Thursday 29 April 2010

Idiot. And Zombies.

It's 3:40am, I have a mild fever (what's up with that? I'm not even sick.) and I have a coffee date with my mom-friend who I get on least well with and have least in common with and am most judged by in 8 hours and I need to sleep at some point, so naturally I decided this was the best time to change my blog layout.

Equally naturally, I did a fucking shitty job, and now it looks shitty. My blog looks like it has a terminal illness. Fucking awesome.

___

So the other day a friend(/psychopath) challenged me to tell her about something that I had invented that someone else had taken credit for, or she was going to kick me out of our secret society and shame me in front of all our friends, and I was all HELL NO BITCH and so I submitted this. For your viewing pleasure:

It was a dark night. I was sweating profusely, my skin taking on a green sheen. The leprosy was taking hold, and worst of all, it was joining forces with the tapeworm. I'd already lost a couple of toes down the back of the sofa and as I slid the needle into my arm, I felt the muscles start to disintegrate and the flesh come apart. The situation was getting seriously fucking dire.

I withdrew a vial of my blood, just enough to complete my experiment. Exhausted, I handed it to my assistants, Raul and Georgie R. I gave them detailed instructions on what to do and shuffled off to rest in the drawing room of my mansion.

Suddenly, I heard a commotion. Something crashed to the floor, there was a roar of anger and outrage. George came streaking out of the labratory, grabbed a broom and ran back. I lifted myself up on my elbow and fell back down when the flesh on my forearm ripped and slid off.

The sound of wood hitting flesh over and over rained down upon my ears for ten minutes, and then silence. There was nothing for 3 hours, and then a low groan that got louder and louder arose. Metal rattled against metal and every now and again I could hear George muttering to himself. 2 days later, he brought in an elixir that cured the strange leprotic illness and 3 days after that, he sent me to a spa for recovery. When I arrived home a week later the labratory had been cleaned out, the corpse was gone, as were George and Raul. There was no evidence of our experiments. This struck fear into my heart, but I decided it was better to let it lie, lest the authorities ask what exactly we were doing in the sewer under the graveyard that night.

I well regretted that though, when my humble assistant turned his hand to film making and a few years later George Romero was some kind of sodding cult hero and rolling in it! I INVENTED ZOMBIES, GOD DAMNIT. WHERE ARE MY FUCKING ROYALTY CHEQUES, HUH? THREE MONTHS OF MY SKIN FALLING OFF FOR FUCKING NOTHING. TWAT.

If you don't read anything else, read this.

Jenny wrote a blog at the beginning of the month that I've only just read (why do I always forget to add her to my sodding bookmarks? Because I'm an idiot, that's why.) and I feel so, so strongly that if you haven't already read it, you must.
"Hi. It's me."


That's all.

Monday 26 April 2010

It can always get worse.

So, you know how I was whingeing the other day about being tired and wah wah wah, I wasn't going to get any sleep, and oh how terrible my life is? Well then my baby went grey around the mouth and suddenly being tired was seriously the tiniest teeniest least of my problems. We spent all day in A&E, me trying to hold myself together, A.B trying to eat the furniture, Mr A trying to calm me down and keep me calm.

She's fine. But it just goes to show that anytime you think things are bad, they can probably get worse.


I'm having a really grumpy week this week when it comes to food. I'm just absolutely desperate for things I really can't have. We bought some DF chocolate cake today hoping it would tide me over, and it tasted like eating packing peanuts. It was awful. So now I've wasted £4 or whatever it was on cake I'm not going to eat. I snuck some to A.B and she spat it out. Or, rather, she opened her mouth, pulled a face, and thrust her tongue out until it fell to the ground, where she gave it a disgusted look and crawled away. This is the child that will eat dirty socks.

I would chew my own hand off for some cheesecake. Or some scones with jam and cream and real butter. Or a donut! Mr A had donuts today and I don't even like donuts but I WANTED ONE.

My IBS is flaring up something chronic the last day or so too, so I am hungry for things I can't eat for another 3 months at least, and I'm in near constant agonizing pain. Which you'd think would put me off the idea of allergens, but all it does is make me think 'Well if I'm already in pain, what's the harm?' and puts naughty thoughts in my head. And then I have to go 'Remind yourself you said that tomorrow morning at 4am when A.B has chronic diarrhea and is vomiting on your face.' and that's JUST about enough to put me off. For the moment.

I'm so tired and moody, so I will sign off, because at a certain point, it just becomes ranting, and no one likes ranters.

Monday 19 April 2010

Tired.

So we're getting closer and closer to figuring out what's 'wrong' with me. We think we've cracked it but it's early days. I don't have a terribly sympathetic set of doctors....they already think I'm a raging hypochondriac so going to them with a self-diagnosis is always best avoided. But no one has diagnosed me and they can't diagnose me unless I say something is wrong...therein lies the problem.

