Normal Service Has Been Resumed

Probably those words will not mean anything to younger people, but they will be very familiar to my generation. When I was a child it was fairly common for technical difficulties to interrupt television programmes (there were only three channels back then) and the when things went wrong they would put up the test card and play music until they could fix the problem. The announcer would tell us that "normal service will be resumed as soon as possible" and we would wait hoping that the break in service wouldn't last very long and even normal broadcasting was about to resume the announcer would say ".... Normal service has been resumed"

From the point of view of the blog 'normal service has been resumed'. I stopped writing the blog several months ago because I was unwell and my stamina levels were extremely low. It was a real struggle just to cope with the essentials of life. I was determined that the blog would not become a miserable tale of woes, but it was such a struggle to keep my writing bright and up beat when I had been feeling unwell for so long that I was losing hope of ever feeling better.

The good news is that after attending a lot of hospital appointments and seeing three different consultants I am finally getting better. I am not coughing anymore - well not much anyway! More importantly I have reason to hope that this is not just a temporary calm between bouts of illness, but a sign that we are dealing with the  causes of the problem rather than the symptoms. There is still a long way to go but I feel so much better.

So what has been happening with us over the last few months? I suppose there are lots of things that I should have written about, but I will catch up with some of those over the next few weeks. Robbie has been working in Darlington for the greater part of each week. Surprisingly it is an arrangement that suits us both fairly well, Robbie enjoys the work and staying in Darlington is better than a long commute every day. I miss him of course but it is nice not having to get up before the birds every day to take him to the station. I'd better make the most of it because his contract ends in mid September and his next contract will involve a daily commute. He is really looking forward to a new challenge and it will be nice to have him at home again. My daughter obtained her post graduate qualification in June and she is now a fully qualified geography teacher. She has a job at a school about half an hour away from our home and she is looking forward to the new challenges that the September term will bring. 

Robbie and I are getting ready to go on holiday to Norfolk, so I will do my best to update the blog every day, but the Internet connection in Norfolk is precarious that I will not make any promises! I probably will not be able to add any photos I get home again.

“A man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools.” Spanish Proverb

It is not unusual for me to be annoyed with Robbie -  he would probably tell you that being 'in the doghouse' was an almost daily occurrence! That isn't true, of course there are minor irritations and I get annoyed when he rearranges the fridge, hides the recycling bin, puts things out of my reach and leaves the toilet seat in the wrong position (believe me I could come up with a much longer list!) but serious disagreements are much less common. 

We are a very odd and unconventional couple, but it works, I love him more than I could express in words and I know that he feels the same. That is why I worry about him, especially when it comes to looking after his health and well being and I get seriously annoyed when he takes foolish risks with his health. Yesterday he was at the railway station by 6.10am and he didn't get back to Northampton until 11pm. He was asleep on his feet and in so much pain that he could hardly walk! Nothing so important that it is worth risking your health. A friend of his gave him some very sound advice, I just hope he takes notice.
" .......... She speaketh of kind tongue. The railway will break itself without your intervention, and it will heal itself thus. Will the railway fixeth you? The runes say "bugger off". Do less more often; the difference is negligible."

The Meaning of Life

In my experience life has a habit of creeping up and smacking you around the face when you are not looking. In the last week or so there has been a whole collection of worrying and upsetting things, but one thing has pushed all the others into the background. A very special friend of mine is terribly ill and the outlook has been bleak in the extreme. It made me very sad and every time the phone rang or a message arrived I expected the worse, but yesterday afternoon there was a tiny hint of hope and I am clinging to that.


The thing that makes this friend very special is that she has a very different take on the world because she has a learning disability. We have had so many happy times together and a few sad ones too. When my first husband died she didn't struggle for words like everyone else, she said exactly what she felt with tears rolling down her face, that meant such a lot to me. Mostly I remember the good times and the crazy moments that always managed to bring a smile to my face. There was the time when she got a new chest freezer, among all the usual items she froze a whole cucumber and a tinned steak and kidney pie. We laughed so much when I told her they would make excellent weapons but they would be useless if defrosted! 


I remember one day when we were out shopping she queued up in Boots to pay for some shampoo and when she got to the counter she announced to the cashier "If I hadn't been a twin I would have been a triplet" it made perfect sense to her but the look on the cashiers face was priceless. One day we went to London by train, we travelled on the underground, we went to Madame Tussauds then we looked at the shops in Oxford Street and Regent Street. By the time we were heading home on the train I was exhausted but she was still full of beans. We had seen and done so much, but when I asked what she had liked most she said "I liked that man in Mc Donalds". Then there was the time when she got a new budgie, she wanted to name it after me, but since she and I have the same name she wanted the to give the budgie a different name so she called it Nissan after my car! Not long after we first met she got very upset with her work placement because they listened to the wrong radio station. I tried to tell her that it wasn't such a big deal, but she was in a bad mood and she said "anyway there is too much f---ing bad language in that place". We laughed so much about that and in a strange way it made her feel better about her work.


