The Jams

Letters

2012-02-12T12:53:00.000Z

We're having a (very) long-overdue clear-out of our spare room, in anticipation of my mum arriving later today. In the process, I've cleared out other cupboards in order to find somewhere to put some of those bits and bobs we can't bear to throw away but yet have no real purpose for. I allowed myself to be distracted by a tartan tin of letters. I shed a few tears over the cards from Grandma and Grandad, Aunty Doris and Aunty Mary, who are no longer with us.

I went to boarding school, so have a lot of letters from my mum, a few from my dad and fair smattering from friends. It was wonderful to have such a conduit to the past and remember the people as I knew them at the time, the romances, the anxieties, and the language of emerging adulthood. When I die it means that Small Boy, who I hope will be Grown Up Son by that point, will be able to gain quite an insight to my early life. Of course he might just think it's a pile of dusty old crap and burn it.

But what of today's children? Will they ever have a stash of old letters? There isn't quite the same appeal in a folder of emails, and I don't think people tend to keep them anyway. What will they reminisce over?

Chest Pain

2012-02-10T13:12:00.000Z

I spent yesterday evening at my local A&E. I made the schoolgirl error of thinking I wouldn't have to wait too long because it couldn't possibly be busy at 7ish on a Thursday evening. I spent a very tedious six hours hanging around A&E, doing things like trying to guess why my fellow patients were there and inwardly moaning about the price of refreshments (85p for horrid vending machine coffee) and how I had forgotten to bring any money. I did scrape together enough for one cup of horrid coffee though.

But to start at the beginning makes most sense. The beginning of this particular episode is in December. I started with mild chest pains just before Christmas. Nothing that worried me particularly, but I know chest pain is not normal. It wasn't bad, wasn't frequent and therefore wasn't a big problem. Over the next month or so I'd get it here and there and then it'd go away again. Eventually I thought I should probably get it checked out. Given my medical history and medication it's possible I could have an infection and not know about it.

So I saw my GP yesterday, who took some blood. He was concerned it might be a blood clot, although didn't think it terribly likely. Since clots can be fatal, he thought it best not to take risks. Fair enough, except the blood test (d-dimer) isn't terribly useful in someone like me. It can be positive for a variety of reasons, including blood clots, but also including inflammation. Since I am nought but a stick of rock with "inflammation" spelled out all the way through, it perhaps wasn't the best test to do on my blood. Hence "go straight to A&E, do not pass GO, do not collect £200".

Highlights of the evening were being sat next to a drunken Geordie who wanted to chat. He had some kind of head injury and no idea how he'd acquired it. He also had lost the ability to detect when someone REALLY doesn't want to chat. I didn't really engage in conversation and kept trying to read. I never seem to have the guts to say "please leave me alone, I'm not interested" for fear of enraging or upsetting. Nor do I have the ability to launch into faking enthusiasm. I took the coward's way out and went for a really, really long wee.

I don't have a blood clot. I apparently have vasculitis (who knew?!) and it is this which is troubling my lungs. Probably. To be honest, with all the attention my kidneys get, I do tend to forget that I have other organs which can be poorly too. My lungs are scarred from the haemorrhages of ten years ago, which is probably why I cough and wheeze. The pain is probably connected to all of that; they'll see me in (another) clinic in the next couple of weeks and begin doing more investigations.

Despite my best efforts last year, I am once again stuck with being under the care of four different hospitals and two hospital trusts. Actually last year it was five hospitals and three trusts, so I suppose this is an improvement of sorts. The number of appointments seems to be steadily growing, which is inevitable.

The moral of the story: I have other poorly organs too.

My Own Legs

2012-02-07T08:32:00.000Z

As a renal patient I retain water pretty much constantly. I'm fortunate that it's not severe and rarely causes me any trouble, apart from permanent cankles. If I rest enough, it usually subsides at least a bit, but of course it's not often I can sit/lie down for 48 hours, which is pretty much what it takes. I haven't seen my own legs, because of course the bloated ones aren't really mine any more than the steroid face is mine, in quite some time. I'm therefore pleased that the consequence of yesterday's miserable day (aside from the excess housework I now have to plough through) is something so positive. Little things like this are a big deal when you have to take appearance-altering medication.

Hello legs! My bruises aren't too bad either!

A Bad Day

2012-02-06T12:07:00.000Z

Today is a Bad Day. I'm writing this so I have a record of what Bad Days are like; I'm fortunate that when I feel fine I have little recollection or appreciation of what it feels like on Bad Days. The trouble is that I forsee filling in forms at some point where I have to focus on them.

I got up at the usual weekday time to make M coffee and sandwiches and make a start on the housework. We'd had an early night and a very gentle Sunday so I wasn't at all concerned about feeling rubbish today. By the time I was half way through making the sandwiches, I knew something was actually wrong. I'd started off with a groggy head, but nothing more than that, which would normally wear off with tea anyway. I had the overwhelming urge to lie down, which is actually quite horrible. It's as if every single part of my body is screaming that I absolutely must lie down RIGHT NOW. I managed to finish wrapping clingfilm around the sandwiches before I felt sick with it, and sat down. It wasn't enough so I dragged myself upstairs and went to lie down, fully clothed on our bed. My heart was pounding as though I'd done some mammoth exercise session.

I drifted in and out of sleep for an hour or so, and got up with Small Boy, who'd mercifully slept late.

I have lots to do today, but all I seem capable of is either lying down on the settee, or sometimes, sitting up on the settee. Short trips to the kitchen to get toast or juice are exhausting and bring on the LIE DOWN NOW feeling. Taking Mini Monster upstairs to change him was a huge effort and I really did have to lie down for a while afterwards to recover.

I have no idea why I feel the way I do; I just know I get like this sometimes. It's probably a combination of residual tiredness from a few busy days last week and a late night on Saturday (about 2am) combined with random germs (snot is visiting the male members of the household).

So when I fill in the forms about my worst days, I will say that I can't do anything at all, which is pretty much how it is. Bit rubbish really.

Feeling Like a Wife

2012-02-02T13:25:00.000Z

I'm currently off work, still, although perhaps not for much longer. I've therefore taken over all the domestic stuff and spend a lot of my time doing housework. Yawn. It's a small price to pay to be at home with my son, but it's not exactly mentally stimulating. I have discovered that there is nothing that screams "WIFE" (even though I'm not technically a wife, I know) quite like ironing. I swore I wouldn't iron for a man again after my marriage ended. I'm not entirely sure why, but I think it was something to do with my ex-husband screwing all the shirts I'd carefully ironed into a snotty heap to pack for the week. Somewhere in there was also the knowledge that when you iron for someone, you really have crossed a line. It's the ultimate in domestic help because you're saving someone else the effort of doing it, and making sure they leave the house looking presentable. That's very, very wifely in a way that cooking, and scrubbing toilets and throwing the vacuum cleaner at the floor just aren't. Ironing equals responsibility for the appearance of the recipient.

If I'm honest, ironing freaks me out just a bit.

In a not unrelated train of thought, I have decided not to be a housewife/stay at home mum, but a stay at home FEMINIST. Just how I'm going to justify ironing as a feminist action is another matter.

Really Fucking Pissed Off

2012-01-13T14:45:00.000Z

That's the shit of it really (aah Nigel I hope you got your book published). History burps all over me and it's all going to cock.

We're still camping out with the mother in law, who actually is marvellous. I have learned at last to relax here, but it's still not HOME. The kitchen is finished (mostly) and now we wait for the builders to slap some paint on our living room walls so we can go home.

And then there's work. Hence the burp/history bit and why I'm so fucking annoyed. I think it wiser that I say nothing specific here, except that they are TWATS.

Upheaval

2011-12-21T16:18:00.000Z

I expect this will be the last post before Christmas, and quite possibly the last before 2012. We have builders doing building things, or perhaps more accurately, we don't. A slow leak over many months has caused a lot of damage to our kitchen, and having ripped out one unit and pulled up the floor, the builders have found much more damage, and it all needs to dry out.

So, four days before Christmas, and three days before our planned journey to Cornwall, we are leaving our home. We spent a couple of days last week staying with my mother-in-law, but had been assured the work would be finished by the end of the week. As it stands, I'd say we'll be lucky if the kitchen work has even started by the end of the month. We have no sink and the floor is unsafe.

M is currently off sick (and unpaid) from his job, and suffering terribly with toothache and the wooziness associated with painkillers. He's starting a new, much better job in the new year so was working his notice, and now it seems that his current (cowboy outfit) employers don't want him back in.

Our neighbour has kindly agreed to look after keys for us and make sure the house doesn't look too abandoned in our absence. I hadn't seen her properly for some time, so was quite surprised to see she's heavily pregnant. It's all very exciting and lovely of course, but actually it made me a bit sad. She's as pregnant now as I was two years ago. Her new baby is due at the end of January, just like mine was. I've been around other pregnant ladies and not felt sad at all, but this is different. It's closer to home in many respects.

We are, however, ready for Christmas. I have made pudding and packed it to take to Cornwall. I have packed my homemade mincemeat and will make mince pies when we get there. All the presents are bought and wrapped, with the exception of my present for M, which isn't wrapped yet. I don't believe he's bought mine yet though.

So have a lovely Christmas, dear Reader. Be merry and bright and I will see you on the other side.

Paragraphing

2011-12-14T13:28:00.006Z

It's rather irritating that now I have switched to the "new and improved" version of blogger, I have to explicitly tag where my paragraphs begin and end. Unless of course I want to produce a great big, indigestible lump of text, that is.

So I've gone back to nice and reliable OLD blogger.

Kitchen and Blood (but not together)

2011-12-14T13:21:00.002Z

The builders come tomorrow morning to begin our kitchen refit (pre-fit pictures will be uploaded) and revamp our living/dining room. Perhaps it's a bit sad, but I'm actually quite excited about it. I've never had a new kitchen before! I'm not looking forward to the dust or the upheaval of staying with MIL (lovely though she is) but the end result should be pretty good.

I'm at the hospital on Friday for a renal checkup. M needs to have a blood test too. I don't fully understand the process, but it's to do with having been pregnant and checking for antibodies. I think they will look at M's blood sample and see if I have antibodies to it. They could of course test our son, but hell would freeze over before I let anyone near him with a needle if he didn't absolutely need it.

I really need to get up and do things, but as I said recently I'm tired a lot. It's also very cold, which makes it harder and harder for me to feel sufficiently enthused about moving.

Jumbled

2011-12-13T15:45:00.002Z

I feel a bit... jumbled.

After phoning people to give them the number of my transplant co-ordinator, I've had a message from an aunt to say there's an information pack and DVD on its way to her. It's hard to explain how this feels much "bigger" than phoning a few days ago, but it does. I merely gave a phone number; I know it was an important phone number and what it signified, but I had to just think of it as a phone number because otherwise it was too big to cope with and I'd never have been able to phone or speak.

I have no idea how to handle all this. I can't bear to think about the possibilities because it's just too big and emotionally overwhelming. I will have to start finding words, appropriate ways to express or explain because otherwise it's just rude. I mean, these people are volunteering to donate a vital organ to me, or at least find out about it. How do you even begin to thank someone for considering it?

Dinosaur Stickers

2011-12-11T10:27:00.000Z

Yesterday I travelled for six hours on a train with a toddler. It seemed like a good idea when I booked it, but as the reality of it approached, I realised it might actually be a huge mistake. Who in their right mind deliberately travels alone with a small, wriggly and very active child?

Fortunately I am blessed with an extremely good-natured child. He behaved beautifully for three hours to Edinburgh, while we were there and all the way home again. This is mostly thanks, not to good parenting or sleeping pills, but the magic of a sticker book.

So, thank you Mr Argos for your £1.99 book of a million dinosaur stickers. I imagine TransPennine trains are somewhat less keen though...

Bit nicer?

2011-12-11T10:19:00.002Z

I hope this new template is a bit kinder on the eyes. I wish I was techy enough to design my own, but I'm not.

