Time And The Confessional Box!

Michelle, as the boldly intelligent Suldog rightly said, my 'box of frogs' yesterday, was a box of Baby Possums! I don't want to say what he said that some ignorant people do with them - My fingers are in my ears at the mo', and I'm singing, Lalallalalalaaaa!

GB at Eagleton Notes also submitted his very interesting blog about possums, or opossums, as they are called in NZ. Apparently, they cause quite a bit of environmental damage, and so the population is controlled. Please go see GB's blogs, they hold everything you might ever need to know.



Soooo, a couple of dear bloggy friends have asked me how I can do this, write as much, selecting pics - I must be online forever, they chide...
I am electing to enter the confessional box today, to share some things with you, rather than offering up the mere Meme I had prepared yesterday...

Sorry it's a bit long, scroll down to the end, should you wish... I shan't be offended in the slightest! You may indeed switch off half way through, so I shall set the alarm to go off in ten minutes, if you like - Then you have no fear of drifting off into your coffee...


The fact is, friends, that it really doesn't take up all my time - But I can do nowt else at the moment... At least every weekday, I am at home, I journey not far... unable to do anything much other than run the occasional laundry load, or hand wash a couple of dishes... I bend not, I dip not, I walk little, I climb not... I sit, or rather slouch, loads...

Are you sitting comfortably? For I am not!

It all started back in May 2008 - I was seeing a nurse who was conducting an ECG exam on me at the doctor's surgery... I was asked to get off the doctor's couch. Simple procedure usually - However, the nurse had been unable to raise or lower the couch owing to it being incorrectly wired, with the instructions in German - 'Ab und Auf...' If I had known this beforehand, I might have translated for her...

Did you know that, in Medicine, the most useful piece of equipment is the Retrospectoscope?!

So, half nyekked, and anxious to be back in me vestments in a chilly room, (ahh, the pleasures of dear old England in May!), I shot off the couch - When I say shot - it was a bit high to jump, and I landed badly - Kerchonk!!! Really, it was that dramatic - and I did hear the noise... Hello, hello, are you still awake???! Accustomed to having had a dicky back since having an accident at work in my twenties, I went home to enjoy the rest of my day off work, as planned... Some chance!

I got steadily worse - This has happened every couple of years or so, so I thought - Rest and it will heal itself, as it usually does... I returned to work after a couple of days, with a walking stick... Enough to make you feel like an old crock, non? - Hard to be elegant when carrying a walking stick... No sympathy, please, that is not why I am tippy-tappying away today...

I went to see an Acupuncturist a couple of times - It didn't work - The pain moved down into my leg... I continued to work full time, commuting up to 3 hours a day; Improved slightly, I cast aside the stick and I rode to work each day with GJ, me clinging on to the handle on the passenger side. I got a specially adapted chair at work to make me more comfortable - They are nice people at work...

I stopped walking very far, I was in too much pain... It was like having an iron gauntlet around your outer knee and calf, squeezing tightly. I went to see a Physiotherapist, who made me laugh, and he told me I had been cossetting my back for years; He gave me some exercises to do, saying I had all the flexibility of his 85 year old mother - Comforting, no? I am just over half her age!

I just kept on going, doing what I could, telling people I was fine, but in reality I was in constant pain. I went for a blood pressure check one day - All of Hades broke loose in the surgery, after I mentioned the couch-induced injury... Disclaimer-style forms and a doctor appeared from nowhere - Random tests ensued, and the doctor said I'd likely slipped a disc which would repair itself in time.

"Slipped disc!", I shouted, "... Slipped disc!" I was shocked. I went back to the Physio, sure that I could conquer this... Why didn't I stick to the Medical route, you ask...

Well, reader! In my twenties, I was referred to a surgeon, who was more interested in his cup of tea and digestive biccie, than in me... I was moving to Scotland at the time for GJ's job, and he said he could operate to 'chop bits out of my leg', which may or may not help my back, but that the doctors in Scotland could get on with it, really - Nice, eh? I knew that cutting bits out of legs was a dodgy practice, even with leg length discrepancy, (it's very common, you know - Get the tape measure out and get someone you trust to measure your leg length, and let me know the results!) As a result of this, I avoided most doctors and consultants... Anyone, in fact, wearing a white coat!

