It was a Spring Sunday morning this September and I was at the Linksfield Clinic visiting my father. He had been in hospital for weeks and was in a coma - 80 years old, dying of cancer and regret. We had a lousy relationship. He had a lousy relationship with most people, but he was my father, and watching him die was torturous. I couldn't bear to leave the hospital. I would sit there for hours, drinking takeaway cappuchinos from the hospital coffee shop, playing him Nat King Cole songs off my phone and holding his frail paw of a hand.
Every few hours, a nurse would come and take his blood pressure and prick his finger to check his sugars. It seemed vulgar and superfluous and I was so grateful that they kept doing it. As if the dark red blood they squeezed from his index finger meant that he was still alive. That there was still a chance that things could be different.
He wrestled with the coma, glossy and gaunt, like a ghoul, desperate to be released from Life; too unresolved for Life to let him go. That morning, my mom, long since divorced from my father, and her friend, a spiritual woman named Marilyn, stood with me at his bedside. We held hands and prayed and begged him to let go; begged the god we were not certain we believed in to have mercy and to let him try again in another incarnation.
Half an hour later, he stopped breathing.
He had come and gone, just like that. No more blood pressure cuffs or chances or drops of blood or possibilities. In our 35.9 years together, he never once told me he loved me. He never told me he was proud. He never told me I was pretty or clever. And now he never would.
Bam. We had missed it.
My Dad has been gone for two and half months and I haven’t missed him. Or maybe I’ve been missing him my whole life so this doesn’t feel much different. Today I went through dusty boxes of his things. He kept a file labelled ‘Family’ in Times New Roman font, full of family photos, organised with pastel alphabetical dividers. He had a wad of my photographs under ‘J’ and seeing that dissolved me.
Maybe he loved me. It never felt like it. I loved him. Maybe he didn't feel that either. Maybe he was as bad at being loved as he was at doing the loving.
When the torrent of sadness subsided that Sunday morning, I decided to reconfigure the way I fill my life.
2013 will look different because of my father. I will stop seeking him in everything else and try to start filling myself up. I will stop trying so bloody hard to be worthy and start working harder on being worthwhile.
Maybe then it will all make sense to me. John Mayer seems to have this father daughter thing figured, at least lyrically, and he's a knob.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Sod of the Month
The nice thing about having two children, at least in our family, is that rarely do they both behave disgustingly at the same time. Their respective phases tend to be just that: respective, and while there always, always seems to be one that is out of kilter, there is more often than not one delightful child to counter the Sod of the Month.
Liam started Grade 0 at a nice Anglican all boys' school this year and given that:
i. he was at a Montessori nursery school before, and
ii. he is Jewish,
you can only imagine the culture shock. Charting your own course a la Maria Montessori, coupled with Jewish Chutzpah is not de rigeur at said Anglican school. Oy vey! Liam is also sensitive, imaginative, pig-headed, empathetic, intelligent and very (ahem) exuberant. Nevertheless, all of these bits and pieces have made Grade 0 quite an adjustment and his hard work trying to hold it together in the classroom has left him often unbridled at home.
But, like most things, the phase seems to be ebbing and Liam is settling back into the best of himself - thoughtful, caring, responsible and wickedly funny.
And just as he does, Benjamin develops what can only be described as a paediatric fashion pathology. I don't know if he has genuine sensory issues (likely), innate fashion sense (unlikely) or if he is just entirely full of shit (most likely), but getting this child dressed has become the bane of our existence. To put it in perspective, Ben is 3.5 years old. He is fiercely independent, has a memory like an elephant, screams and shouts a lot, is one of the cutest kids you will ever meet (and he knows it) and is naturally affectionate and sweet-natured. He is about the height of a garden gnome as well, which makes his bad-ass repetition of TV catch phrases all the more ironic. (I particularly enjoyed it when he asked me two weeks ago, "How about my balls on a silver platter?")
For about a month now, every dressing episode ends in tears (mostly him; sometimes me). He insists on wearing T-shirts in Winter (and no - not with a long sleeve thermal underneath), only wears tops with hoods, won't wear jeans because they're 'not comfy', wears one pair of shoes only, will only wear underpants with pictures, refuses to wear PJ's without underpants and favours one particular pair of dodgy tracksuit pants that he will haul out of the wash to wear if he needs to.