Call Me Butter

2011-12-09T18:59:00.000Z

I have made PHONE CALLS. I'm not exactly phone-phobic, but I do find phone calls a bit stressful. I panic I'll say the wrong thing/not know what to say/make a tit of myself. I'd much rather text someone or put something on Facebook. Hell, if I could be bothered to learn smoke signals or semaphore, that'd do me too.

So making Important Phone Calls is a big deal. I'm specifically talking about "gimme a kidney" calls, which must rank quite highly on the list of phone calls you never want to make. I have made four of these calls, which reach out to the potentially six people who've said they would donate.

Typically everyone was lovely and the conversations weren't awkward and I don't think I put my foot in it anywhere. I have amazing family. <3

I have no idea what happens next.

Sorry

2011-12-07T20:25:00.002Z

I really must change the design of this blog. The white writing on a dark background is very unpleasant, isn't it? It makes my eyes go all funny. I promise I'll get it sorted soon.

Hospital Stuff, Builders and Money

2011-12-07T20:20:00.001Z

Don't worry, no dreams this time!

It's been an eventful few weeks, and set to continue in the same vein. I was quite poorly with some random puke and poo virus a couple of weeks ago, which led to me being in hospital with severe dehydration. After a couple of nights I was much better and discharged myself. The trouble with having things wrong with me is that everyone who isn't on my consultant's team is scared of me. No one wanted to take responsibility and let me go home on a Sunday so I had to do it myself. I am very grateful to the ambulance crew who lifted me from my pit of despair and deposited me at the hospital. I am sorry to say I was left on a very uncomfortable trolley, in pain, with a high fever and no way of getting any help for somewhere between 3 and 4 hours. It was a low point. Fortunately no harm was done and I've been fine now for some days, and no one else in the house has been afflicted.

In more hospital-related chicanery, I am now listed on the transplant register. I have jumped through all the necessary hoops and one day my name will be called for a cadaver kidney. It may be that one of the lovely family members who've volunteered will be a suitable match and then I won't need to wait for my turn on the list. It's very surreal discussing things like normal life expectancy and increased risk of cancer or death or complications. It feels like it couldn't possibly be me. It is me. I have a good strong heart apparently, but weak lungs. General anaesthetic is slightly more risky for me. I will probably need two kidneys to give me a normal lifespan. At least I can hope for one.

We have builders coming to transform our kitchen on Monday. We have had a slow leak under the sink for some time (now fixed) and it's damaged a unit and the floor, and caused damp. The builders will be replacing the unit, floor, worktops and then replastering and decorating our entire living/dining room. It is going to take "a good week and a half to two weeks", which takes us right up to Christmas. With so much disruption and a small child, we're going to stay with MIL for some of the time. It may be that after a few days the house will be habitable again. Maybe not. I'm scared the work won't be finished before Christmas, when we're travelling to visit my family. I'm also a bit anxious about staying in someone else's house. I like my own space and routine. I like to sit in my pyjamas until noon and not comb my hair sometimes. I have a toast habit I won't be able to indulge or hide. On the plus side I will be able to let her entertain him while I have a break from time to time. He'll be thrilled to have his grandmother around though. I think M and I might even sneak away for a curry one evening.

While all this has been going on, I've been managing our money to within an inch of its life. No penny goes unaccounted for in my quest to control all our spending, pay off debts and put money aside for Christmas and the wedding. I sneakily paid an extra £50 off M's credit card which has 35% APR. I feel weird concealing it because I normally tell M everything, but I know he'd have wanted to spend the money instead. In a funny way I feel guilty, even though I've done a good thing.

I'm also very much hoping that a big weight is going to be lifted soon.

Struggling

2011-11-23T15:55:00.002Z

I'm struggling a bit at the moment. I have a very long list of things that need doing, but I'm too tired by mid-afternoon to do much. I spend most of the mornings tending to Small Boy and doing the basics of tidying up, but once we've had lunch and played at the SureStart Centre I'm finished.

I don't know how I'm ever going to get to do everything on the list.

At the moment, we're watching Disney's Cars, in the hope that Small Boy nods off, so I can nod off too.

More Dreams

2011-11-22T17:48:00.001Z

I have a feeling that an ex-boyfriend has been reclassified against my will to A Symbol. I am not best pleased about this. He's a long-ago ex, but I'm not going to even risk giving him the right initial, just in case anyone identifies him, or worse, he takes the highly unlikely step of finding this blog and working out who I am, and therefore identifying himself.

I have dreamed about him a fair bit over the years, and it's almost always involved amazing sex. At some point in the dream I'll realise I'm dreaming (and therefore not cheating because dream sex, like dream chocolate, doesn't count) and abandon myself to amazing sex. I wake up feeling slightly guilty, but I soon get over that and until the memory fads I enjoy what I can recall.

The last few, perhaps half-dozen, times I've dreamed about him there has been NO SEX. I am very disappointed. I can't even pick apart what happened in the dreams, but he's been there a lot recently. With no sex. Did I mention the lack of dream sex? The frequency with which I've dreamed of him suggests my brain is trying to tell me something. I know there's no "what if" about him; I genuinely have no desire to go back there. I've seen pictures and he's not as good looking as I thought at the time and he wasn't all that nice to me. That's before we've even thought about how happy am I with what I've got (yes I know I had a good moan the other day but that's all ancient history now).

I mentioned a good long time ago (a couple of years?) that I dream a lot. At the time I was being troubled by dreams of being lost in hospitals and hotels. I hadn't determined what that meant for me when I wrote it, but I can say now. I have those dreams when I'm stressed. When something is on my mind, I get lost in a hotel or a hospital.

Perhaps in a few years I'll post again about my latest psychological drama and will marvel at how I couldn't see what the dreams I'm having now meant.

I miss amazing dream-sex.

Sleep

2011-11-15T10:12:00.000Z

(Warning, this is a MOAN)

Sleep is a precious commodity. We have always been lucky as parents because Small Boy has slept through since he was 12 weeks old. He very rarely wakes in the night, although he does tend to get up some time between 6am and 8am. M is currently working afternoons and evenings, and gets home soon after 9pm during the week. We share getting up in the mornings so on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday I get up when he toddles in to our bedroom. The other days, M gets up.

Note today is TUESDAY.

We had a friend over on Friday night and we all got very drunk and stayed up far too late. When J through at 7ish I'd had about 3 hours sleep and M had had perhaps 2. He was clearly not in a fit state to get up, so I did and that was fine. I went back to bed later. No problem. On Sunday night J woke up poorly and I was up with him for 2 hours. We then needed to get up because someone was coming to fix our broadband first thing in the morning. I got M up too because he knows what's what with the broadband and I take no interest so don't know. Apparently this was the wrong thing to do and I should have somehow dealt with it on my own. With a toddler.

Last night M went to see RHCP in Manchester. I was shattered after the previous night and retired early, safe in the knowledge that it wasn't my turn to get up in the morning. M got home about 11ish, by which time I'd been asleep for about half an hour I think. J came in at 6am today, which was frankly Far Too Early, and M insisted I had to get up. He went out last night, you see, and he has to go to work which makes his sleep more important than mine.

I'm FUMING.

1) If he wanted an extra lie in then he should have planned ahead and asked me the night before so I could have gone to bed earlier.
2) 11pm is not that late to get home and go to bed. Why couldn't he do it himself?

Frankly it's not so much that I had to get up, although I am not happy about it, but that when I went up half an hour ago asking him to get up so I could go back to bed for a bit, he refused.

Sleep is probably the thing we fall out about most. I think he's incredibly SELFISH about sleep. He won't go to bed until stupidly late, then wants to get up stupidly late. Every morning - every SINGLE morning - I have to practically drag him out of bed. Many calls upstairs telling him his coffee is ready (and going cold) that it's time to get up, trips up to gently or not so gently remind him. This is even on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday because he almost always has to go back to bed to cope with having got up at 7am. I hate that he seems to think his need for sleep is more important than anyone else's. He complains he doesn't see much of J any more, but the time he could have, he chooses to fester in bed instead. If I didn't get him up, he wouldn't get out of bed before midday. Ever.

And yet still, somehow I'm the villain. Somehow it's my fault. I get "how often do I go out?" sort of comments, which are beside the sodding point.

Gah. I sometimes wish I could drag him to relationship counselling so someone else could listen to us and decide I'm right and tell him to stop being a bloody pain.

/moan

Determined

2011-11-14T21:34:00.000Z

Our wedding plans are beginning to take shape. The ceremony venue and registrar have been booked, and I will be booking the reception venue later this week.

We have a little over a year until our Christmas wedding. I am determined that I will remain dialysis and transplant-free for that time. I will be stable and in good shape, and not ill on my wedding day.

I will also be thin.

Bit Drunk

2011-11-12T01:46:00.002Z

But it's all good!

Interesting debating faith, the universe and everything under the influence of vodka. I think we might have reached earth-shattering conclusions, although when I'm sober it might not seem so.

I have great friends and great family. Love them all. Big soft cow that I am.

Oooh I've got a "drunk" label. What's that all about?

Shelf

2011-11-07T22:50:00.000Z

Please explain to me why a bit of wood to shelve our record player needs to cost so much? It's either £80ish for some hideous chunk of metal, or £200 for a bit of wood.

Yes, that's right a £200 bit of wood.

We need to put the record player out of reach of a certain small boy, but do we have to spend silly money to do it? Frankly if I'm going to spend £200 on furniture I want a wardrobe, or a bookcase or something BIG.

Chipboard, anyone?

Sympathy

2011-11-06T10:51:00.001Z

When I was seriously ill, which is now nine and a bit years ago, I was in hospital having lots of blood tests every day. I have quite small and weak veins, so they can be quite a challenge to get blood from at the best of times. When they're being done daily it doesn't take long for them to be bruised, painful and basically impossible. On the occasion I'm remembering, I'd been in hospital for over a week, was having daily plasma exchanges (blood pumped through a machine to remove white blood cells, new white cells transfused). I was told I would likely have to go on a toxic drug which would send me through the menopause. I was just 26 years old.

On this particular day, a phlebotomist approached and I burst into tears. I couldn't cope with more blood tests. She wasn't very sympathetic at all and responded unhelpfully with words to the effect of "there are people worse off than you". Undoubtedly this was and is true, but it was no comfort to me. I'd been bled a million times, was frequently plugged into a machine which tired me out, couldn't sleep at night for the drugs and was 300 miles from my family. At that point in time I didn't care how badly other people suffered because I was truly miserable.

I need to remember this experience because sometimes I find myself doing what the phlebotomist did. Sometimes I want to shake people and tell them to get over something or stop making a fuss about xyz. The fact is that when you're suffering and feeling like you're the most unlucky/unhappy person in the whole world, regardless of other people's situations, you ARE the most unlucky/unhappy person ever.

The trouble is that I desperately want to take away that feeling from people who feel that way. I know how utterly awful it is. But what can you say? Sometimes there's nothing and people just have to go through it. And that breaks my heart.

All The Unfun of the Unfair, or a Tale of Humbuggery

2011-11-05T20:16:00.000Z

It's Bonfire Night!! Yay!! Urgh. I'm not really one for standing around in the cold listening to things go "bang". I'm underwhelmed by fireworks. This year, however, I made the effort for the sake of my family to go to a big organised display. It would be J's first proper Bonfire Night, first fireworks and so on (he was under a year old last year).

He takes after his mother, it seems. He was not interested in the rides or the music or indeed anything at all. I think he managed to look more good-humoured about it than me though. To be fair, he was very tired which may have had something to do with it.

We were at the fair with my mother in law, sister in law and her (on off on off on off) boyfriend and her daughter. MIL is lovely, but pushy, and I find her a bit hard work, and feel like a right cow for it because she really has got a heart of gold. SIL is quite nice too, although I don't know her terribly well. Her daughter is... well she's 8 and a bit spoiled. She's good with J though and she's ok most of the time. But the boyfriend... oh dear. I can only surmise that he's a demon in bed because I cannot for the life of me see what someone bright and funny like SIL is doing with him. He's nice, probably very kind and thoughtful, but so so dull it's untrue. I can't work out if he's either incredibly boring or incredibly thick, or perhaps a combination of the two. In any case, after about five minutes of insanely tedious small talk I am afraid that my capacity to smile and be polite runs rather thin. I then spend time stressing that I look as bored as I feel, sending "rescue me" thought waves to any and all passing life forms. He's not horrid, so clearly I'm a snotty cow, but I dread the next time I have to spend time with him.