This should feel good. It should feel like hunting big game...drawing closer and closer, so tantalizingly close I can hear it's heartbeat and smell its sweat. But it doesn't. It feels like circling the drain, getting further and further down, trying desperately to fight the tide. Because if it is what we think it is, it's not a case of me needing to pull my socks up and get in a good headspace and work out my issues and plow through. Which, much as I hate it and am bad at it, is pretty much the only way I've survived so far. I would have to stop plowing through and start accepting limits, and I'm just not sure how well I can do that.


This morning I am so tired my body aches all over. A.B decided that 4am was an awesome time to wake up for the day, and I hadn't slept, counting on her not waking up til 7:30 so I could rest until then and go to sleep earlier tonight. 3 and a half hours of awake-baby more than I was counting on had me shattered by the time 7:30 rolled around and Mr A left for work. It's 9:40am and I'm near sick with exhaustion. My vision won't keep up with where my head is turning, my muscles feel like they're unravelling, and my stomach is heaving. I need sleep but I can't have it and that's the worst. The aching resentment of being denied what I want so much.

Bah. It's only 9 hours til Mr A gets home. I'll just have to survive somehow. Pity the foo' who cold-calls me today....

Saturday 10 April 2010

Damnit, Janet.

So last night I was lying in bed, drifting off to sleep, and I had THE MOST AWESOME idea for a blog-post ever.
So naturally, I have completely forgotten not only what it was but what it was even vaguely related to. Quelle Surprise!

Instead I'm going to go into some light-hearted heavy talk. Do you mind? I don't care.

I have mentioned in previous posts that I'm physically disabled, and that I have a lot of medical issues, and that I've had a fair few mental health problems. I want to phrase that in a less dramatic way but there just isn't one. It is what it is.
Today I went out to see a friend for coffee. The sun was shining, the weather was pleasant but not TOO warm, and because it's only April, we didn't have the horrible muggy stifling summer air that seems to make Londoners so irate all the time. All in all, it was a really great day to be out. I had a great time chatting with my friend (who is A.B's Godmother) and come time to go home, I decided instead of getting on the bus and jolting about for 40 minutes I was going to stroll partway home. It's not THAT long a walk. At least, it wasn't in my head. Before I started. So I set off, and I have Justin Timberlake and the Glee Soundtrack on my iPod and the weather is awesome and I was feeling great. I got about halfway home and decided to just carry on instead of waiting to get on a bus now. I thought I'd save myself the 90pence.
MISTAKE.
See, I have always been slightly double jointed. Not quite circus-freak bendy, and not as bad as some have it, but my joints don't always stay where they should. This got really bad when I was pregnant when my hips parted like the red fricking sea. I was in absolute agony for most of my pregnancy. Some days I couldn't even walk, because I couldn't make my legs work. They just...wouldn't do what I told them to. All my ligaments and muscles felt stretched and it felt like I was resting a bowling ball on the bones of my pelvis. My doctor essentially told me to suck it up. And I did, and I made it through with no treatment, medication, or even sympathy, because at the time I believed everyone when they told me I was being a great big pansy and I just needed to woman-up and get on with it. Except, since giving birth, my hips now like to play this game where they randomly screw with me. I'll be walking along and suddenly they go funny and I feel like one of those toys where you push down on the base and it releases the tension holding the parts together and they collapse. You know those things? Of course you do. Anyway, that's what happens. Usually I soldier on, lean extra hard on the pushchair and deal with the pain until I can sit down. If it's especially bad, I might actually fall down. This, is embarrassing. But as awful and horrible and annoying as having my hips randomly come apart is, it is good, in a way. Because it helps me feel that what I was going through while pregnant was valid. I WAS in pain. There was a medical problem. They ignored it. I didn't need to 'toughen up'. I needed assistance. I wasn't weak and young and stupid, I was genuinely in trouble.

Validation is a big thing for me. I seek it everywhere, with everything. One particular problem I have is using the label 'disabled'. The United Kingdom government officially recognises me as disabled. Quite a lot, in fact. If I look at it coldly and logically, I know I am. I am less able than the average person. So why do I have such trouble with using that term? Why do I not feel validated? Which is why Mr A ends up yelling at me because I forget my limits and push myself and then end up making myself sick, or messing up my mobility for weeks. Because when you look normal on the outside and everyone expects normality from you, it's hard to remind yourself that what is normal for you is not the same as what is normal for other people.