The worst part is that after 40 minutes of negotiating, star charts, choices and limits, when he is finally dressed relatively appropriately, he will burst into tears, tell me he is 'not comfy', 'not cool' or that what he is wearing is 'disgusting' and the process begins again.
I have tried Zero Tolerance. I have shouted. I have ignored and ignored and ignored. I have offered options. I have downloaded a Star Chart app on my iPhone (so far, the most useful tool). I even locked him in his room at the game reserve this weekend until he got dressed. It works. Once. And then we are back to Square 1 the very next day.
Luckily, he's the second child, so I'm not too bothered if he leaves the house in track pants, an Iron Man mask and Liam's over-sized T-shirt. I also know now that in every phase that is irritating to parents, there's a lesson the little blighter is learning about himself, the world and how he negotiates through it.
And I would never admit it to Benjamin, but somehow, his manic compulsion is one of the funniest, sweetest things I've ever seen.
Liam started Grade 0 at a nice Anglican all boys' school this year and given that:
i. he was at a Montessori nursery school before, and
ii. he is Jewish,
you can only imagine the culture shock. Charting your own course a la Maria Montessori, coupled with Jewish Chutzpah is not de rigeur at said Anglican school. Oy vey! Liam is also sensitive, imaginative, pig-headed, empathetic, intelligent and very (ahem) exuberant. Nevertheless, all of these bits and pieces have made Grade 0 quite an adjustment and his hard work trying to hold it together in the classroom has left him often unbridled at home.
But, like most things, the phase seems to be ebbing and Liam is settling back into the best of himself - thoughtful, caring, responsible and wickedly funny.
And just as he does, Benjamin develops what can only be described as a paediatric fashion pathology. I don't know if he has genuine sensory issues (likely), innate fashion sense (unlikely) or if he is just entirely full of shit (most likely), but getting this child dressed has become the bane of our existence. To put it in perspective, Ben is 3.5 years old. He is fiercely independent, has a memory like an elephant, screams and shouts a lot, is one of the cutest kids you will ever meet (and he knows it) and is naturally affectionate and sweet-natured. He is about the height of a garden gnome as well, which makes his bad-ass repetition of TV catch phrases all the more ironic. (I particularly enjoyed it when he asked me two weeks ago, "How about my balls on a silver platter?")
For about a month now, every dressing episode ends in tears (mostly him; sometimes me). He insists on wearing T-shirts in Winter (and no - not with a long sleeve thermal underneath), only wears tops with hoods, won't wear jeans because they're 'not comfy', wears one pair of shoes only, will only wear underpants with pictures, refuses to wear PJ's without underpants and favours one particular pair of dodgy tracksuit pants that he will haul out of the wash to wear if he needs to.
The worst part is that after 40 minutes of negotiating, star charts, choices and limits, when he is finally dressed relatively appropriately, he will burst into tears, tell me he is 'not comfy', 'not cool' or that what he is wearing is 'disgusting' and the process begins again.
I have tried Zero Tolerance. I have shouted. I have ignored and ignored and ignored. I have offered options. I have downloaded a Star Chart app on my iPhone (so far, the most useful tool). I even locked him in his room at the game reserve this weekend until he got dressed. It works. Once. And then we are back to Square 1 the very next day.
Luckily, he's the second child, so I'm not too bothered if he leaves the house in track pants, an Iron Man mask and Liam's over-sized T-shirt. I also know now that in every phase that is irritating to parents, there's a lesson the little blighter is learning about himself, the world and how he negotiates through it.
And I would never admit it to Benjamin, but somehow, his manic compulsion is one of the funniest, sweetest things I've ever seen.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Alice in Wonderland
Sometimes I get over-enthusiastic about things. If I start a book, I finish it in 48 hours. And then I don't read for a month. (unless Hello magazine and Facebook posts count) I had a torrid 2 day affair with Christian Grey and then my interest in him and his 'mouth pressed in a hard line' waned. Laters baby.
My friend Tessa, who despite being about 5 foot 3, has a real 'don't fuck with me' disposition, suggested I start running with her. I was in. I pictured myself running Two Oceans, bought Runners' World magazine, Googled running tips and woke up at 5am three times a week to run with Lil Tess. I even interviewed myself in the shower for a radio show talking about how 'if I can be a runner, anyone can'. Don't judge me. You've done that sort of shit too. Needless to say, there was no marathon and no radio show and after a month of unbridled enthusiasm, there was no running.