So anyway, we all came home early from the fair, skipping the firework display (which I can hear now). We were all tired, J wasn't interested and frankly the thought of faking polite small talk made me feel sick.

I'm a big fat bitch, obviously. Leave the nice, gentle man alone.

Plus I had a shitty letter I can't talk about.

Wedding - Part One - Frocks and Shocks

2011-10-28T00:39:00.000+01:00

I tried on some wedding dresses today, and felt like a rabbit in the headlights. They were beautiful dresses, and even managed to make me look nice (mostly, number 3 excepted) but I really couldn't get away from a feeling somewhere between abject terror and slightly less abject terror.

I love M, really I do. I want to be his wife. I want all my friends and family to witness our wedding. I want to DO the WEDDING thing... but it's scary. I can't really put my finger on the what and the why, but I'm scared.

I'm not scared of being the centre of attention, so it's not that. I am truly blessed with lovely family too, so there's no bitchy aunt or overly friendly uncle to worry about. I consider my parents to be friends as well as Mummy and Daddy. M's family, the ones I've met, are all good and warm people.

So what scares me?

I don't know.

I don't want people to laugh at me. I'll be 37 when we tie the knot. Is that too old to wear a big white dress? Is it pretentious to walk down the aisle to "Here Comes the Bride"? I think I want the whole big white wedding stuff, and I'm afraid it's silly for a mid thirties divorcee with a toddler. I'd be mortified if I thought everyone was sniggering behind their hands at my pretensions.

I have never felt so naked as when I was in acres of fabrics I can barely pronounce. There was SO MUCH DRESS but wearing a wedding dress should be about complete honesty, because that to me is what a marriage is based on, but with that much honesty there's nowhere to hide. I can't project professional me or put on any kind of front because it's about actually really being me. That's what scares me. Being totally me, in a big dress, in front of everyone.

I've got a year to get used to being me in public.

Surprises

2011-10-19T13:32:00.000+01:00

I don't like them. Surprises make me incredibly anxious and panicky. Even if it's a totally minor thing like being told that M is coming home late. I have no trust issues there at all, it's simply a reaction to the surprise.

I can only assume it's a consequence of bad things happening out of the blue. I've been utterly blind-sided by things in the past, which is horrible. That feeling of the rug being pulled from under your feet, complete confusion and then on top of it the actual bad thing itself and having to deal with it is very distressing.

It's as if I am now hard-wired to panic when something happens unexpectedly. Usually with the minor things, as described above, I'm ok within a minute or two, although there was a time when I'd have ended up in a row about it because I didn't understand how I felt. Other situations can be more complex and difficult to cope with.

One coping mechanism is to have an action plan for disasters. I don't have a detailed plan of what I'd do, but I have thought about where I would go and what I would do if the house burned down/M and split up/someone in the family was taken seriously ill or died. These plans help me cope, because they reassure me that if something bad happens, I know what to do. I won't be blind-sided. I just wish the plans acted as a preventative.

Of course I can't plan for every disaster.

Is it "healthy" to have an aversion to surprises? I'm as comfortable as I can be with it, I suppose, and I do manage it better than I used to (I'm sure it was the root of many a falling-out in one particular relationship).

Just don't ever organise me a surprise party.

Good News

2011-10-11T14:33:00.000+01:00

I am officially looking well and have very encouraging blood test results. Dialysis and transplant are not so imminent as they were. It has been suggested that I might have some form of PTSD however...

Flying

2011-10-08T22:08:00.000+01:00

I am not a tidy person; I am essentially a lazy person. I like sitting down and reading, rather than dusting. I'm even happier if there are biscuits involved. I don't like mess, however. Things generally follow this pattern:

1) House is tidy. I relax and stop worrying.
2) House is suddenly very messy and I don't know how it happened.
3) I can't face tidying because it's all so overwhelming and boring.
4) House is a complete nightmare and I can't find something important. It's probably buried under a lot of papers or toys.
5) I tidy up. It takes ages and I hate almost every minute.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Bang head on brick wall...

I suspect I'm not unique.

Anyway, so we hit point 5 again this week. I couldn't cope with the chaos any more, or the worrying about people seeing it, and because I'm not feeling quite like death, I got stuck in.... and went to a website.

I've been checking out Flylady. This website has helped me face and begin to tackle the chaos around me. Each day this week we've done a "zone". We cleaned the kitchen on Tuesday, the bedrooms on Wednesday, stairs/hall/landing on Thursday and have had a day off today. At the same time, we've been making sure that a handful of jobs are done every day without fail (a load of washing, all the pots after a meal, a quick wipe around the bathroom).

It has made a huge difference. It's not so scary to contemplate tidying up any more. Even though we haven't officially tackled the living room, it's already a great deal better because we're generally picking up and tidying up after ourselves more. I like coming downstairs in the morning to a tidy and clean kitchen. I feel much more in control and this is a great feeling.

Of course there's a but. The website (and daily emails) are great because they remind me I can do it and not to be overwhelmed and all that, but they also trouble me. They trouble me because it's all about women. Now, I know that the majority of housework is done by women, even in households where the women are in full-time work. I wrote about it for my dissertation a couple of years ago: women do more housework than men. There are men out there who do housework, some even are "househusbands" (although they are of course not married to their houses, any more than "housewives"). My own beloved M is a dab hand with the vacuum cleaner and no stranger to cooking and tidying up (no more so than me, anyway). The point is, however, men in general are in the minority when it comes to doing housework.

It perhaps then is no surprise that Flylady is very clearly addressed to women, after all, they will make up almost all of the audience. What troubles me is that by being so totally woman-centric, it risks reinforcing the notion than cleaning is women's work. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is me who looks, I read about how other women are doing it, it becomes my responsibility to monitor/control what is done and when. I'm now leading the housework.

Of course, the payoff is that I now have a mostly presentable house, which is great. My lovely M has helped enormously, but the fact is that if I'm not here saying "today we're going to tackle..." then whichever zone I'd chosen (or allowed him to choose) doesn't get done. I went out today for a much-needed hot chocolate, cake and chat session, and when I came home the daily jobs hadn't been done (washing, pots etc).

I'm not moaning about M, in fact I'm not really moaning at all... well maybe a bit... but struggling to find my own way here. I don't want to be the guardian of tidiness or the mistress of mops, but I do want a tidy house. What it costs me is conforming to a norm I object to in principle, and feel I should be confronting and challenging, when in fact I'm reading about how to make my sink shiny and admiring the pictures.

I wish I had the tolerance to live in mess, or enough love of cleaning to have the desire to do it without motivational emails.

Surprise!

2011-10-02T16:35:00.000+01:00

I have a very lovely family, and every time I see them I am enormously grateful that they are so kind and warm. We went to a party last night for my aunt's 60th birthday. A number of her friends were there too, but so so were several of my cousins, their children and partners, my other aunt and it was utterly wonderful to be at such a happy family gathering.

We may not have grown up geographically close to one another, but there's something special about the warmth of being with good people who've known you forever. Especially when you're old enough to get drunk with them.

Poor J found the experience initially very overwhelming, especially the bit where he woke up in a room full of people he didn't know, shouting "surprise!", but he didn't make as much noise as the birthday girl, who screamed!

Offers of a kidney now stand at 5, and no, I wasn't touting.

Haircut 1

2011-09-28T16:42:00.000+01:00

My 20 month-old son had his first haircut yesterday. We went to a specialist children's hairdresser, which looked so much more fun and welcoming than their intimidating adult counterparts.

I shed a tear or three. Because I'm a big fat softy. He did need his hair cutting, particularly after he'd been mistaken for a girl a couple of times, but despite how silly it sounds, it was a milestone.

Babies don't need haircuts. This means he's not a baby any more and he really is growing up. It's wonderful and exciting, but sad too because the baby days were so fleeting and beautiful. Unlike some of my friends, ours was an incredibly easy baby. No allergies or intolerances or incessant crying; just smiles. He slept through all night from three months old. I wish I could do it all again again again, but I doubt we'd be that lucky twice and I'm certainly in no fit state to carry another pregnancy.

We've kept a lock of his hair (she cut so much off!) and no doubt will need to get it out to prove that once he really was very blond, because I suspect eventually the colour will change. It can't possibly stay blond because no-one in either family has ever been blond. I'll probably shed a few tears then too.

Cheese and Wine

2011-09-20T23:12:00.000+01:00

There wasn't either cheese or wine. There were biscuits and little plastic cups of lemon squash, so it wasn't a complete wash-out in terms of refreshments at the Kidney Open Evening. We even had boiled sweets during the presentations.

I don't want to say that tonight was a waste of time, because it wasn't - quite. I think they achieved their objective well, it's just that I want a different objective. There was a series of speakers: renal consultant, nurses, someone to talk about benefits and a representative from the North West Kidney Patient Association. Each person presented some aspect of renal health and care, giving a good overview of disease and dialysis.

Great. The trouble is I've heard it all before. A few times. I'm sick of being given a general overview and the edited highlights. I want DETAILS, facts, geeky sciency stuff that explores and explains. I feel like they're all trying too hard not to overwhelm patients, and in the process left me feeling unsatisfied. It's a bit like when you're really hungry and someone gives you some food, say a cheese sandwich. You eat and it's ok, but it's not what you wanted. You wanted a roast dinner and you'd had a cheese sandwich earlier. You're good at making your own cheese sandwiches! You're still hungry, but now you're a bit annoyed too at having wasted calories and fat and protein on a crappy sandwich.

It's a bit like that. Honestly.

I don't know. I think I just want to have some sense of making progress. I don't expect them to be able to predict the future, but I need more than I'm getting. I'm just frustrated to still be on hold. Maybe this is the nature of the pre-dialysis beast, but I feel that I've been on the starting blocks for a long time, told the gun is going off soon, and that I need to be ready and it could be any minute..... and now I've got cramp.

I'd probably feel more satisfied if they'd given me a certificate. I like certificates. Level 1 Kidney Studies or something. Can I do level 2 now?

Can't Quite Believe

2011-09-20T16:31:00.002+01:00

Something really lovely is supposed to happen tomorrow. I just can't quite trust it. I can't bring myself to believe it really will happen, thinking that something will crop up at the last minute. I won't believe it until we're on our way.

Anticlimax

2011-09-17T13:20:00.003+01:00

I've recently been referred to the low clearance clinic for my kidneys. This is where the really shit kidneys go. It was a bit of an upheaval really because for almost ten years I've been seen by a different clinic headed up by The Man Who Saved My Life. I've always been very well looked after and included in decisions. I was therefore apprehensive about being the new girl at another clinic. I needn't have worried really because the new doctor was excellent and I felt confident that I'd receive the same level of attentive care from her.

I went twice and and was seen both times by this doctor. In the last six months or so, everything to do with my health has been a pretty big deal. I've been told I need a transplant and have had 9486793948 tests. I've been told about the different types of dialysis and had to make preliminary decisions about what I want. I've had to talk to people about live donors. Big stuff. On top of that I've had no end of hassle with work (about which I can't talk) and let's not forget the sodding disease that caused all the damn damage in the first the place. Maybe I'm the patient equivalent of a spoiled brat, but I'm used to being dealt with in a particular way:

1) Feeling that the doctor finds my situation interesting
2) Feeling that the doctor wants to know how I really am getting on with life/things/stuff
3) Discussing what happens now/next/hypothetically

I'm used to a little examination when I'm seen (eyes, looking for fluid in my ankles, lying and standing BP measurements).

