been incredible since this whole MS thing started, and has started telling his friends, ‘my mum’s got what Jack Osbourne’s got’. The height of cool.

But he crumbles sometimes, unexpectedly, and it’s the saddest thing to witness. One day I told him off for not brushing his teeth. Five minutes later I hear loud crying from upstairs. I find him frantically scrubbing his teeth, taking huge, gut-wrenching sobs. ‘I hate MS, I hate what it’s doing. I hate you having it’. My heart broke into tiny pieces.

I try my hardest to hide symptoms from him. I sleep before he gets home, stuffing the duvet down the back of the couch. I have also trained myself to cat-nap and be instantly awake the minute he comes back from school. I write down key points about his school day so I don’t forget them, such as maths test, horrible PE teacher, German homework. I use Touche Eclat under my eyes so I look more awake and his rugby kit is always, always clean and ready. It’s a matter of pride.

But the guilt is relentless. I should be doing more with him. I should take him to town after school one day for a surprise and buy him a new pair of Vans. I should plan interesting day trips. We used to love baking together (thank you, The Great British Bake Off!), but we haven’t done that in a while. I haven’t the energy to clean the kitchen afterwards. The Swedish chef from The Muppets has nothing on my son.

So, I cut corners. I pass off M&S food as my own, leaving the chopping board out as ‘proof’ of my hard work. I spring money for pizzas (cool mum!) to save cooking, I buy more treats than usual and make sure his Lynx supply is fully stocked. I allow lots of sleepovers, so I know he’s having fun, but it gives me much-needed space too.  I make sure I am there for him, as much as I can be.

I hate what MS is doing to our little family. If I can just hold everything together, we will be fine. And maybe I won’t need to have Dominos on speed dial…

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Nov 05 2012
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The Teenager

Rugby Mum…..And MS

Rugby MumI like The Teenager playing rugby. He won’t mind me saying he was pretty dire to start with, a couple of years ago, but he’s nothing if not determined. Now, he’s got real promise and has offered to buy me a luxury penthouse granny flat if he becomes famous.  Only problem is, I don’t understand the game at all.

Before MS, I would duly stand on the sidelines, muffled in a couple of layers of jumpers, wellie boots on and teeth chattering. I took my cue from the screaming crowd, and cheered along when something happened. Sometimes for the wrong team, but never mind. I schlepped to every game, took him to every training session and washed a pile of muddy clothes twice a week.

We even went ‘on tour’ last year, aka an excuse for the parents to let the kids run wild while we got blind, steaming drunk. So drunk, that I was nominated to go first on the karaoke, where I sang ‘Gold’ atrociously and still got applauded. And we had to wear silly hats all evening.  This was right before my first major relapse and there was an inkling there was something wrong when I went bright red in the face after a leisurely stroll and my legs turned to jelly.

So now, post-MS, the rugby routine is a little different. I still take him training and I still wash his kit but there’s no way I can go to every game. I can’t stand up for long, I’m normally tired beyond belief and my legs get too weak. If there’s an away game, I have to ask for The Teenager to have a lift as I don’t drive too far – my foot cramps up. Which is awkward, as every time I see one of the rugby parents, they scrutinise me closely, look me up and down and say, ‘But you look so…well?’  A code phrase for, ‘lazy cow, any excuse, eh?’

Yesterday, the game was cancelled as the pitch is saturated with rain. Am I unhappy? What do you think……

 

 

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