It's a bit of a paradox though, because I hate quitting and I think quitters are odious delinquents. I started university doing Speech Pathology and Audiology. It was clear in the first year that it wasn't a good culture fit for me. The rest of the class would sit studiously in Anatomy and Physiology learning about lung function, while I sat on Senate House floor teaching the actuarial science students how to blow smoke rings. Nevertheless, I finished the degree (by the end of four years, the Ac Sci guys could blow music notes)and won some medals for various things that are now just props for my kids' Olympic charades.
My excessive nature is an inherited trait. At best, I'm exuberant, imaginative, animated and full-on. At worst, I'm anxious, demanding, obsessive and full-on. Our family is kind of like a melange of Girl, Interrupted, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Sybil and The Big Lebowski, so it's quite unsurprising really. I sometimes wonder where the line is and whether or not I'm straddling it. Am I Type A or am I OCD? Am I jubilant or manic? Am I pensive or depressed? Moody or moonstruck? A little excessive or a little borderline?
Yesterday I had an ECG and cardiac enzymes tested because I had horrible chest pains and shortness of breath. Today, I dragged my whole office to the Westcliff stairs and lungs burning, I pushed my iron-deficient body up and down with a crew of 20-somethings. Right? RIGHT?
Whatever. Alice in Wonderland says that the best people are mad and her life was magical. x
My friend Tessa, who despite being about 5 foot 3, has a real 'don't fuck with me' disposition, suggested I start running with her. I was in. I pictured myself running Two Oceans, bought Runners' World magazine, Googled running tips and woke up at 5am three times a week to run with Lil Tess. I even interviewed myself in the shower for a radio show talking about how 'if I can be a runner, anyone can'. Don't judge me. You've done that sort of shit too. Needless to say, there was no marathon and no radio show and after a month of unbridled enthusiasm, there was no running.
It's a bit of a paradox though, because I hate quitting and I think quitters are odious delinquents. I started university doing Speech Pathology and Audiology. It was clear in the first year that it wasn't a good culture fit for me. The rest of the class would sit studiously in Anatomy and Physiology learning about lung function, while I sat on Senate House floor teaching the actuarial science students how to blow smoke rings. Nevertheless, I finished the degree (by the end of four years, the Ac Sci guys could blow music notes)and won some medals for various things that are now just props for my kids' Olympic charades.
My excessive nature is an inherited trait. At best, I'm exuberant, imaginative, animated and full-on. At worst, I'm anxious, demanding, obsessive and full-on. Our family is kind of like a melange of Girl, Interrupted, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Sybil and The Big Lebowski, so it's quite unsurprising really. I sometimes wonder where the line is and whether or not I'm straddling it. Am I Type A or am I OCD? Am I jubilant or manic? Am I pensive or depressed? Moody or moonstruck? A little excessive or a little borderline?
Yesterday I had an ECG and cardiac enzymes tested because I had horrible chest pains and shortness of breath. Today, I dragged my whole office to the Westcliff stairs and lungs burning, I pushed my iron-deficient body up and down with a crew of 20-somethings. Right? RIGHT?
Whatever. Alice in Wonderland says that the best people are mad and her life was magical. x
Thursday, July 19, 2012
An incurable will
It's been a while.
Since I last blogged, I've had half a dozen venesections and a bone marrow biopsy, and have started what is likely to be a lifelong daily dose of oral chemotherapy. Sometimes it doesn't matter. Sometimes it matters so much that it feels like I've been swallowed.
I never really thought about mortality. Planning ahead for what is likely to happen in 60 years felt excessive, even for a planner like myself. And then, one day, a doctor told me that 60 may be 20 or it may be less and then there it was: a big thing called Death, coming in and out of focus in the not-so-far distance.
I have primary polycythemia vera, which is basically a rare kind of blood cancer. I won't go into the details of the pathology, because it's hematologically complex and psychologically depressing, but suffice it to say that it's incurable. I may be lucky and be just fine or I may die of leukemia or fucked bone marrow. In the interim, I have to be on chemo meds forever, which have their own issues, especially if you're on them for long, which I (hopefully) will be.
The week before last, I sat in a chemo room on a black leather lounger, part of a circle of people trying so fucking hard to survive. A woman in a Discovery Health uniform made arbitrary chit chat with me and then gave me a gift pack: branded tissues, anti bacterial hand gel and a few minutes later, a teddy bear with the Discovery logo embroidered onto its chest. This friends, is EXACTLY what you feel like 15 minutes before you're about to have a piece of your hip bone extracted while you're awake: a pity bear from a woman with shitty highlights.
