Eternal Question number 60. Do Antibiotics make you fart? 17, May 2007
Posted by babychaos in Adult Content, Humour, Life and living, Light Fluff, Play.Tags: household, Illness, obscure facts, oops, Shocking!, Small Scale Disasters
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Yes.
It’s so quiet… 14, May 2007
Posted by babychaos in General Wittering, Life and living, Light Fluff, Work, writing.Tags: household, Illness, Small Scale Disasters
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It certainly is round here…
I’m afraid it’s because I’m devoid of two things… the first is time and the second is inspiration!
I have some real work to finish but it shouldn’t be too much of a problem because it’s only topping and tailing and when it’s done I’ll be one happy lady! Just two pages of web copy – about 800 words, stand between me and finishing something that’s been hanging over me for several months. Wahoo!
I’ve also got my in-laws coming, which, is good, too but also kind of scary. This is because it means I have to spring clean the house from top to bottom and then it just might look about as clean and tidy as theirs does if they leave off all tidying and housework for about ooooh… three months!
I grew up in a mad professor environment so I’ve been brought up with the idea that cleaning anything except for the bathrooms and kitchen – oh and possibly the potting shed or greenhouse – is pointless drudgery and that people who do so more than is absolutely necessary (and my parents didn’t deem it very necessary at all) are, frankly, a little bit strange. I have learned, since, that this is not entirely true, normally it just means they are from the north.
I have a theory as to why this is, ergo that my parents can be quite clumsy when they are nervous and I think one of them must, at some point, have been psychologically damaged by going round to a very neat, tidy home and spilling something evil and staining, probably red wine, all over something expensive, a white drawing room carpet, for example, sending their friend’s mother ballistic in the process and being banned from said home for ever and ever!
Whatever caused it, there was a positive cultivation of untidiness in our house when I was a kid. I think another of the many reasons it was considered a good thing was because all the stuff my parents had was old because there’s no point having anything good if you’ve got kids right? If they don’t ruin it, their friends will.
This kind of transmuted itself to an idea that having a clean and tidy house was tantamount to giving your guests a good slapping and telling them to get out and sod off elsewhere because they are messing the place up! (I still subscribe to the theory that anyone who goes for the Bauhaus leather and chrome, nothing-on-any-surface-white-carpeted look is, basically, using their furnishings to tell you exactly that but I digress.) I think the idea was that if guests feel nervous about spilling or staining in a home they can’t relax properly and you are failing in your duty as a host to make them welcome.
I’d guess another strong influence to cause this attitude was one of the mothers in the village who had a dose of obsessive compulsive disorder so got a bit la la when anything in her house was disturbed by every day use – let alone by the kind of use it gets subjected to by a group of teenagers.
So, we’ve established that I take to housework like a duck to quantum physics… actually, no, I’d lay bets many ducks are better at quantum physics than I am at cleaning a house, well, not so much cleaning it’s the making it look clean afterwards! That’s where I really fall down, my “cleaned” rooms often look untidier than the ones I haven’t touched, to me, even if they are less dusty. Hmm…
So when the in-laws come, having given the house a birthday, I live in fear that some grungy bit of something that has slipped under my radar will be seen by my them and then they’ll think I’m not looking after their son properly. I know they won’t care, I know this isn’t true but it’s still what I fear! They’re a northern family – so everyone’s homes are amazing, welcoming and relaxing to be in but completely spotless.
It’s getting better, this pointless cleanliness inferiority complex I have. I bat a lot higher than I used to – but I am still very aware that while Mum in-law and the other ladies in her family (even the ones who married in) are cleaning to international competition standard I’m little more than a gifted amateur… Down hill with the wind behind me I might possibly be a regional finalist if it’s a very small region. A definite 60% tops against levels of 90% on a bad day as standard.
I am also infected at the moment, so garnering up the inspiration to write corporate puff or the energy to clean is harder than usual. I’m on antibiotics and that’s always a pisser. These ones especially, I’m on the wagon for seven days – not only that but if you leave the pills in your mouth too long or one inadvertently gets stuck to your tongue, they taste exactly like earwax and we all know how horrible that tastes! That said, at least I only have to take three a day.
On the up side… my book is sort of progressing. For a start, by writing for a living and writing other things, like this, my skill at handling words seems to be improving. So while I could always write their conversation, I find I am describing my characters’ actions as well as their speech – and the underlying emotions behind both – with a bit more realism and conviction. It all seems less disjointed, less jemmied in than before! Not quite there, then, but closer.
I still haven’t really worked how I’m going to resolve the plot in a believable way but at least I now have some ideas about key scenes which will definitely be included and a better set of skills with which to paint the action. That means I can write them up and sort out, later, whereabouts in the chain of events they are going to be. THAT is definitely a result!