In advance of yesterday's appointment, I'd had an abdominal ultrasound and chest x-ray. I'd also had my blood pressure medication changed at the last appointment, as well as having discussed work hassle. I want to know where we're up to with the preparation for being on the transplant list. I want to know about looking after my heart, seeing as what kills renal patients is usually their heart and I've now apparently got high cholesterol. I want to ask about Renal Patient View, which is apparently some means of renal patients accessing their own blood test results remotely. I want to ask about dialysis machines and when I will get a fistula. Instead the appointment went like this:

Receptionist: You're down to have iron today so you'll see the doctor first
Me: Iron? I've never had iron before.

Then followed a very long wait with a small child in a cramped waiting room with no natural light. I was then called in to a tiny consultation room, which is fun with a buggy. The doctor was nice enough, but felt more like a fairly junior doctor on his renal rotation, rather than someone who wanted to be there. He raced through a handful of standard questions about itching, swelling, eating and weight. He took my blood pressure (once, seated) told me he'd probably stop the morning dose of BP medication because the reading was low. And no, I don't need iron.

That was it. Out the door. See you in three months. No chat, no examination, no questions. I tried to talk but got nowhere and gave up. Fortunately there's an open evening on Tuesday coming up. Maybe I'll have chance to talk to people then. I just want to feel that we're getting somewhere, that there's a plan or a timetable or something. I want to know that it'll be ok and I'll feel better one day.

Open Evening

2011-09-09T18:30:00.000+01:00

I have been invited to an opening evening at the hospital. It's an opportunity to meet various renal doctors, nurses and dietitians, as well as other patients. I'm quite looking forward to it and hope to be able to ask questions about what to expect, what it's REALLY like and so on.

But the main thing is, will there be cheese and wine?

Sad

2011-09-08T22:49:00.000+01:00

I'm on a few online forums, and post on two very regularly. Today I've read about incredibly sad events on both of them.

My heart goes out to both families. I'm so sorry for your losses.

Smear Tests

2011-08-18T22:49:00.000+01:00

Nine years ago I was first diagnosed with vasculitis. I was treated with, amongst other things, blood transfusions. They saved my life. My boyfriend at the time and I made a deal: he would donate blood and I would get a long-overdue smear test. I think I was due one a year before, or thereabouts.

It came back with "borderline changes" which in itself is not a big deal, but it was terrifying. All it meant was that there were some early changes to the cells on my cervix, and that I would need a repeat smear. It happens to a lot of women. Unfortunately my repeat smear also showed changes, and I was referred to St Mary's Hospital in Manchester (where some years later I gave birth to my son). I then began what I can only call a cervix-go-round. I would have a colposcopy (closer inspection of the cervix and possibly a biopsy), which would show mild changes, have a repeat which was fine, repeated (because you need two clear ones to be discharged) which would show changes. Nine years later, I'm once again waiting for a second consecutive "normal".

But despite the poking, the prodding and the endless returns to the hospital, I am an extremely lucky woman. The NHS probably has closer tabs on the state of my cervix than on anyone else in the North West (I have no idea if this is true, but I bet I have one of the best-known). My cervix only needs an off-day and everyone knows about it.

Why am I lucky? I'm lucky because I'm 36. Nine years ago I was 27. These are lucky numbers. If I'd been, say, 20 nine years ago, I might not be lucky at all. I might not be here to write this blog.

If you live in Wales or Scotland (and you're female) you can have a smear test at the age of 20. You could experience a little irritating bleeding at odd times of the month and your GP would tell you to get a smear test. If you live in England, you can't. If you live in England and you've got pain during sex and you bleed at random times of the month, and you're under 25, the only way you can get a smear test is to pay for it yourself.

We used to have smears in England for under 25s; I know because I had my first one at around 18 or 19. We used to be told to go for one at 20 (I think) or when we'd been sexually active a year (I think I'm right here, although it's a long time ago).

Smear tests save lives. Maybe there aren't a lot of young women who get cervical cancer, but they do get it. We used to protect young women by offering them a simple test. Scottish and Welsh young women continue to get this protection.

Please sign this petition to lower the age of smear testing in England to 20 from 25. I'd consider it a birthday present to me.

Death Penalty

2011-08-04T19:22:00.000+01:00

According to BBC News, there's growing pressure to reintroduce the death penalty.

This makes me think a few things. Firstly that maybe it's a slow news day, because the death penalty debate gets dragged out for an airing from time to time, like spare bedding. Usually sense prevails and it's all forgotten once something more important needs news-space, like a WAG breaking a fingernail or something.

This time, however I'm a little more wary, because the story is about an online petition. There are only around 1000 people who've signed it so far, which I hope is a good thing. Online petitions are so easy to sign though, which is great when it's something I care about and want to change, like the whole NOTW phone hacking mess, or the government's shocking cuts to DLA and so on, but there isn't a petition to stop a petition on capital punishment, so I'm scared of being powerless over something I care about wanting to keep the way it is now.

In addition, I was under the impression that Britain couldn't reintroduce the death penalty without having to withdraw from the Council of Europe. This, I think, would have significant political ramifications. My information does come from Wikipedia, so it may not be entirely accurate. I'm pretty sure it would lead to heavy criticism from the EU and Amnesty and the UN.

The main thing that troubles me, and perhaps I'm in a minority here, is that I can't understand how anyone could be in favour of capital punishment. State-sponsored murder can never be right. Miscarriages of justice are devastating enough when people have been imprisoned; imagine how horrifying it would be if someone was eventually acquitted after execution. Civilised people don't kill each other.

A Day Out

2011-08-04T18:49:00.000+01:00

Joseph and I had a day-trip to visit friends in Hornby today. It's around an hour and fifteen minutes away, almost all of which is motorway. We set off, in the pouring rain, but within a few minutes Joseph was whingeing. Ten Green Bottles later, he's in full-scale moan-mode. Incey Wincey Spider, Twinkle Twinkle and begging didn't help. Somewhere on the M61, surrounded by grey spray, he stopped. I took a peak and saw he'd managed to wriggle free from the straps of his car seat, so was happy.

I wasn't.

Fortunately services weren't far away, so I pulled in and resecured him. He started whingeing again almost instantly. I switched the radio on, willing to try anything, and as it was the first station I found, I listened to Radio 1 for the first time in well over 10 years. It took my mind off the increasing shouts of misery from the back seat a little, until some awful rap came on. Rap is the main reason I stopped listening to Radio 1, so rap and a toddler by now hiccuping with his sobs was not a happy combination.

Finally we arrived, all smiles from Joseph, but all I wanted by this stage was gin!

After a few hour of lunch, playing (Joseph), chatting (grown ups) we set off back home. I was braced for more sobs, but fortunately he slept all the way. Instead of Radio 1 I found Classic FM, and enjoyed a magnificent few minutes of sunshine, clear motorway, beautiful scenery and Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries. It was stirring, dramatic, spine-tingling stuff.... but I couldn't help but think of Elmer Fudd singing "Kill the wabbit".

In fact, I may just have to find What's Opera Doc and watch it again.

Self Pity

2011-08-03T18:45:00.002+01:00

Just allow me a moan for a minute. I'm fed up, partially because I'm just too HOT, but mostly because I feel like I'm on a never-ending conveyor belt of hospital appointments. School broke up just under a fortnight ago, and in that time I've had 4 hospital appointments, and a dental check-up.

It's a bit... boring... samey... meh. I know I'm lucky to have access to high quality, free healthcare, I just wish I didn't need so much of it.

During a telephone conversation earlier I was told I also need to have a work-related meeting later this month. So much for the holidays.

While I'm at it, moaning that is, I also dislike the lack of privacy awarded to people with chronic health conditions. I feel like I have to disclose my entire medical history to so many people, I might as well carry a pamphlet. I understand that people need to know (bosses, certain colleagues, HR and so on) but sometimes it feels like an invasion of privacy.

/end moan

Dreams

2011-08-02T09:17:00.004+01:00

The last two nights I've had kidney-related dreams. Last night I was given a new one by my sister, and almost immediately sent home, whereupon I went to a big house looking at second-hand clothes. I didn't feel any different, although I was very grateful to my sister. She wanted to show me her scar but I didn't want to look.

The night before, I dreamed I had one of my kidneys removed, ready for transplant, and was sent home. Incidentally, surgeons don't remove the failed kidneys unless they're cancerous or otherwise likely to cause harm. I couldn't understand in the dream why they'd taken one out and sent me home, potentially halving what feeble function I have. And then my scar ruptured, pouring blood... and then miraculously healed to a faded stretch mark.

I don't think it takes a specialist to work out what's on my mind, do you?

Pornography

2011-07-29T21:55:00.003+01:00

I've just started reading How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran. I am thoroughly enjoying the entertaining mix of anecdote and feminist commentary. I wouldn't go as far as to call it ranting, but it's certainly impassioned and persuasive. I love that she's exactly the same age as me (well, 4 months older) and that means all the references about being 13 in 1988 are just spot on.

So anyway. Porn. If you're looking for some Red Hot Action, I suggest you move along!

Moran basically says we need MORE porn, not less, because what's out there is largely homogeneous as well as rubbish. She describes the typical porn scenario of bored and not particularly attractive woman with a too-tight bra, contorting her face in discomfort/feigned pleasure (is there a difference?) while being fucked every which way by a man with an unfeasibly large penis. There are sometimes tweaks to the scene (more girls/bums and occasionally decent lighting) but it is pretty much the same formula.

Reading this put me in mind of one of my less inspired kindle purchases, called something like HOT Erotic Sex Stories!! This really didn't live up to the meagre promise of the title. It wasn't hot, erotic, and the stories weren't particularly sexy. They'd been written by semi-literate men, I think, and as Moran complains about porn, lacked any notion of desire or genuine variety to the landscape of sexual imagination.

I've deleted HOT Erotic Sex Stories!! now, sadly, but I vividly remember splitting my sides over something along the lines of "his cock was the size of a kitchen roll". I can't see anything erotic about a kitchen roll. Perhaps I'm missing something?

Moran argues that it's not that pornography is in itself exploitative, but the industry is. The lack of real choice and diversity in sexual imagery means that we become conditioned to accept this plastic-y porn world as real.

It's refreshing, as a feminist, to read a different viewpoint about pornography. It's not realistic, or even desirable to ban pornography, but neither is showing everyone this version of sex fair; it's not representative of real men, real women, real fucking.

Now, can I google that?

Black Forest Gateau

2011-07-27T19:32:00.007+01:00

M turned 40 on Monday and after years of him asking, I finally made a black forest gateau. I'm a keen amateur baker, but have never made anything this fancy-shmancy. It was going to be the final installment of a retro meal: prawn cocktail, steak then the ultimate retro dessert: BFG.

M had indigestion on Monday, so we stopped after the prawn cocktail. It was just as well we didn't have the gateau then, because I wasn't happy with the results of the sponge.

Here's Sponge 1:

I followed the ocado recipe, but it did not rise well enough to be sliced into three layers.

Yesterday then, I tried again, using the recipe from BBC Food

Here's the replacement sponge:

Slicing it into 3 was a bit scary, but I managed it. The middle ended up in a few pieces, but as it was smothered in whipped cream, I didn't think anyone would notice.

Here's the finished article:

A bit scruffy, but I have no idea how on earth anyone manages to make it look as perfect as the picture. In future I would try to get curls of chocolate, and also make the ganache recipe suggested by BBC Food. In the end what I made was a cross between the two recipes: sponge from one and decor from the other.

In any case, it was delicious, and only 1 million calories per square inch!

Jodi Picoult

2011-07-24T09:01:00.004+01:00

Coming a little late to the party, I recently discovered Jodi Picoult. I read My Sister's Keeper a few months ago, and thought it was a great read. I was in tears several times, and frankly in pieces by the end. For those not in the know, it's a court-room drama about a family whose lives are torn apart by one daughter's illness and their use of the other daughter to provide treatment. It explored family dynamics and relationships and asked the reader to consider some impossible questions.

Some short time later, I selected House Rules, by the same author. This was another tense read that I struggled to put down. This time it was about a single-parent family with two sons, one of whom is autistic. This autistic son is charged with murder, and the reader is never entirely sure whether or not the boy is guilty. Much of the action takes place in the court room, and it not until long after the verdict is reached that everything finally falls into place. Another good read, although without the tears of My Sister's Keeper.