Needle 1: Blood test #34. Barely feel these now.
Needle 2: Saline drip. No big deal. I scroll through photos of my children on my iPhone.
Needle 3: Venesection. This needle is like 5x thicker than the blood test needle and it hurts like a mofo when they put in it. It proceeds to drain a pint of my blood.
Needle 4: Dormicum to sedate me for the bone marrow biospy. 3mg. Doesn't touch sides.
Needle 4 again: 5mg IV Dormi. I'm still wide awake and debating with the pathologist.
Needle 4 yet again: 10mg IV Dormicum. I remember feeling pain and apparently I was still talking, but it sedates me enough for them to give a local anesthetic (Needle 5) and do the biopsy (Needle 6, in other words, The Drill).
I went home with a white plastic zip lock bag of chemo medication, a small dressing over the biopsy site and a broken heart. I cried for 2 days.
Fortunately, my counts now look better and I have responded really well to the meds. I'm not good at wondrous oblivion. I'm good at thinking of every possible worst case scenario and believing that I deserve to suffer. I can't make sense of the fact that I'm not in control of this. I'm struggling to just let it go and live. It's not in my nature.
Friends and family have been wonderful and it's made me feel so loved and ironically, so alone at the same time. Amazingly though, even people who know me and know how much I love being busy and productive seem to have the 'solution' to this: just stop working. WTF? If this thing called Life just got a little shorter and a lot more precarious, you'd better fucking believe that I'm going to pack it in even more now. Even my bone marrow is hyperactive. Go figure.
Since I last blogged, I've had half a dozen venesections and a bone marrow biopsy, and have started what is likely to be a lifelong daily dose of oral chemotherapy. Sometimes it doesn't matter. Sometimes it matters so much that it feels like I've been swallowed.
I never really thought about mortality. Planning ahead for what is likely to happen in 60 years felt excessive, even for a planner like myself. And then, one day, a doctor told me that 60 may be 20 or it may be less and then there it was: a big thing called Death, coming in and out of focus in the not-so-far distance.
I have primary polycythemia vera, which is basically a rare kind of blood cancer. I won't go into the details of the pathology, because it's hematologically complex and psychologically depressing, but suffice it to say that it's incurable. I may be lucky and be just fine or I may die of leukemia or fucked bone marrow. In the interim, I have to be on chemo meds forever, which have their own issues, especially if you're on them for long, which I (hopefully) will be.
The week before last, I sat in a chemo room on a black leather lounger, part of a circle of people trying so fucking hard to survive. A woman in a Discovery Health uniform made arbitrary chit chat with me and then gave me a gift pack: branded tissues, anti bacterial hand gel and a few minutes later, a teddy bear with the Discovery logo embroidered onto its chest. This friends, is EXACTLY what you feel like 15 minutes before you're about to have a piece of your hip bone extracted while you're awake: a pity bear from a woman with shitty highlights.
Needle 1: Blood test #34. Barely feel these now.
Needle 2: Saline drip. No big deal. I scroll through photos of my children on my iPhone.
Needle 3: Venesection. This needle is like 5x thicker than the blood test needle and it hurts like a mofo when they put in it. It proceeds to drain a pint of my blood.
Needle 4: Dormicum to sedate me for the bone marrow biospy. 3mg. Doesn't touch sides.
Needle 4 again: 5mg IV Dormi. I'm still wide awake and debating with the pathologist.
Needle 4 yet again: 10mg IV Dormicum. I remember feeling pain and apparently I was still talking, but it sedates me enough for them to give a local anesthetic (Needle 5) and do the biopsy (Needle 6, in other words, The Drill).
I went home with a white plastic zip lock bag of chemo medication, a small dressing over the biopsy site and a broken heart. I cried for 2 days.
Fortunately, my counts now look better and I have responded really well to the meds. I'm not good at wondrous oblivion. I'm good at thinking of every possible worst case scenario and believing that I deserve to suffer. I can't make sense of the fact that I'm not in control of this. I'm struggling to just let it go and live. It's not in my nature.