Right then better get on. The hoover calls… Hey ho…
Tricky conundrums number 63… cancer, the social minefield. 20, February 2007
Posted by babychaos in Heavy Flow, Life and living.Tags: cancer, dealing with cancer, eternal questions, Illness, living with cancer
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A serious one today… I was reading a discussion of terminal illness the other day. How people deal with it and the like. Someone close to me has cancer. She has it in her back and she has it in her breast. She has had two operations to reduce the size of the tumor in her back but she is practically quadraplegic. She is refusing to have any surgery on the lump in her breast.
Her family tell me she will not share her oncology results and advice with them so they have no idea what the prognosis is, my guess, since they reckon she has had cancer for four years, is that it isn’t good.
That said, she is a gutsy lady. She has decided that God has more work for her to do on earth – she has a strong faith – and that she is not going to die yet. She will not acknowledge that she might or brook any acknowledgement from others. Mention it, her family tell me, and you are ordered to leave the room. This must make it hard for them. Sometimes, if there’s a chance that something may happen you have to look it in the eye. You have to do it for the sake of others otherwise it will be so much harder for them if you do go.
I don’t think the National Health service has covered itself in glory on this one either. She went to the doctor several times about her back over the last two years. Each time she was diagnosed with depression and given tranquillisers. She is very feisty and can be difficult but that’s no excuse to just assume the problem is mental and not check her out. She became paralised over Christmas, that was when they finally got up and took notice. That said, the tumors in her back are secondary tumors. The main tumor is the one in her breast which the doctors reckon she’s had as long as four years. I gather she didn’t do so much about that – mentioned it, I think, but refused to let the doctor examine her and the doctor didn’t insist – not great doctoring there either by the looks of things. I can’t help wondering if she may have realised but decided that prayer and faith would cure her.
Now, a faith is a very personal thing, between each individual and god, what she decides has got nothing to do with me or anyone else. Anyway, it may be that the breast cancer is inoperable but if that’s the case, I can’t help thinking she could spare those close to her a lot of pain if she told them what the oncologists have said to her.
I find the idea that the cure will come from God alone quite difficult. Not because I don’t believe prayer and faith can cure people… there’s evidence to suggest it has across all religions so I’d lay bets it can but… But… I’m one of these people who has a lot of doubts and while I envy those who seem to hold their religious views with such rigidity and conviction I worry. If we have a creator of some sort, and I think we do, I wouldn’t begin to presume I know its mind so other than the very basic rules – treat other people the way you’d like them to treat you or maybe, do what you think Jesus would have done – I have real difficulty with pretty much all the “don’ts” of religion. Not applying them to me, I mean applying them to others. I do believe that if something is wrong it’s my place to point it out, if it comes to it, I believe it’s also my place to refuse to do it, even if everyone else around me is. However whether my argument and example are enough to convince others is up to god not me. It’s not right to force people… ok, I make an exception for Nazism it is right to force people not to persecute others but you get my drift, on the whole, it’s wrong. So… I can’t help wondering if this lady’s attitude is sensible, or more to the point, god’s will.
There’s an old story which illustrates what I’m trying to say.
A bloke is praying and suddenly he hears a voice from heaven saying “I am God, I will always be with you, look after you and protect you. If ever you are in trouble, pray to me and I will help you.”
The man is delighted and goes for a walk along the clifftops, by the sea. He steps too close to the edge, the rock crumbles and he loses his footing and falls. He is hanging on for dear life but he knows God will come to his aid. He hears a voice calling to him.
“Are you ok down there? I’ll go and fetch a rope and haul you up.” There’s a guy leaning over the cliff edge.
“No, no, I’m fine.” He calls back. “God will save me.” So he goes on his way.
The man hangs on but time passes and his arms are getting sore so he prays to God to hurry up and save him. Almost immediately he hears another voice.
“Are you ok up there?” It’s a woman in a boat floating on the waves below. “Jump into the water and I will haul you out.” she says.
“No no, I’m fine.” Says the guy. “God will help me.”
He really does hope God gets a move on though, he’s getting very tired and he’s not sure how much longer he can hang on but he prays for strength and before long he hears a helecopter. It hovvers near him and the pilot slides open the window and shouts out through a megaphone.
“Hello down there! Are you all right? Let me throw you a rope.”
“No!” Says the man. “I don’t need a rope. I don’t need your help. God will save me.”
“Suit yourself.” Says the man in the helecopter and he goes away. It’s low tide now, there’s nothing below but sand and rocks. The man can no longer hang on. He cries to god for help but none comes and eventually he falls off the cliff and dies. When he get’s to heaven he is terribly hurt, how could God make such a promise and then desert him in his hour of need. He berates god.