In late October, I was at a tedious meeting with some lovely people - I'd got sick of ferrying my special chair everywhere with people taking the mick, albeit good-naturedly - I sat in an office chair instead, and two and a half hours later I practically had to crawl to the car to meet my husband - I cried, wept, screamed all the way home... I took to bed, getting out of it only to shower, weeping, for around five weeks...

My OH bundled me into the car one day to see another lovely, understanding, caring, doctor, who referred me to a Consultant - I waited - It took weeks, owing to cock-ups in the commissioning system, with MRIs being dealt with by a private medical insurance company, not the NHS... Why, oh why, oh why?! I rang up and badgered them, for they were incapable of checking records, claiming my 'phone number was wrong, and they hadn't been able to contact me, so I'd been put to the back of the queue!

I rang the hospital and arranged an MRI scan for the next Sunday - Just on the Friday before that, I had been talking to my boss about returning to work - I could not sit upright, I was slouching on the sofa, as I am now, to type... It's the only comfortable position I can find - No sympathy now, please... but I just wanted to try to get back to whatever would pass for normal...

After the MRI (once again, I had to stand on a chair in order to get onto, and get off of, the machine (the up/down mechanism was kaputt) - Lord only knew how they got the wheelchair-bound lady who came in after me onto the contraption...) I saw a doctor who didn't want to let me out of the hospital, the scan looked so awful...



Reassured that I was not about to kipper it there and then, he arranged a 'pre-admission to hospital' appointment - At this point, no-one had really explained to me what exactly was going on, behind my back, as it were, so I was terrified...irrational, wibbling, like a little girl - I was in the dark, vulnerable... See an earlier post for proof - I was as mad as a fruit bat, never mind yesterday's baby possums!

I realised it would be folly to return to work until I was sorted for once and for all (hopefully) by the Surgeon's Knife... Two weeks later, I saw the Consultant who will operate on my back at the end of this month -

He is seven foot tall, aged around 12, with the handshake of a Pro-Wrestler! Finally I had someone explain to me what the nature of my injury is, and it is significant - The disc was never going to go back in of its own accord, it overlaps two discs in fact, and a piece of it, or something else, is also floating about loose back there - Too much information, I know, sorry!




So - Since January, when I discovered Blogland proper, rather than lurking, which I'd done for an age, (GJ bought me a laptop for my December birthday/Chrimbo pressie combined), I have actually felt more positive about myself - Which has to be a good thing, right?

I have worked full time since leaving College, took only the allowed time off to have my son, Grizz, and then took part-time work for only 3 years after his birth... I have a busy working life - Lots to do, and so few of us to do it - As is the way in the public sector these days - The days of Civil Servants and 'fat-cat' Mandarins standing around drinking tea, have never been my experience... So, at present, while I cannot do much else... I blog, I write, I think and I plot... I read, I laugh, I love and occasionally a tear slips from my eye at the beauty of what a fellow bloggerista has written!

I touch type, so it doesn't take me long to write... I have always been able to go on and on at length, as all my bosses complain - 'Tis the bane of my (and their) life... and blogging is releasing for me a whole lot of 'stream of consciousness' stuff that must have been locked away for aeons, suppressed by daily, mortal toil - That, in all probability, and white wine!

I use Photobucket (other Photo sites are available!), to source my pics - I cut and paste suitable-ish images for the text, and it's all free... I dabble with the pics as inspiration for my writing in themselves sometimes - There are some clever and crazy people out there, logging all manner of interesting, funny, and beautiful moments with their cameras...

I take around half an hour for this, usually while GJ and Grizz are watching early evening TV, and it takes a couple of hours, or much less, to write... That's it... Ahhh, but reading your beautiful blogs takes me far, far longer, mes amis!

So, there you have it... Blogging as therapy, and release: (How much do you want as payment for this session, French Fancy, Saz, Diane, Belette??! and any number of generous, gorgeous others who keep telling me all will be well after the op, for they have been there, done that, got the T-Shirt and the stains!);

Blogging absorbing up the space and energies, and much of the time I would usually be devoting to work;

Blogging as stimulation! (Daytime TV is the pits...);

Blogging as infotainment... (You are a horribly clever lot!);

Bloggering as edutainment... (See Daytime TV!);


Any questions??!



Drop back tomorrow, loves, and I shall have Awards for All, some special shout-outs (+ Dusty Spider's Friends Award (see right) to dish out to 8 lovely folk!), and a Valentine's Surprise is coming up for everyone on Friday, in time for the lovely, or the dreaded, Valentine's Day!

Ciao, bella!