Friends and family have been wonderful and it's made me feel so loved and ironically, so alone at the same time. Amazingly though, even people who know me and know how much I love being busy and productive seem to have the 'solution' to this: just stop working. WTF? If this thing called Life just got a little shorter and a lot more precarious, you'd better fucking believe that I'm going to pack it in even more now. Even my bone marrow is hyperactive. Go figure.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
A bloody nightmare
I went to see a physician at the beginning of the year, because last year, my health was crap. My first full blood count suggested hypothyroidism (false alarm) and high hemoglobin (too many red blood cells). The physician was unhappy. The second set, a month later, showed an increased hemoglobin again.
I was sitting at the hairdresser, my about-to-be-blonde hair in foils, the day before our family Mauritius trip when she called with my results.
"Your hemoglobin is much too high and it keeps getting higher. Something sinister is going on. It could be a tumor. It could be leukemia. It could be a blood disorder. You probably need a bone marrow biopsy. You must have an ultrasound today. You need to see a hematologist."
WTF? Did you just say 'bone marrow'? Hematologist? Like the people that deal with blood cancers? I felt hollow. Numb. Limbless. It was as if the world was spinning around me and I had been brutally extracted from it. I desperately tried to hold onto my thoughts, but they were spiraling. Do I have cancer? Did I do this to myself? Will my children grow up with step mother? Is this a lesson? A punishment? Will I lose my hair? My mind? Jesus did I do this?
That afternoon, my husband came with me for an ultrasound, which showed no tumors, but an enlarged spleen - my body's attempt to deal with the increased volume of red blood cells. We called the hematologist who's earliest appointment was a month away and she requested a final test: JAK2.
We went to Mauritius - me, my family and my terror.
A week later, I phoned the doctor. The JAK2 was positive. I have Primary Polycythemia. It happens to men in their 60's. It happens to 1 in 100 000 people. And it happened to me. My bone marrow is damaged and my body is producing too much hemoglobin. Without treatment, I have 6 months to 2 years and then I will die of a stroke or a heart attack or something equally unoriginal. With treatment, I should be fine. Although 'fine' looks different now. My lifespan will be shorter and managing what is an incurable condition will be a lifelong commitment.
We finally got an earlier appointment with an oddball genius professor of hematology at the Joburg Gen and he gave us mixed news.
"This is manageable."
"You have a 10-30% chance of getting leukemia."
"We will manage it initially with venesection (blood letting)."
"You will probably become iron deficient."
"I will do the bone marrow biopsy under anesthetic. You won't feel anything."
"The current drugs available are chemotherapy drugs. They are well-tolerated."
"You can still drink wine."
"You can't have more children."
"There are very encouraging drug trials in the US and Europe that may eventually offer a cure."
"You didn't do this to yourself."
"You didn't do this to yourself."
"You didn't do this to yourself."
I've had the first venesection. They removed one of my 6 pints of blood and it was fine.
I am fine. Traumatised. Vulnerable. Hopeful. Grateful. A different kind of fine.
I was sitting at the hairdresser, my about-to-be-blonde hair in foils, the day before our family Mauritius trip when she called with my results.
"Your hemoglobin is much too high and it keeps getting higher. Something sinister is going on. It could be a tumor. It could be leukemia. It could be a blood disorder. You probably need a bone marrow biopsy. You must have an ultrasound today. You need to see a hematologist."
WTF? Did you just say 'bone marrow'? Hematologist? Like the people that deal with blood cancers? I felt hollow. Numb. Limbless. It was as if the world was spinning around me and I had been brutally extracted from it. I desperately tried to hold onto my thoughts, but they were spiraling. Do I have cancer? Did I do this to myself? Will my children grow up with step mother? Is this a lesson? A punishment? Will I lose my hair? My mind? Jesus did I do this?
That afternoon, my husband came with me for an ultrasound, which showed no tumors, but an enlarged spleen - my body's attempt to deal with the increased volume of red blood cells. We called the hematologist who's earliest appointment was a month away and she requested a final test: JAK2.
We went to Mauritius - me, my family and my terror.
A week later, I phoned the doctor. The JAK2 was positive. I have Primary Polycythemia. It happens to men in their 60's. It happens to 1 in 100 000 people. And it happened to me. My bone marrow is damaged and my body is producing too much hemoglobin. Without treatment, I have 6 months to 2 years and then I will die of a stroke or a heart attack or something equally unoriginal. With treatment, I should be fine. Although 'fine' looks different now. My lifespan will be shorter and managing what is an incurable condition will be a lifelong commitment.
We finally got an earlier appointment with an oddball genius professor of hematology at the Joburg Gen and he gave us mixed news.
"This is manageable."