“You said you would help me!” He wails. “You said you would always be with me, look after me and protect me. You said if ever I was in trouble, I should pray to you and you would come to my aid! Why did you desert me in my hour of need?”
“What d’you mean?” Said God. “Are you crazy? What more could I have done? I sent a man with a rope, a boat and a helecopter…”
So I suppose what I’m saying, in my long winded way is this. If the tumor on her breast can be removed, wouldn’t turning down surgery be like saying “no” to the helecopter? It’s different if she’s resigned and decided she would like to die but she hasn’t, she wants to live. Shouldn’t she give herself a fighting chance?
Is it my place to tell her and if so… how in the name of all that’s holy am I going to go about it? It’s unlikely she’d ever speak to me again, so is it a question of sacrificing my good relationship with her in the hope that it might make her well… if not accept the helecopter then at least allow the others around her to get close. And if I fail… I’ll have stuffed it up for everyone.
It’s a tricky one.
One Drink + One BC = Painful Accident… Always 14, January 2007
Posted by babychaos in General Wittering, Light Fluff, Play.Tags: Hobbies, holidays, Illness
7 comments
I went away for the weekend. I spent two nights in bed with somebody called Billy… well, I think it’s Billie actually. Not as exciting as it sounds. Billie is a cat and she sleeps on the spare bed at my friend’s house. She sleeps there when there’s a guest in it, too. I rather liked it as I missed my husband-shaped hot waterbottle keenly.
Mr BC, meanwhile, was at his work “Christmas” party on the Friday night – they did better than some years, they often have it in about March. It was an R&B party which got everyone all excited about dressing up, the girls as Bra and Pants artistes, the boys as whatever it is male R&B artists wear and Mr BC as one of the Blues Brothers. The head of the company and his second in command got wind of what was happening and had to send a corrective e-mail round, R&B wasn’t a theme. It stood for Robert and Brian – their names. Something about that absolutely shouts “SPUD” to me. According to Mr BC they are, indeed, ultra-spudly. The kind of people who hit 80 at about 24 years old and remain that age for the rest of their days. Smirk. Guffaw!
So while Mr BC was living it up with work I went to see my mate. She loves climing and so on the Friday I went out with her and some mates and acted as score keeper/secretary/mother /jumper and water holder while they did a bouldering competition.
Boldering entails going into a huge hanger like place and doing a series of climbs up a low climing wall, in this case about 15 or 20 foot high, with a crash mat. They give you a list of climbs, classed from easy through to very hard. Most of them looked very hard to me as they appeared to involve a lot of hanging up side down without falling off. All the same, it looked great fun. I was rather jealous as I am not permitted to jump off anything, what with all the knee surgery I’ve been having. I did have to watch out for people landing on my head though, there was a different competition going on on a much higher climbing wall behind me and once they’d finished the people in this one had to absale down. They did it very carefully but it still caused the odd gentle bump.
There’s something amusingly surreal about hearing somebody say.
“Excuse me.”
Looking round and finding they are not in front, beside or behind you but hovvering uncertainly just above your head.
Anyway, once my mate plus friends had finished – they climbed as many as they could – we went off for a ruby murry. They were all very pleased because they’d blown their previous high scores out of the water so we um… well, we drank quite a bit and then repaired to her house for a whisky… or two. They started talking about upper body strength – very important for climbing – and also something you tend to enjoy quite a bit of if you have to spend any time on crutches. She has a bar across her bathroom door so she can do pull ups. Everyone had a go so I decided I would. Unfortunately they are all honed atheletes and I am 13 stones. So I duly pulled up, my body swung out from under me, as it does, and then the bar fell off the door and I landed on the ground on my back. There was a loud ker-dunk as my head hit the floor the “ker” is the first impact, the “dunk” the second because, you see, it bounced.
On the upside, there was someone there with enough medical knowledge to confirm that I was not concussed so we didn’t end up in A&E – a very good thing because we were all pissed and it was five to three in the morning. Continuing on the upside, I don’t think I have destroyed any body parts for life – I will have to explain to you how I finally put the kybosh on my quality second knee at some point – although I am ready to believe I’ve cracked a rib at the back…
On the downside. Falling, even six feet, onto your back makes for big bruises and of course the pain increases over the next couple of days as it stiffens up. I’ve driven back from Leeds this morning and now my back fucking smarts. I have two huge bruises on my elbow, too. Although I’m delighted to report that the headache which I had all yesterday has finally gone! A partial success then.