I have now just finished The Pact. I'm sure if I'd read it first, or even second, I'd have thought it was a good book. The fact is that it's yet more families being torn apart by an ambiguous situation, with the action centred around a court-room. Again. I'm left feeling annoyed rather than sympathetic, because it rather seems like Picoult writes just the one type of story. Even her characters don't seem very different to one another: the lawyers between the novels largely overlap and blur into one homogenous lump. Peripheral brothers and sisters are similar across the stories. All the mothers are tigers, championing their children, but there just isn't much of a difference between any of them.

I may have been unlucky in picking the novels I did, but I can't see me reading any more. In fact, if they weren't on my kindle, I'd definitely take two of them to the charity shop.

Plane Spotting

2011-07-17T20:43:00.002+01:00

It was another rainy day in South Manchester and there was no way I wanted to spend it trapped inside with an energetic toddler. Soft play seemed like asking for trouble, so instead we decided to do something a little bit different that our little Scruffalump would enjoy.

We went to The Airport Hotel. I was sold this on the basis of the word "hotel" and that there was plenty for children to do for entertainment, plus the added fun of being right on the edge of the airport runway, so we could see planes taking off and landing. A trip to a park in the flight path a few days ago demonstrated that all that noise was a lot of fun for a small boy.

I envisaged a conservatory-type arrangement, with nice chairs and tables. The website (I'm told) said there would be "home-cooked" meals.

It was not to be.

In reality it was a very run-down pub, where it cost £3 to park for an hour, although did get £2 back. Our drinks were served in plastic beakers and the food was home-cooked in the sense that they were cooked on the premises - if you can call throwing a load of frozen chips in the deep fat frying home cooking. It was chips, chips or chips on the menu, so we had chips. On polystyrene plates with plastic cutlery.

In the "family room" there were two television screens: one showing Eastenders and the other golf. The walls were lined with a selection of fruit machines, juke box, those claw-things where children try (and fail) to get a toy, and sweet dispensers.

There were a few miserable-looking families, poking at chips with bendy plastic forks. Dotted about between the families were Plane Spotters. They too looked miserable, but sat hunched over a walkie-talkie and polystyrene cups of coffee. Each had a slightly wild and unkempt look, as though they'd been there for some time. Maybe they'd arrived all neat and happy but had been drenched by the torrential rain once too often when spotting the latest arrival from Alicante.

We finished poking chips, aware that our hour would run out shortly. We still didn't want to go home. What did we do? We went to the Trafford Centre. That would obviously be a better idea, wouldn't it?

Ha. Everyone who wasn't spotting horrified holiday-makers had decided to go shopping.

Next time it rains, I'm staying in my pyjamas and hiding.

Online Life

2011-07-16T08:25:00.002+01:00

Over the years I've had quite lot of internet presence, I think.

I started with internet dating, which is how I eventually met my fiance, but not before a string of dates which varied enormously between interesting and nightmarish. My first experiences with it were on Love @ Lycos, about ten years ago. It was a free site, and after a while it became apparent that I was unlikely find a soulmate there. Most of the male profiles were for men who worked in I.T. and a great many were very very lonely. I chatted to plenty of very nice men (no axe murderers that I know of) but nothing was ever going to come of it.

When I decided to become a teacher, I joined a teaching forum. I valued the advice and support I got from there as a prospective trainee, and then during my training. My posting tailed off during my first year after qualification, although I popped back from time to time. There is more to this story, but for now I can't share it. Hopefully one day I can.

Probably the most important online presence (except for finally meeting Mr Right) for me has been on a pregnancy and parenting forum. I joined before I was pregnant, and quickly found it to be an amazingly helpful and supportive environment. Since then, the ladies have seen me through my pregnancy and becoming a parent, but more than that, they've become my friends. There is a real closeness in the community and I value my friendships there very highly indeed. They've reassured me about anxieties, given practical advice, laughed and told me off: just like "real" friends. These lovely ladies will be helping me celebrate my birthday in Birmingham next month.

I'm also a member of a kidney forum. I don't post there much. It's not that the people aren't kind or helpful or otherwise Good Eggs, but despite having something important in common with them, I don't like it there. It's depressing. Even though there are plenty of people who've come out the other side of a transplant and so on, I know they've been through a lot first. There are some people on there who are clearly having a very hard time, but it's just too close to home for me. There's also not a lot of traffic, so if I post something there won't necessarily be much of a response. There's no banter either!

My online life has never been (Facebook aside) in my own name. Does that make my online life less me? I use the same username in a variety of places, and this name feels as much my own as the one on my birth certificate. I find myself having to think twice before I introduce myself in real life to the online friends: I've almost used the wrong name on more than one occasion.

Have I been sucked in, Lawnmower Man style, to feel that my online life is as rich and interesting as my real life? If I'm honest there have been times when it's been much better. It's certainly a very valued part. I owe a great deal to the internet: my partner, my job and so many friends.

Thank you.

Dinner

2011-07-13T21:49:00.002+01:00

(2 posts in one day!)

We went out for dinner as a family today. That's my lovely fiance, myself, and our bundle of monkey dust who is 18 months old.

The restaurant we chose was a family-run Italian nearby. We ate early so as not to disturb our son's bedtime routine too much, and so we wouldn't bother anyone wanting a quiet evening.

It was a mixed success. The food was excellent, as was the service, but we made mistakes. Firstly we forgot to take a toy for His Monkeyness to play with (gasp!). He then proceeded to pull at anything and everything within reach, while making an uncharacteristic fuss about God Only Knows What.

So much fuss that I didn't order my dinner properly and had a wonderful dish of beef with mushrooms and a cream and truffle sauce... but with no potatoes, vegetables, or indeed any kind of accompaniment!

Angel/Devil Child didn't want his pizza. He didn't want anything. Then he did want. Then he threw things on the floor. Then he couldn't cram the pizza in fast enough.

By the time we left, he'd settled right down and was behaving perfectly; I was shattered!

Next time I will definitely take a toy and order a proper meal for myself.

Do eat here if you can: they were wonderful and food was superb.

Limbo

2011-07-13T21:31:00.002+01:00

Limbo
Limbo like me

... bit of an in-joke for English teachers, that one, but it suits how I feel.

I'm in limbo. Stuck. Painted into a corner. I need a kidney transplant, but not quite yet. I feel like I can't get on with my life properly because I've got this massive thing dangling over me. I'd like to inject a bit of new life into my career, but it doesn't seem a wise move at the moment. I'm interested in other studies, but again it doesn't feel like a good idea to make any plans there.

I'm a planner and I'm now a bit lost. It's really hard to be in this position where I can't do what I always do: formulate a plan.

I have to do the unthinkable: wait and see.

Transplant

2011-04-24T22:51:00.003+01:00

I need a kidney transplant. I say the words, I write them and stare at them and still it doesn't feel quite real. I can't quite believe it: I don't feel ill and my blood tests don't look as bad as you'd think. Yet the biopsy results give a different story, and as much as I'd like to think they're wrong, they're not. Of the 17 glomeruli taken last week, 16 are dead. No matter how you look at those figures, it's not good.

If I'm lucky, my kidneys will last another 5 years; if I'm not lucky, they'll last less than a year.

I don't know what happens now, other than that I've been referred to the transplant team. I don't know how soon things will get moving, how we get moving.

The whole process is very interesting, if I'm detached about it. I read about different operation techniques, about varying success rates around the country, about waiting times. All fascinating. Then I looked for pictures, and it dawned on me that I'm going to have an operation and have a big scar.

I don't want a scar.

I didn't realise I was quite that vain, but clearly I am. I don't want a scar. I don't want an operation. I don't want a kidney from a family member who might need it. I don't want a kidney from someone whose family is grieving. I want my kidneys, the ones I was born with.

I feel like I've failed.

Just a little bit addicted

2011-04-02T20:51:00.003+01:00

Yesterday I cycled the furthest I've ever travelled under my own steam. I cycled 12.3 miles. In cycling circles that's measly, but to me it's AMAZING. From a position of fat and unfit, and with duffer kidneys, it's a huge huge achievement.

I'm so proud of myself.

I have learned a few things in the process:

1) A good breakfast is absolutely totally compulsory. 1 small slice of toast and a banana is likely to leave me cycling on empty quite early.
2) Take snacks.
3) Get a map. Printouts from Google Maps just aren't good enough.
4) Ignore tossers in Transit vans.

The thing is... I'm kind of... um... addicted. I've got a 13.7 mile route planned for tomorrow and I can't wait to break the 15 and 20 mile barriers.

I've even got some bigger things in mind.

Just hoping that the kidney biopsy in a couple of weeks doesn't put me off too much.

Betty

2011-03-26T13:06:00.003Z

A couple of weeks ago I bought a bike. She's called Betty. Once again I'm in need of less food and more exercise, and I've concluded that neither exercise DVDs nor a Wii are the answer. A gym membership is out of the question at the moment while we wait for M to find a new job.

I popped out for a test run last weekend. Just a mile and a half to find my bike legs, and as I free-wheeled down the hill in the park, with the wind in my face, I grinned. I grinned and grinned and grinned. It was like a flashback to my childhood: freedom, adventure and fresh air. At the bottom, I turned left and cycled back to the top so I could do it again.

Following a suggestion from a cycling forum member, I went out again, this time before work one morning. It was about 6.30am and glorious outside: blue sky, quiet and sunny. I did the exact same route, and this time, the flashback effect was increased as I encountered a dog walker with two border collies, one of whom looked just like our long-gone Sally.

On Wednesday I did it again, but this time a slightly longer route (just a shade longer) and a little earlier.

All week I had been looking forward to having the time to do a longer route. I'd planned to do about 4 miles along some country lanes. It was a wonderful half hour. I enjoyed almost every moment of the journey! I covered a little over 5 miles in the end, and it was only marred by my wobble as I tried to look over my shoulder for traffic, which caused me to almost hit the kerb and whack my shin with the pedal.

A battle wound, I think.

Then I stepped on the scales at Slimming World: 5.5lbs off this week!!

Here's to another good week for me and Betty.

Redundant

2011-02-16T18:16:00.003Z

Awful word, isn't it? M has had the news that at the end of March he will be surplus to requirements. It's a slightly scary time I suppose, but also we're trying to focus on the opportunities it presents. He'll have more time with our son, instead of missing out on things. He could go for a career change. The world is his oyster... well, sort of.

I think he's ok. I'm sure he's more worried than he's letting on, but I'm confident everything will be fine.

He's certainly not surplus to requirements here.

Valentine's Day

2011-02-11T13:39:00.002Z

I never know what to make of Valentine's Day, at least not now I'm an adult. Partly I feel it's a silly waste of money and paper. I also want lots of cards from a range of delicious secret admirers. I can never remember if M and I "do" Valentine's either, and it rather undermines the spontaneous romance if I have to ask.

This year, we are "doing" it. Better find a card then.

The main thing this year is that we shall find out if M is being made redundant or not. I guess it's going to be a memorable year.

Gagging

2011-02-11T13:38:00.000Z

Not for it. Not choking. Just can't talk. Or else.

The Meaning of Life

2011-01-05T22:18:00.002Z

While teaching Year 11 this morning, one of the pupils asked me if I'd seen the eclipse yesterday morning. I hadn't. I'd arrived at work in the dark and even if I'd been able to get outside in time, I wouldn't have seen anything due to cloud cover. I was told that in Islam it means that God's judgement is coming.

I tried very hard not to raise my eyebrows at this. They may have twitched.

One of the things I enjoy about teaching is the way that pupils can force me to examine my beliefs and opinions. A few simple questions from them, such as what do I think happens when we die, and I'm gasping for air trying to find a way of basically telling them I'm too much of a coward to commit to being an Atheist, so hide behind the acceptable vagaries of agnosticism: too polite to say I think a lot of religion nonsense, and reserving the right to change allegiance if it becomes necessary. I ended with the truth: I believe in people and that this is all there is. I'm happy with that belief. In truth I was quite pleased with the way I'd handled the discussion.