"You have a 10-30% chance of getting leukemia."
"We will manage it initially with venesection (blood letting)."
"You will probably become iron deficient."
"I will do the bone marrow biopsy under anesthetic. You won't feel anything."
"The current drugs available are chemotherapy drugs. They are well-tolerated."
"You can still drink wine."
"You can't have more children."
"There are very encouraging drug trials in the US and Europe that may eventually offer a cure."
"You didn't do this to yourself."
"You didn't do this to yourself."
"You didn't do this to yourself."
I've had the first venesection. They removed one of my 6 pints of blood and it was fine.
I am fine. Traumatised. Vulnerable. Hopeful. Grateful. A different kind of fine.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Aubrey's not dying. He just has big balls.
It turns out that my hypothyroidism was viral, so while it may come back, I am now fine and not suffering from an autoimmune disease. Thank fuck for that.
Anxiety and Guilt, my two bitchy little BFF's, are unfortunately not viral, and even when it comes to something as banal as a pretty antisocial hamster, they get involved:
Monday night and my husband wants to watch a movie in bed - a very respectable request and one I was quite looking forward to. I go and check on Aubrey, our crappy little hamster that I happen to love and nobody else gives a shit about (my colleague Carli says he's not a real pet...not cool Carli...not cool). The poor little bastard is shaking in the corner of his cage and rubbing and biting his nether regions. Now Aub's has always had what looks to me like a protruding anus. I was never sure if it was a tumour or if he was a Kardashian in a past life, but he seemed healthy, so I didn't pay much attention...until Monday night, when the protrusion was twice its usual size and causing Aubrey a lot of distress. So I get tearful and totally panic-stricken, thinking that because I hadn't made time to take him to the Vet, he was now suffering and slowly dying and I was wicked and selfish and irresponsible.
I ask my husband if I should put diluted cortisone cream on Aubrey's bum. Or nappy cream. My husband tries to be empathic but he really doesn't give a shit and just wants to watch a movie.
"Do you think he's dying?"
"No. I think he's fine."
"What if it's my fault and I killed him? Isn't that second degree murder? Or man-slaughter?"
"Mm. Shame love. Do you want to watch the pilot of Smash?"
I give Aubrey a crushed Rescue Remedy tablet in some warm milk and half a teaspoon of homeopathic sleeping powder and he seems to stop shaking.
We watch Smash and I calm down.
Next morning, I rush Aubs to the filthy, foul Vet down the road, where a three-legged sadistic cat looks at Aubrey and licks his feline lips for about 5 minutes. I would have kicked him if his weirdo owner wasn't standing right there eyeballing me. Aubrey is always being threatened or marginalized. It's disgusting.
"Aubrey has a prolapsed anus," I say, confidently to the Vet.
"Aubrey has the biggest balls I've ever seen," he replies.
"What the fuck??? It's his bum! He was scratching it like crazy and shaking! He has worms or protruding intestines or a tumour....or...or.."
"Or big balls."
"He was scratching and gnawing at himself!" I insist.
"He was masturbating."
Ok. Shut the front door. WHAT? First, the mangy psycho legless feline tries to eat my hamster and now this freaky Vet says that Aubrey isn't sick,he's just randy??
It's just fucking disrespectful. This hamster is a real live thing and everywhere he turns, people are dissing him. I refuse to believe it. And for some really screwed up reason, I would find it much easier to accept it if he had a tumour than to try and get my head around a horny hamster (a R391,00 diagnosis).
Eugh.
Anxiety and Guilt, my two bitchy little BFF's, are unfortunately not viral, and even when it comes to something as banal as a pretty antisocial hamster, they get involved:
Monday night and my husband wants to watch a movie in bed - a very respectable request and one I was quite looking forward to. I go and check on Aubrey, our crappy little hamster that I happen to love and nobody else gives a shit about (my colleague Carli says he's not a real pet...not cool Carli...not cool). The poor little bastard is shaking in the corner of his cage and rubbing and biting his nether regions. Now Aub's has always had what looks to me like a protruding anus. I was never sure if it was a tumour or if he was a Kardashian in a past life, but he seemed healthy, so I didn't pay much attention...until Monday night, when the protrusion was twice its usual size and causing Aubrey a lot of distress. So I get tearful and totally panic-stricken, thinking that because I hadn't made time to take him to the Vet, he was now suffering and slowly dying and I was wicked and selfish and irresponsible.