Why do I need validation when it comes to my pregnancy? It's over, isn't it? It's done with, it's gone, it's in the past. Why dwell on it? Why keep trying to find the hidden meaning in it all?
I think because we always planned to have 3 kids, but then A.B's conception came as a surprise, and I had a very bad pregnancy. I was high risk, I was very ill, and we spent 9 months worried out of our minds. I didn't have it nearly as bad as a lot of people, but I had it bad enough for a 20year old with no friends or family around to lean on for support. So I relied on medical professionals who I can now see let me down terribly. And it was so bad, we decided we could never ever put ourselves through it again. But if I can identify what made my first pregnancy so awful and work on thinking about what I would have done differently if I was given a second chance, then I can open myself up to the possibility of more children.

I got home, in the end, and flopped down onto the sofa, whereupon my legs immediately went numb and my hips set fire to themselves, but I looked at my awesome little girl, pulling on her dad's hair and so close to walking and talking that it aches, and I thought 'This is a good hurt. This s a hurt of opportunity.'

Friday 9 April 2010

Don't cry over wrongly prescribed milk

There is a running joke among some friends of mine and I that I just cannot catch a break when it comes to Baby A.B's allergy and the associated problems. First off, exclusively breastfeeding a baby is hard. Exclusively breastfeeding a baby when you are physically disabled is really hard. Exclusively breastfeeding a baby when you are physically disabled and then that baby turns out to be very seriously allergic to milk so you have to cut all traces of any dairy whatsoever is really REALLY hard. I lost weight, I got sick, I had no energy, I couldn't eat easily and without having to put a lot of thought into my food (a major major problem for an ex anorexic.), I couldn't eat out, or at other people's houses, I didn't trust anyone to cook for me...it was and is, very very difficult. Cutting out dairy also kicked my dormant intolerance of milk into overdrive, and I am now VERY intolerant of it. Hoorah!
Like I said, cannot catch a fucking break.

Dealing with the Dr's has been some of the worst. First I was told there was no such thing as an allergy to milk, and even if there was, there was no way she would get milk through MY milk. I knew this was wrong, but Mr Doctor Man with his big medical degree decided he was NOT WRONG. Even though he was. He refused to refer me to the Paediatrician I needed to speak to. So I went to a different doctor and got my referral. The paed immediately agreed she had a dairy allergy and said the milk exclusion diet I'd started was the best thing to do and gave me a pat on the back. So we toddled off, happy that our problems seemed solved. But they weren't! Because now her classical reflux was fixed by excluding dairy, she still had silent reflux! Joys! We only saw the paed again at the beginning of March, and she wrote an order for the GP to prescribe us an acidity regulator and some dairy-free formula in case we need it. So we toddle off and collect our medication, but the GP has declined to prescribe the formula, and since I wasn't told the paed had recommended it, I didn't know we were supposed to be receiving it. Then we find out that the medication we've been prescribed is HIDEOUS tasting, and only keeps for a fortnight. So we have to get the prescription filled every two weeks, which is hideously inconvenient when the associated paperwork takes four days. This week the GP also put the formula on the prescription, which Mr A picked up and dropped off, because I was stuck inside staring down the Vacuum Hose of Anxiety, but he gets home and I find out that the GP has only gone and prescribed the wrong formula! The stuff that he's prescribed is a supplement and it isn't even suitable for children her age! It's 12 months plus, and neither he NOR the pharmacist noticed that they'd prescribed and ordered this shit for a fucking 8 month old baby. So I had to go out today and dick around, going from pharmacy to GP's office getting things corrected.

Can someone tell me how I am supposed to trust these people with my and my baby's life when they can't even check age suitability labels when prescribed what is essentially medication?

Twats.

Wednesday 7 April 2010

The thing about blogging

The thing about blogging is this:
When you're feeling up, you're too busy being up and out of the house and enjoying life to sit down and commit words to your thoughts, and anyway, what do you have to say? Everything is great! There's only so much you can say about how much stuff rocks.
When you're down, you have plenty to say, but lack either the motivation to sit and figure out your head-fuckery, or the inclination to depress your readers with your woe-is-me bullshit.
So you start a blog, with every intention of updating regularly and using it properly, but then you go through a low patch, and then a high patch, and then another low patch, and before you know it you haven't updated in a month and every day that goes by is another day full of things you don't want to talk about.

The Good:
I have gained weight! I am now pushing 98lbs (7stone for UK readers, 44.5kg to antipodeans) which at almost 5'7 is not great, but it's a darn site better than the 92lbs I'd been hovering at for so long. Hopefully this is the push my body needed to start gaining weight properly.

The Bad:
Money isn't wonderful right now. We had a major one off expense last month that gobbled up Mr A's whole paycheck and sort of crippled us until next payday. We're maxed out, everywhere, and that sucks.

The Ugly:
Today I was ambushed by the worst anxiety attacks I've had in about 2 years. If I thought it was awkward having them before, having them in charge of a 8 month old beastlet impossible. I'm going to have to go beg a doctor to think about prescribing me something, but since I can't even get them to give me an appointment for a medication review for Booby-Breath, I don't know how much luck I'll have.

Ciao, beautiful people.