Of course, after a brief discussion among themselves, they concluded I'm going to hell.

The Behaviour Guru

2011-01-04T20:56:00.003Z

I've been struggling recently at work. Teaching is a hard job and it's got harder. I've been frequenting the TES website for top tips and sympathy. I've received both aplenty, and even managed to avoid the pedants who obsess over a teacher's typo or errant semi-colon. Win-win!

I found The Behaviour Guru and he has cheered me up enormously. I laughed out loud his horror at the frankly disgraceful admissions policy at Hogwarts. He correctly identifies the frightening failings of Mary Poppins, the live-in nanny (teacher) who refuses to supply references and never fills in a risk assessment form for the many trips she takes her charges on. I skipped the post about The Karate Kid because it's a boy's film and I've never watched it. I suspect it'd be a good one though.

Birthday

2011-01-03T20:17:00.004Z

Today has been an amazing day: my son's first birthday. To be honest, it's been a fantastic year. We've been so blessed to have such a content and easy-going baby. Every moment of his life has been an utter joy.

Of course the house now looks like Toys R Us threw up over it. And every other toy shop on the planet.

I'm a big soppy mummy and have shed several sentimental tears. Big Christine from Roary the Racing Car summed it up perfectly this morning, singing to her son Big Chris:

"You are my son, my only son,
and you know how much I love you."

New Year, Old Times

2011-01-02T21:09:00.004Z

It's a new year. Yippee. I've spent many a 31st December feeling glum and gloomy, in tears or thereabouts. So many times I've felt down about what I haven't achieved, or what's gone wrong. In some cases this is because it has been a pretty shitty year, but in others my tendency to stew on the negatives has got the better of me.

This time was different. For a start I decided to stand up for my right NOT to be bothered about celebrating something so mundane as a date change. The pressure to HAVE A GOOD TIME is immense at new year and even on my cheerier years I've found it all rather false, not to mention excessively expensive. So I took a good book to bed (The Woman in White, in case you're wondering) some time after 11pm. I was awake at midnight, but I read on.

Most importantly though, 2010 was not a year I could at all feel bad about. That's not to say that it's been cheesy-grin stuff from start to finish, although actually there's been a lot of that. My year started fantastically with the birth of my son, and he's brought us nothing but utter joy, delight and many many laughs.

So I'm sad to say goodbye to 2010: my best year yet.

Shame it's only 2nd January and I'm already back to slaving the evening away over next week's planning.

Still. Birthday cupcakes in the morning. It's not all bad.

Pass the Gin

2010-12-24T16:22:00.002Z

It's Christmas Eve and I think I'm ready for Christmas! Everything's bought, wrapped and ready. I've prepared my veg. Potatoes are par-boiled. I've even had a bit of a tidy round.

I've spent the last 15 minutes sobbing though. I'm not sad, just overwhelmed. This time last year, I was entering the final days of my pregnancy. I had a scan on Christmas Eve, a very unpleasant internal exam (shudder) and knew it wouldn't be long before Strawberry arrived.

A few days later I went into hospital.

So forgive me if among the wrapping paper and potato peelings, you find me wiping the tears away. They're not tears of sadness, just big fat mummy tears.

Where's my starfish slime?

2010-12-14T21:46:00.003Z

I've been to the vasculitis clinic today and had another check-up. Actually I burst into tears, which was somewhat embarrassing. It's not that they had bad news, or even good news for me, just a combination of being a bit run down and a lot fed up. The round-robin of 5 different hospitals is frustrating and time-consuming. I'm frustrated that I don't seem to be getting anywhere with this blasted disease. Obviously it's never going away, but I've spent months with a question mark over me about whether or not it's active. They keep looking and finding evidence that it might be, but nothing definitive. So they keep looking.

I don't think many people, however sympathetic, really understand what it's like to live with a chronic, incurable condition, particularly when it's something rare. It's easy to understand illness when a pill cures it, or you have surgery to lop off the offending body part, or even (god forbid) if it's terminal. People just don't seem to understand why I look and sound well, yet need all this time for hospital appointments. Surely if I'm that ill I should be in bed.

So anyway, after my moan and tears, after the prescription for MORE drugs and their promises to try to be flexible with appointments (bless them), I asked when I'd be getting some starfish slime.

Poo

2010-12-11T12:33:00.000Z

Why do men take so long to poo? Please tell me. I don't understand it all.

Saying My Piece

2010-12-10T16:33:00.004Z

In a life long ago, I met a nice young man. He was just out of a long-term relationship and we spent many hours chatting. He told me all about how "mental" his ex and her family were. When things went wrong with his Citroen Dyan, he thought it might be someone in her family sabotaging it. I doubted that, because the car was ancient and unreliable, so frankly quite likely to go wrong as it was! After some weeks of getting closer, we ended up as boyfriend and girlfriend. I don't think his ex took it well. She phoned up my parents to tell them what a bad lot my new boyfriend was. She lied about being pregnant. I think she may even have sent me a letter. It's all a very, very long time ago.

This nice young man and I ended up married, but we were young and despite a number of very happy years, our relationship foundered and we split up. One of the sticking points was that I really wanted children and he didn't. I kept hoping that he'd change his mind - after all we were very young - but eventually for a variety of reasons, we split up and went our separate ways. We remained friends for years and it was all jolly amicable.

Then in 2009, the lovely M and I were hoping to hear the patter of tiny feet. We'd been waiting a few months, not long, when I heard from my mum that my former husband was going to be a father. In a strange turn of events, he and his long-since-ex had got back in touch and fallen in love all over again. Kind of sweet really. I was told that everyone believed it was a "surprise" baby. They hadn't been together very long and indeed his most recent ex girlfriend had cut off all contact with him over it. I was given to believe a lot of soul-searching was done on a weekend trip to London.

I was shocked. Very shocked. All my feelings for this man had long since passed, but I did feel hurt because I felt like our marriage hadn't mattered. He'd gone back to his old girlfriend and it was like saying (I thought at the time) that I was an unfortunate interruption. Even though I was glad we'd never had a child together, on some level I was still hurt that he'd wanted them after all with someone else. I was also cross with him for confessing it all to my mum, but not telling me, or even asking her to tell me. It was all very embarrassing and uncomfortable for my parents

I was a member of a forum, and shared my feelings, as I felt them, with the friends I had on there. They were all very supportive as I went through a range of emotions. Sad to say I was even a bit jealous that they had a baby on the way and I didn't. It felt like the final nail in the coffin to be honest. Once the dust settled, I wished them luck and forgot about them.

A matter of a month later, I found out I was pregnant and once again the forum was there to help, support, advise, entertain and occupy me. I became very close to a few people on there who were pregnant and due around the same time as me. We went through a lot together. Of course, it is an internet forum so to a great extent you can't be sure people are who they say they are. That's a different post though!

Out of the blue around Christmas last year, one of the new forum members had her baby. Nothing new there. In her "I've had my baby" post, I realised that she was none other than my ex husband's girlfriend. Initially rather surprised, I quickly sent a private message congratulating her and saying I'd realised who she was. How funny! What a coincidence! I genuinely thought it was a funny old world and reached out the proverbial olive branch.

"I've known who you are for a while and I've been reading all your posts" was the reply.

Oh dear.

Stalker?

Creepy.

She'd done some investigating, tracked me down and joined the forum to stir up trouble. "Time to have some fun" apparently.

She sent a few private messages accusing me of making up lies and saying terrible things. Oh dear oh dear.

A year down the line she's still on the forum and so am I. I largely ignore her posts, but every so often I see what she's writing. I roll my eyes at the vomit inducing version of them getting back together, but hey, each to their own and all that. Live and let live. We all rewrite our histories a little to flatter ourselves, but I do object to my own history being rewritten, without my permission. I think a few people on the forum know that she and I have this unfortunate connection, and it irritates me that if they do, they might actually believe the skewed truth that she posts.

In a sense the story has a happy ending: I have my fiance and wonderful son. I'm very happy with my life for the most part (hospitals notwithstanding). He has a fiancee too, a baby and 4 step children. I just wish that he and I had been able to remain on good terms. It's sad that the pair of them feel the need to snipe about me on twitter etc. It's sad that whenever she can, she has a little dig at me on the forum.

I guess you can't win them all.

Here Be Dragons

2010-12-08T16:40:00.004Z

This morning I made a light-hearted status update on Facebook: 'here be dragons'. It was nothing more than a reference to the fact that I was tired and feeling the strain. Early mornings, lots of work, lots of stress... nothing new really.

Today I had (another) hospital appointment at (yet) another hospital. I had a camera up my nose (again) and was told that I have "crusting". This, it turns out, is definitely evidence of vasculitis. On the one hand I was quite shocked because I'd expected them to say everything was fine, because I haven't had any problems with my nose. On the other, I was not at all surprised. I have vasculitis. If you have a look, you will find it.

Please stop looking.

Here be dragons.

Nostalgia

2010-12-02T17:23:00.002Z

I've been to St Mary's hospital today for my six-monthly poke and prod. Nothing remarkable in that really, but it brought a tear to my soppy eyes to see the snow and the Christmas tree. Last time I saw those, I was as in-patient having a baby. Almost a year has passed since then and I don't know where the time has gone. 11 months ago I had a little squirt of baby. Now I have a bouncing, crawling, chewing, grabbing, into everything little boy.

Festiveness

2010-11-27T21:23:00.003Z

For the first time in the almost 9 years I've lived in Manchester, I went to the Christmas markets in Manchester. It was absolutely bloody freezing out there, and perhaps taking the buggy wasn't the wisest of moves on the crowded cobbles, but mmmmmm sausages and gluhwein and chocolate...

I also bought big red mittens.

For me.

The North Wind Doth Blow

2010-11-27T21:20:00.003Z

And we shall have snow. Pleeeeease! Let my mum travel home safely, and keep everyone bump and bruise free with full cupboards, but please can we have lots of snow and close school until, say, April?

Pregnancy Diary Part 5 - 22nd Oct 2009

2010-11-26T12:37:00.001Z

Another check up at the hospital today, and another growth scan. Strawberry is growing well and looks perfect still. Mind you, I could have told them he'd grown lots without having a scan!

Blood pressure is slightly up, but that's only to be expected after they reduced my medication a few weeks ago to help with the anaemia. A minor adjustment to my medication is all that's been needed.

Once again, everything looks great.

I'm feeling a bit happier on the work front after talking to my doctors. They're prepared to write to my school and advise them that I am fit for work but require a little accommodation from them in terms of breaks, extra duties and safety; they're also prepared to sign me off if I want. I now feel more in control and like I've got a plan: take it a week/day at a time. If I feel it's getting too much or that school is demanding too much, I'll ask the doctors to sign me off.

I think I'm doing pretty damn well actually.

Pregnancy Diary Part 4 - 14th Oct 2009

2010-11-26T12:36:00.002Z

Work phoned me today to make sure I'm on track for going back on Monday morning. I'm kind of looking forward to getting back to normal, but a bit worried about how tiring it'll be because I still need naps during the day.

They also want to know about whether I'm bringing my maternity leave forward. I can't answer that. All I can tell them is what the doctors have told me: so far so good. I doubt I'll be at work for the full half term, but that's about as precise as I can be.

Ho hum.

Pregnancy Diary Part 3 - 12th Oct 2009

2010-11-26T12:35:00.002Z

I woke up a couple of days ago feeling better! I've been so tired and run down the anaemia and had begun to think I was stuck with feeling rotten. Finally the iron started to work and since around Thursday I've been feeling perky and alive.

I went to the GP this morning for a "hello, I'm a new patient and I'm complicated" appointment, which was fine. I decided, seeing as it's a nice day and I'm feeling so much better to walk home. It only took ten minutes and I was proud of myself for doing it.

Soon after a bite to eat I nodded off on the settee.... and woke up 4 HOURS later. It's definitely too soon to go back to school!