I ask my husband if I should put diluted cortisone cream on Aubrey's bum. Or nappy cream. My husband tries to be empathic but he really doesn't give a shit and just wants to watch a movie.
"Do you think he's dying?"
"No. I think he's fine."
"What if it's my fault and I killed him? Isn't that second degree murder? Or man-slaughter?"
"Mm. Shame love. Do you want to watch the pilot of Smash?"
I give Aubrey a crushed Rescue Remedy tablet in some warm milk and half a teaspoon of homeopathic sleeping powder and he seems to stop shaking.
We watch Smash and I calm down.
Next morning, I rush Aubs to the filthy, foul Vet down the road, where a three-legged sadistic cat looks at Aubrey and licks his feline lips for about 5 minutes. I would have kicked him if his weirdo owner wasn't standing right there eyeballing me. Aubrey is always being threatened or marginalized. It's disgusting.
"Aubrey has a prolapsed anus," I say, confidently to the Vet.
"Aubrey has the biggest balls I've ever seen," he replies.
"What the fuck??? It's his bum! He was scratching it like crazy and shaking! He has worms or protruding intestines or a tumour....or...or.."
"Or big balls."
"He was scratching and gnawing at himself!" I insist.
"He was masturbating."
Ok. Shut the front door. WHAT? First, the mangy psycho legless feline tries to eat my hamster and now this freaky Vet says that Aubrey isn't sick,he's just randy??
It's just fucking disrespectful. This hamster is a real live thing and everywhere he turns, people are dissing him. I refuse to believe it. And for some really screwed up reason, I would find it much easier to accept it if he had a tumour than to try and get my head around a horny hamster (a R391,00 diagnosis).
Eugh.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Auto-immune disease...and other light and airy topics
Here's a question: is auto-immune disease (ie. your body attacking itself) the physiological manifestation of self-criticism (ie. the bitch in your head coming to life) or is it just a Random Act of Unkindness by the apparent powers that be?
Auto-immune diseases are really your body's immune system recognising its own tissues as Public Enemy #1. Lupus is widely accepted to be AI. So is Crohns, Celiac Disease, psoriasis, Rheumatoid arthritis and in my case (or so the doctor told me last week, quite nonchalantly), Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. Sounds like a side dish at Koi, but unfortunately, this 'very common' auto immune disease comes with fuckall edamame beans. What it does come with, said the deadpan physician, as if she was telling me the specials, is the probability of making me fat, depressed and chronically exhausted. Good god I'm excited.
Soooo - I now need chronic medication forever and getting the levels right will be tricky at the start. Also, it is likely that I will struggle with weight gain, even whilst on the meds. You can only imagine how fucking miserable this makes me.
I'm hoping that the meds will lift this nasty depression I've been fighting this year and this perpetual, maddening exhaustion. But I'm also left wondering why my body is attacking itself. Last night, I bawled like a child to my husband, lamenting that I am hopeless at managing my life and that I'm not good enough at anything. A seven out of ten at best.
He told me, in a nice way, that I am fucked in the head and that my yardstick needs to be returned to the psycho Nazis that made it and replaced with a normal one.
I think your yardstick is your yardstick though. No refunds. No returns.
Bastards.
Auto-immune diseases are really your body's immune system recognising its own tissues as Public Enemy #1. Lupus is widely accepted to be AI. So is Crohns, Celiac Disease, psoriasis, Rheumatoid arthritis and in my case (or so the doctor told me last week, quite nonchalantly), Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. Sounds like a side dish at Koi, but unfortunately, this 'very common' auto immune disease comes with fuckall edamame beans. What it does come with, said the deadpan physician, as if she was telling me the specials, is the probability of making me fat, depressed and chronically exhausted. Good god I'm excited.
Soooo - I now need chronic medication forever and getting the levels right will be tricky at the start. Also, it is likely that I will struggle with weight gain, even whilst on the meds. You can only imagine how fucking miserable this makes me.
I'm hoping that the meds will lift this nasty depression I've been fighting this year and this perpetual, maddening exhaustion. But I'm also left wondering why my body is attacking itself. Last night, I bawled like a child to my husband, lamenting that I am hopeless at managing my life and that I'm not good enough at anything. A seven out of ten at best.
He told me, in a nice way, that I am fucked in the head and that my yardstick needs to be returned to the psycho Nazis that made it and replaced with a normal one.
I think your yardstick is your yardstick though. No refunds. No returns.
Bastards.
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