She asks very little of life, she accepts people on face value, she doesn't judge or tell people what to do but she takes great pleasure in her friends and in the simple things in life that so many of us take for granted. I hope with all my heart that she will get well again, the world needs more people like her.

Perspective

Life has a way of putting things in perspective. It seems as if one thing after another has gone wrong recently, a broken shower, a nail in my tyre, my mobile phone has given up the ghost and worse of all my laptop is apparently beyond repair. Last week I had a painful reminder that they are all just things and in the end none of them matter a jot. We heard last week that Robbie's friend who has been ill for some time has taken a turn for the worse. It is a very difficult time for him and his family and it leaves everyone feeling completely powerless.

Better in Health Than Temper?

Robbie was so poorly yesterday, I sent him straight back to bed and there he stayed until early afternoon. He just slept, he didn't even drink his coffee, he was red hot to touch but he said he was freezing. He did get up for a while in the afternoon, but he had the fire full on, it was like the tropical house at the zoo, but he was still cold. All he wanted to do was sleep so he crept back to bed. He insisted that he was well enough to go back to work today despite shivering all night. His usual early morning rush was more of an early morning plod, he dosed himself up and prepared to face the day. He claimed he was feeling better, but he was as miserable as sin and I think it was a real struggle for him to get back to normal this morning.

One of Those Days

After the drama and stresses of Sunday and Monday I really needed to be a nice ordinary day. I was so tired that I really couldn't deal with anything else, but Tuesday turned out to be 'one of those days'. I had spent the morning running around after people and I had just settled down in front of my computer when Laura phoned tho say that she was losing peripheral vision and she was scared -me too! Within an hour she could see almost nothing from one eye and the other eye was causing problems too. The GP advised her to go to casualty for tests, but she was really not well enough to do that and instead the GP examined her. He was concerned, but he thought it was probably a retinal migraine and we had to take her home and keep a close eye on her. By the evening there was some improvement but even this morning her vision is not back properly.

I was so scared, but by the evening I hoped that the worse was over - that was until Robbie got a splinter of glass in his foot. He hoped around yelping and he had me inspecting his foot for over half an hour searching for the elusive shard of glass. The search proved fruitless and it seems that it wasn't glass at all, most likely it was his own hard skin causing the problem. I hadn't done any work that day and at this rate I would be working until well past midnight, I felt like screaming, but Robbie's 'splinter that never was' dominated the evening.

Avoidance Tactics

When it comes to getting one of the cats to the vet I have to be very cunning they know exactly what the word 'vet' means, they can even spell because they understand even if I spell out the word 'V E T'. Meg the dog just turns into a nervous wreck but the cats are more cunning Oreo tries to sneak outside and then heads up the highest tree he can find, while Dave simply makes himself invisible,he is an expert on hiding and nothing will entice him out. These challenges are nothing compared to the difficulty of getting Robbie to go to the doctors. He doesn't rush out of the back door and head up the tallest tree he can find, but his avoidance tactics are just as effective. Last week he promised me faithfully that he would go to the doctors but he didn't make it, this week he has been ducking and diving and insisting that he is far too busy at work to go to the doctors. He has been having acute pain running down one arm and it is becoming more frequent, so I am not going to let him mess around for long. If he doesn't see sense I will have to send someone out with a tranquilliser dart like the ones they use on chimps! One way or another he is going to the doctors.

Difficult Times

This weekend started fairly normally but it took a turn for the worse and we have had a desperately worrying time. Robbie and Sam spent part of Saturday out in the garden doing battle with the fence. They worked hard and they finally dug out the lump of concrete that had been obstructing the fence posts. We now have all the posts in place and just one fence panel missing as Robbie still has to dig out a shrub which is obstructing that part of the fence.

My mum rang during the morning to say that my step father wasn't very well, he had a headache, he had been sick and he was very sleepy. None of those things sound too serious on their own, but I could tell that my mum was worried and I told her to call the doctor. She was given advice by phone and told to ring again if she was still worried. By evening she was worried enough to call again. The doctor came out and David was admitted to hospital, so mum went too. We went to bed but were on call ready to go and fetch my mum when she was ready to go home. She called at about 4am and we went off to fetch her, David was having tests to see if he'd had a stroke. Within an hour or so mum was called back and told that David had been bleeding inside the brain and he was very sick. We took her back and Robbie stayed with her while I got hold of my brother. By 9am he was being prepared for transfer to John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford and within hours he was undergoing brain.

David was doing OK by yesterday evening, but everyone seemed concerned about how I was coping. Yesterday was my birthday, five years ago I spent my birthday sitting with my husband Eric waiting for him to die, sheer willpower kept him alive until the following day. Many years ago my Dad also died just days before my birthday, I know it is just coincidence but it is hardly surprising that September is not my favourite month! I will write about my birthday in my next post.