Pregnancy Diary Part 2 - 8th Oct 2009

2010-11-26T12:34:00.001Z

've been to the hospital today and am feeling really positive. Strawberry is measuring perfectly. He's not going to be a big baby, but then neither OH nor I are big so that's fine. It was lovely to see him on the screen again, but a shame that OH couldn't be there.

After the scan I saw a consultant. I decided it was time to bring up the subject of actually having the baby, seeing as 30 weeks is now a shade under 6 weeks away. She said that any decision to deliver a baby that early is not taken lightly, and they'd need to have a good amount of evidence that he'd be better off out than in. So far I'm doing brilliantly so there's nothing for them to worry about. I keep going for my fortnightly scans and we take things from there.

She also told me that when they decide to deliver babies early, because they're not growing well due to the mother's health, birth is always by c-section up until 34 weeks. This is because they're usually pretty delicate if they've not been growing well, and a normal birth is very distressing for them. Even at 34 weeks there's still a chance of a c-section.

Obviously my baby's health comes first, but I'm now even more determined to be pregnant as long as I can. I really want to do this as normally and naturally as possible.

I asked if there was a particular week which tended to be a trigger for things starting to go wrong. There is. It's 20-22 weeks when they usually start to see problems developing. I've sailed through that!

There's every reason to be optimisitc. I'd better not get too carried away though.

Pregnancy Diary Part 1 - 8th Oct 2009

2010-11-26T12:33:00.001Z

n Spring 2002 I was 26 and coughing up blood. I had just left my husband in Cornwall and moved to Manchester to start a new life. I had a new boyfriend, a new job, had lost 5st and was a size 10/12. Everything was looking up, if you ignore the coughing up blood bit. Over the next couple of months I was given lots of tests and and eventually diagnosed with a rare, but incurable disease which had caused both the obvious coughing up blood, and the invisible kidney damage. It took a few scary hospital stays in high depedency units and fancy treatment to get everything under control, but eventually it happened.

Sadly, because I was only 6 months into my job, they sacked me. It was all legal and stuff, but really, really horrible and if I'm honest it still upsets me a bit now.

Around this time the docs were tinkering with my treatment and wanted to give me a drug (basically chemotherapy) which would in all likelihood give me an early menopause. I knew I didn't want babies at that moment in time, but didn't want to rule it out forever so insisted they find an alternative treatment. Thankfully my doctors always included me in decisions and discussions and they did as I asked.

Fast forward a few years.... boyfriend is history, a few others have come and gone.... I'm almost thirty and only meet men who are rubbish. My condition is stable and health wise I'm pretty good. I'm training to be a teacher....

In 2006 I had a flare up of my disease, but nothing too scary. I didn't get sacked this time and shortly afterwards (thanks to match.com) I met my wonderful boyfriend. I was very open with him about my health from the beginning and it was clear that we both wanted children. I warned him it might not be possible with my (even worse than ever before) kidneys. He was amazingly supportive and said all the right things. He meant them too!

In 2007 I saw my consultant to talk babies. I said I wanted one and he looked at me carefully over his glasses and agreed to refer me to a top-notch obstetrician. Over the course of a couple of pre-conception appointments, which took us to early 2008, we were warned about just how high risk I would be, and that they'd be pleased if I made it to 30 weeks, or even 28 weeks of pregnancy. Medication was altered to be "baby friendly" and off we went.

In December 08 I came off the pill. We'd needed to wait because I had to have been stable health-wise for a year and on stable medication for six months. In May 09 I got my BFP. I can't tell you how delighted we all were. My parents were sooooo happy too because I'd already told them that I probably wouldn't be able to have children. At 33 I also felt that time was running out, to be honest.

Since my BFP I've been at the antenatal clinic almost every week. I'm now 24 weeks (viable!!) and doing amazingly well. My blood pressure has been fantastic, with the only blips being low rather than high. I've been quite anaemic, which has left me exhausted and signed off work, but otherwise I'm doing brilliantly. No morning sickness, no SPD (yet!), no major complaints.

I'm 6 weeks away from the 30 week target I was set in July. I'm determined to smash it, although I accept that the chances of me getting to 40 weeks are, at best, negligable. I'd like to get to 34 weeks, to be honest.

Later today I have a growth scan, which will be repeated every few weeks. I'm also due to have a glucose tolerance test this month, as well as starting on EPO injections for the anaemia.

Pregnancy Diary

2010-11-26T12:29:00.002Z

No, I'm not pregnant!

I kept a pregnancy diary on a forum, and thought I'd copy it over here. Just thought I'd clear things up before I started...

Part 1 on its way.

Getting Ready

2010-11-26T11:53:00.003Z

Christmas is coming!!! I'm seriously excited this year, and have been since... oh... August or something. There is something seriously magical about sharing it with a small child. Joseph will be approaching his first birthday (eek) and although he's far too young to get excited himself, I simply can't wait to be Mummy at Christmas. We haven't bought any presents yet, but I have things in mind for when I do get time to go shopping. I've got a menu planned for my first ever Christmas dinner.

I can't wait. I'm making The Pudding this weekend. And my own mincemeat. We're going to have goose on The Day and all the trimmings. I have some dim concerns about the size of my oven and expectations, but am mostly ignoring those for now.

My mum is flying up from Cornwall to visit this weekend. This lovely, frosty, pre-advent weekend. I fully intend on dragging her to the Christmas markets in Manchester tomorrow and drinking mulled wine.

'Tis the season to be jolly. Nearly.

Here We Go Again

2010-11-21T15:09:00.003Z

This could so easily be a repeat of the last-but-one entry: faffing around to log on because it's been so long. But anyway...

A good friend has recently started blogging and it reminded me that it's been about a million years since I last blogged.

I was about 3-4 months into my pregnancy then. My son is now almost a year old! So much has changed. So very much. Almost all for the better, I'm happy to say.

Well anyway... I'm going to ponder on a suitable update.

Falling in love again...

2009-08-06T21:30:00.002+01:00

I think I've always hated my body, at least since adolescence when I became really aware of it. As a teenager I was overly well-endowed with monstrous breasts, which caused no end of embarrassment and discomfort. Fortunately the NHS chopped them off for me in 1995.

It's probably fair to say I've waged a war with my weight too, since adolescence. Sometimes I'm winning, sometimes I'm not. When I'm winning I generally feel a lot better, but when I feel I'm losing I pretty much hate myself. I hate the weakness that makes me go for the chocolate or put the butter on a little too thickly. I want to hide, and frequently do. When I'm like this I seem to feel the cold more and therefore need a coat constantly when I'm out of the house, even indoors elsewhere. Black is the colour of choice, long and all-enveloping please. I hate what I see and hide, hide, hide.

As I've documented on here, I've also been very ill in the past, which has left me with more loathing of a body which has let me down, that I felt I could never trust again.

But here I am, a little bit in love with my body because it's doing something right, something wonderful. Every day I'm amazed, impressed, overwhelmed with the miracle that is being pregnant. It's a miracle anyway, but consider the wars I've fought, it feels just that bit more special for me because I never thought I could do it.

Yesterday I went out in white, with my (albiet) small bump on show. Without a coat.

Reflections

2009-08-02T12:36:00.002+01:00

I just missed another Murder She Wrote in skimming through all my past posts. It made for quite interesting reading because there was so much I'd forgotten about. One of the main things which struck me was how much I clearly used to love teaching.

I don't think I do any more. I certainly don't feel about it the way I used to. This could be simply that I did have rose-tinted glasses, which have long since fallen off. Perhaps it's down to the fact that during the last academic year I had 4 classes that I really, really didn't like (out of a total of 5). Perhaps it's time to move on to a different school.

During the last term I did try to get myself a new job. I went for a few interviews, but was unsuccessful. I seriously think I need a change of schools, that I'm stale and under-appreciated where I am. Impending motherhood has set back my career plans, or rather changed them entirely. I don't want to go back to full-time teaching where I am at the moment. Everything is about to change when the school becomes an academy anyway, and change isn't always a good thing.

I'd really like to be able to stay off work and bring up our child for a few years. Then I want to do a PhD. It's that damn money business that gets in the way. I think we'll just have to wait and see what happens, where parenthood takes us, and what my new timetable is like.

One Hour

2009-08-02T11:36:00.002+01:00

And a lot of faffing indeed, not to mention a dose of good luck, and I've finally been able to log in again. I'm missing Murder She Wrote for this.

So... 2 years down the line since the last post (hence the ordeal of logging in) and what's changed? Almost everything!

1) M and I managed through faffing and good luck (hmm sounds familiar) to buy a house earlier this year. It needs decorating, but otherwise it's tickety-boo.
2) Baby on the way. Strawberry is due on 27th January. We're over the moon and very excited, despite the scariness of the prospect from so many points of view (see my previous health-related posts for an idea).
3) Actually can't think of a third, but I think 1 & 2 are big enough to account for at last half a dozen each.

I suppose you could count Facebook and Twitter as big changes since I started blogging. I'm not sure if either Facebook or Twitter was around then, but if they were I'm sure they weren't as big as they are now. I think it's possible that my increasing use of 'social networking' sites (horrible expression) is in part responsible for the decline in blogging. That and a much busier life than I had when I first started.

I'm happy I've been able to get on to Blogger again. Now to write down my log-in details so I never have to go through that nightmare again.

It's been so long...

2007-07-06T23:16:00.001+01:00

... that it took me a few attempts to get my log-in details right.

I'll update you all (I know you're dying to know what's going oh) tomorrow when I'm sober.

Just be comforted (and I know you shall be) by the fact that I'm happy and everything's fine.

Really fine.

Honest.

Too Young

2007-05-29T16:33:00.000+01:00

I'm too young to spend my weekends resting.

Here endeth the words of Dr Kidney Specialist.

Pass me my dancing shoes and some VERY sparkly earrings.

Oh. Wait. I already did that this weekend. With added karaoke and drag queens.

Maybe rest wasn't such a bad idea?

Update

2007-05-19T21:38:00.000+01:00

It's been a little while since I've posted, due to a combination of things:

Hospital
Being busy
Crap computer

I had a week in hospital when M decided I was too poorly to continue as if nothing was wrong: I was desperately anaemic and still suffering from gastro-enteritis. This was brought on by the new drugs my consultant had put me on, and when he took me off them, I got a lot better.

I'm now back at school and in good health (at least for me).

M and I have found a flat to move into in a couple of weeks. It's a new build, but not at all pokey like most modern apartment blocks seem to be. We looked at about half a dozen places before we settled on this one. It was kind of a compromise to be honest, because the place I liked best of all he didn't; the place he liked best of all I didn't. But this place is great and I can't wait for it to be just the two of us.

At this moment in time however, M is drowning his sorrows following the football, in a pool of duvet. Looks like I'm ordering curry for just me then...

JAM-1 on the Brain

2007-04-15T19:58:00.000+01:00

The cause of high blood pressure may lie within the brain, rather than with problems relating to the heart, kidneys or blood vessels, research suggests.

Scientists at Bristol University say the findings could lead to new ways of treating the condition, which affects about one in five Britons.

The scientists isolated a protein, JAM-1, which appeared to trap white blood cells, obstructing blood flow.

This can cause inflammation and result in poor oxygen supply to the brain.

(Read the rest of this story on the BBC News website).

I'm trying not to make any name-related associations.

Budget

2007-04-15T19:31:00.000+01:00

We're both totally down to our last pennies. I don't get paid until Friday, which at the moment seems a very, very long way away. There's petrol to be paid for, but that's not the biggest crisis we're facing.

There's no money in the pot for M's cigarettes.

Many calming thoughts will be required for the coming days.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Who Knows?

2007-04-13T16:50:00.000+01:00

Chances of living after starting dialysis at age 20-44:
1 year - 94%
2 years - 88%
5 years - 71%
10 years - 52%

Chances of living with glomerulonephritis:
1 year - 88%
2 years - 79%
5 years - 58%
10 years - 37%

Transplanted kidneys last around 10 years, although these days they are lasting longer and longer. Transplants do not extend life expectancy. They do, however, vastly improve quality of life. It is also quite possible to have multiple transplants over the years.