Even so, it was a great weekend. I finally got to fly my new kites. We had a go with the delta wing in Leeds, a bit fell off it and I managed to find two pieces of other people’s kites but not the strut from my own – bloody typical. Even so it was way cool and since the woman who sold it to me at the car boot (£4.00 what a bobby bargain) was given it by the Women’s British/World/European (I forget which) delta wing kite flying champion who made it, herself, I can only assume the parts are available on the internet. So we repaired to Ilkley Moor where we decided to try out my 6ft parachute type kite, ah hang on, I’ve just discovered it’s called a “power kite” and I’m pretty sure it’s a Flexifoil Stacker 6 – £5.00 from a car boot, £74.00 new (mwa ha ha haaargh I love a bargain). This we did successfully, despite my injuries and it was brilliant.
Not so brilliant driving home in the dark with both dip bulbs blown on the Lotus. Wanted to check the fuses but couldn’t help thinking that if I did so, 200 miles from home, the fuse box was likely to melt when I looked at it or even spontaneously combust – because life’s like that – necessitating a long trip home on the back of an AA low loader.
Never mind. Followed a Range Rover home who clearly had Road Angel fitted. Either that or he knew where every speed camera on the A1 is between Leeds and London. He was doing a good old clip so I just sat behind him and by the time I hit the A14, I knew where the cameras were anyway so I was home in about two and a half hours with lots of loud music, singing and enjoying the ludicrous acceleration, blue dials with flourescent pink pointy to the numbers bits and pervy suede interior. Grrrr Easy tiger! No problem with the back I could feel it but the pain wasn’t too bad. Now, though, oh boy, I can hardly walk.
That’ll teach me to get over indulgent and over enthusiastic!
Don’t Look at me, I Can’t Smell it… 21, December 2006
Posted by babychaos in General Wittering, Life and living, Light Fluff.Tags: Illness, observations, Small Scale Disasters
2 comments
It’s not just me that has a cold. If the evidence of the hairdresser’s this morning is anything to go by it’s the people who who have NOT metamorphosed into itchy-throated, phlegm-belching volcanoes who are in the minority.
This is the time of year most of us, here in Britain, really get into the swing of spreading pathogens just in time to exchange them, with our gifts, at Christmas, I suppose. Until recently, I tended to catch my first cold in about October and then with an average of about two weeks off between each one I would go right through the winter in a state of almost permanent congestion, a bit like Britain’s roads, only not.
Recently this seems to have worn off. I’m not sure whether it’s down to the incredibly virulent flu I had five years ago (my parents came for Christmas gave it to me, I gave it to Mr BC and Mr BC’s parents. Where was I at the turn of the century? In bed with a temperature of 102) or whether not doing real work, in an office, for a living has affected me but whatever it is, I’m not complaining.
It might be down to my new “cure” which almost works. You’ve heard of Phil Spectre’s Wall of Sound no? Well this is my personal variant WALL OF MENTHOL. The loudest smell on earth… at this time. It’s great for me. I don’t have to smell it. I can’t. It stops me coughing but I think a whole winter of it would be pushing my husband’s tolerance levels and perhaps, the boundaries of unspeakable cruelty. After six days of wall of menthol there is no sign he is beginning to crack but even so…
Anyway, since I’ve been “enjoying” a spell of ill health I thought I would list the ten universal truths about having a cold… along with the others.
- There is no cure although you can make things better with cough pastilles, on the one hand they work on the other it’s likely that if you can taste nothing else during the entire duration of your cold, you’ll still pick up enough flavour from the throat pastilles to know that a) they taste disgusting and b) you don’t like them.
- You will be sweating a lot but you’ll have absolutely no idea whether or not you have BO – this means you’ll be living in fear of social exclusion and taking a shower two or three times a day.
- All those showers will leave you smelling far more fragrant than usual – not that your friends are going to notice anything other than wall of menthol – nevertheless you don’t know that and will gradually become paranoid.
- You will only need to cough when making a noise really matters.
- If a medicine is at all pleasant to take, you know it isn’t going to work. The revoltingness of the medicine, more to the point, the revoltingness that you are still able to taste even when you can’t taste anything else (cf point 1) is directly proportional to the amount of good it does…. eg Fisherman’s Friends – doubtless these are used by secret police worldwide as a form of extreme torture. Although some people eat them for fun. Avoid these poor damaged souls. Enjoying Fisherman’s Friends is a sign of profound mental illness.
- You will lose all sensation in your nose on about day three and spend the next week in a constant state of fear that it’s dripping without your realising.
- Your spouse will bring the cold into the house, throwing it off in a day and leaving you stuck with it for three weeks.
- Your breath will smell horrible.
- Never mind. You won’t know. Hoorah!
- It will make you realise how zits and volcanoes feel.
- Swallowing your own bodyweight in phlegm each day will dull your appetite and help you lose weight.
- But it’ll make you feel sick.
- You won’t be able to smell your farts.
- Other people will.
- You won’t be able to smell anyone else’s farts.