Source: Kidney Dialysis and Transplants by Dr Andy Stein and Janet Wild

Plop

2007-04-12T16:12:00.000+01:00

It was a very satisfying sound when I dropped my wedding ring into the river Bollin this weekend.

No tears were shed, it wasn't a particularly moving moment and I have no regrets. I meant to dispose of it years ago, but never really got around to it. It just seemed to be the right time now I've moved in with M.

We had a nice walk, an ice cream, took some pictures and I even took my coat off in the sunshine. That, I think, was the most significant part of the day.

That'll Show Him

2007-04-12T16:03:00.000+01:00

So I'm out of limbo, and safely ensconced near the cereal factory, which does at least smell better than M's feet.

I feel very much at a point where everything is changing. It's not just moving that's done it, but having been quite ill recently I've been forced to reassess everything.

When I went back to school just before the Easter holiday, I was finding my timetable to be quite a strain, and to be honest I'm still quite some distance off my usual strength. I asked for some help, specifically to lose 2 of the hours I spend "supporting" other colleagues in the classroom. In reality I just sit there making up the hours on my timetable. I thought if I could claim back those 2 hours until Year 11 leave, it would allow me to catch up on marking and tidying and generally make my life a little easier at no cost to my school.

The head said no. Apparently it would set a precedent.

So when I sketched out my will and last requests earlier, I made it clear that he will not be welcome at any funeral or memorial services.

Then he'll be sorry.

Another Day, Another Doctor

2007-03-20T20:27:00.000Z

I've been plagued by tedious germs this month. I had a chest infection, which I thought I nipped in the proverbial bud by getting it seen to quickly. The walk in clinic I went to prescribed me antibiotics.

Which made me ill.

And the infection came back.

So I saw another doctor, who prescribed more of the same antibiotics. I didn't take them, but saw my consultant, who prescribed me antibiotics, but different ones.

Which made me ill.

And the infection came back.

Guess what I'm taking now?

Limbo

2007-03-19T20:00:00.000Z

I'm neither here, nor there. I don't know where I'm calling home at the moment. It's an arbitrary place where my pyjamas are.

I have more than one set.

Where am I?

200

2007-03-19T19:54:00.000Z

I was just about to launch into today's little bit of whateverness, when I Blogger kindly told me that thejams is the proud mother of 199 posts, and it therefore seemed appropriate that I should comment... for some reason.

I gather that most blogs don't last long, perhaps three months or so before the writers get bored or fed up and move on to something less time-consuming or more fashionable.

Not me.

I kept many diaries through my childhood and into my twenties, and now I suppose that this is the current incarnation of my internal monologue. How funny that my diaries were so desperately private yet contained little more than mundane details of an unhappy teenage girl; this is totally public and I'm so much more exposed... but anonymously.

I can be anyone I like.

Why did I choose this?

Now Why Didn't I Think of That?

2007-03-11T13:18:00.000Z

I've just had a GP out to visit me. I had a really bad night and it rather seems that the chest infection has returned.

This GP hadn't a clue about any of the medication I take, didn't really seem to be in the know about anything to be honest.

He then prescribed me more of the amoxycillin that upset my stomach so much I haven't been able to eat since Tuesday.

He did suggest it might settle on its own, or that I could try some medicine.

I'm rapidly losing faith in GPs.

Stop Panicking

2007-03-09T23:23:00.000Z

I am not about to top myself. I'm sorry if I gave that impression. I'm not depressed. I do however, promise to talk to a doctor if when the latest bout of tedious illness passes I still feel the same.

But as a point of interest, I'm not alone in my feelings that the desire to stop living can be entirely rational.

Rational Suicide

It makes for very interesting reading.

Death

2007-03-09T18:13:00.000Z

I've been thinking about it a lot recently.

Now, please don't start posting me your Prozac, or emailing me directions to the nearest psychiatric unit, because I am not about to kill myself.

Are we clear on that?

What I am saying, and perhaps this is a big taboo, is that many times over the last few months I would have welcomed death. I'm tired. I'm fed up of being ill, in debt, and having a face so large it merits its own postcode.

There are many things in my life which make me happy: I have a wonderful boyfriend, a very supportive family, and I really love my job.

But do you know what? I've actually already had a good life. I'm happy with what I've achieved in my 31 and a half (don't forget the half!) years. What I want more than anything else now, is peace. No more illness, no more money worries, no more anxieties about random things... no more stress.

I don't want to spend the rest of my life like this.

And isn't that up to me?

The Price of Manners

2007-03-09T08:14:00.000Z

When M and I were in Cornwall a few weeks ago, I was struck by how courteous everyone on the roads was. People stopped in gaps to let each other through, waving their thanks. It's a vital part of life on narrow country roads in small communities. You know the people you pass. You have to give and take.

Back in the throbbing heart of Manchester, and there's no less need to let people in and out, but NOBODY SAYS THANK YOU.

I'll pause to let people pass, perhaps six cars will go through while I wait near some parked inconvenience, and if I'm lucky, one of those will say thanks. The rest won't even acknowledge my presence on the planet.

Are good manners now so expensive? Is it everyone else's God-given right to have right of way over me at all times?

Yesterday, I deliberately didn't let someone in. They were being overly pushy and frankly, I was sick of always letting people in and getting no acknowledgement. The guy driving his Astra (an Astra, for God's sake) hooted his horn and waved his arms around in a most unnecessary fashion.

Clearly Astra man is more important that Mazda lady.

Football

2007-03-06T10:48:00.000Z

I hate football. It's confusing and messy and full of moronic idiots being violent towards each other. It promotes physical aggression as a means to solving problems, gives vast sums of money to illiterate twerps and fame to their vacuous girlfriends.

But.

I've been watching it recently and it's changed my life.

I now have something to talk about with a number of the boys I teach. I have developed enough conversational skill to keep me afloat for about 3 to 5 minutes, and have some serious respect from them. Some of them have worked a lot harder since I've spent time talking about Rooney's amazing goal, or the wonderful first six minutes of the Manchester United and Reading match.

But I knew it had gone too far when I recognised a foul and asked why the ref hadn't done something about it.

And it got worse. I recognised something offside related.

Please help me.

I love the smell of cornflakes in the morning

2007-03-05T07:11:00.000Z

Something very scary is happening soon, very scary indeed if you're me.

I'm moving house. AGAIN, but this time, in with M. I'm quite excited about it, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a big deal to me. It's been a long time since I lived with anyone, and hope I haven't forgotten how to do it.

The down side is that I'll have to get used to the smell of the cereal factory.

Poorly Sick

2007-03-05T07:06:00.000Z

And this time it's not just me. To quote M's mother, we're both "demics".

M decided on Sunday last week that he was perfectly capable of lifting the world's largest television upstairs on his own. Sadly for all concerned, his back rebelled and after a trip to A&E he's been off work for a week and dosed up to the eyeballs on painkillers.

The back is improving.

Unfortunately on Friday, he also got flu, or something very like it. Also on Friday, I got hit rather rapidly by a nasty chest infection.

So I'm dosed up to the eyeballs on painkillers and antibiotics.

Neither of us has been particularly capable of looking after ourselves, much less each other. Poor M has had no sleep for days and has the look of a tortured man. I have finally had more than 2 hours together without having to get up for a wee, and thanks to the anitbiotics am definitely on the mend.

But not M. I'm about to take him off to see a doctor. This will be my fifth trip to hospital since Sunday last week.

Very...

2007-02-17T00:57:00.000Z

...drunk... and planning on Thai curry and karaoke with the people who matter:

The two Rs
M
Miss S

on Friday. Watch this space...

Additional... I just found this post now on Monday. I have no recollection of sending it.

Hospital Shmospital

2007-02-16T17:48:00.000Z

Pah. Another appointment... this time at the eye hospital. When I had my eyes tested recently, I paid an extra £10 to have them take photographs of the blood vessels. It didn't come as much of a surprise to find out that there's evidence of vasculitis there, and therefore no surprise at all to be referred to another specialist.

Yawn.

Cornwall

2007-02-16T16:05:00.000Z

Oh most blessed and beautiful of counties...

On Friday last week, I drove M and I to Cornwall for a few days. It was a long, arduous journey through horrific blizzard conditions, with watermelon-sized ankles. We arrived around 8 hours after leaving Manchester, and I was ready to cry with exhaustion.

But never mind.

We had a fabulous few days where I was able to rediscover the joys of my home county through the eyes of someone else. The scenery was more scenic, the beer better and everything just seemed fresh and peaceful. I relaxed properly for the first time in ages.

M was utterly hilarious. He likes to pretend that he's a hardened city boy, with an elephant's tolerance for alcohol and that nothing could possibly unsettle him. That didn't stop him realising that Cornish darkness on Cornish hills is proper darkness. It didn't stop him getting horrendously drunk with my mother on more than one occasion, resulting in him throwing dirty socks at her. It didn't stop him cringing and squealing when I took the short cut up the hill and had to take a perfectly judged swerve around the kerb. But I love him anyway.

I have to admit though that my parents were very welcoming and seemed once again to truly warm to M. They both talked happily and length with him and I'm confident that he has been accepted.

Proud

2007-02-06T17:28:00.000Z

M and I went to the theatre last night to see a group of my Year 9 pupils perform A Midsummer Night's Dream, as part of the Shakespeare Schools' Festival.

Oh my god, but they were marvellous. I grinned all the way through their half-hour adaptation, clapped until my hands hurt, and wiped away the tears of joy and pride.

But, and this is the truly sad part, which says a lot about the area, the school, the staff, I was the only teacher there to see it. I was the only representative of our school. No head teacher, no deputy. No parents. No one. Just me, my boyfriend and the Drama teacher's boyfriend to cheer on a group of incredibly well-disciplined, talented children.

This is why I feel the children need me. This is why, despite an insensitive, idiot of a head, despite a disinterested head of department, I feel I need to stay.

Wig

2007-02-06T17:24:00.000Z

Well the good news is that my blood pressure is nice and low.

And that's about it.

I'm officially broken. I have around 20-25% kidney function remaining, with active vasculitis eating away at that. I'm being switched over onto a new, expensive, stronger immune-suppression drug (mycophenolate) which I'm told should do the trick. It's just a shame that my hair has to fall out in the process.

If it really starts to come out in clumps, I'm shaving it all off and buying a green wig.

Amazing

2007-01-28T11:40:00.000Z

M took me out on Friday for the most amazing night out I've ever had. God his ego really doesn't need any more fuel, but I must be honest and say that it was truly wonderful.

After a truly delicious meal in Yang Sing (the Chinese restaurant in Manchester), we went to Sky Bar, which offers an impressive view across Manchester. It was fascinating to see the city from such a position. Everything looked so close together, and I found myself musing on the vast number of parallel lives crammed into a few square miles. How we're all sharing so many experiences, yet never interacting with so many of those around us.

From Sky Bar we made our way to South, a club which played a wide variety of great music. They only played one vaguely "urban" track, so I guess that's pretty good really.

It's hard really to explain why the night out was such a revelation for me, but it was. I've never been out with anyone who wanted that kind of a night out, never been with anyone prepared to dance, stay out late and have a good laugh. In all honesty, it goes further than that: I've never been with anyone that I felt that happy and comfortable and confident with that I wanted to share those experiences. I've never danced with a boyfriend before. That's what I'm saying.

In the club I again had another philosophical moment (or three) and it occurred to me how so many people go out for the night to search for meaning. Their night out gives them something to look forward to, to build the week around, to confess all about. They've become temples of a sort where all the parallel lives intersect.

And I had all these thoughts without drugs.

Hope

2007-01-28T11:34:00.000Z

I read a story on the BBC News website this morning that gives me hope:

Immune system 'brakes' found

The immune system constantly combats bacteria and viruses
Scientists say they have learnt how the body controls the machinery it uses to fight infections and foreign invaders.

There's a protein called carabin, and that seems to what controls the immune system. I just hope they can find a way to process and use it before my immune system attacks any more of my body.