Stigma

These are the things that I want from a holiday:

·         A lot of food – esp unnecessary bread with proper butter before each meal

·         To be mildly drunk for all of the PM hours

·         To read several books, preferably on a sun lounger, at the same time as the above

·         More than eight hours sleep a night, with my special neck pillow that I haven’t left at home

·         For my child to do loads of fun activities, occasionally with me, but mostly supervised by somebody else

We had a lovely time in Suffolk. But we didn’t have enough of the last two.

It would be terribly out of character for me to focus on the positive (beautiful  grounds, 2.5 days sunshine, all that bread), rather than the negative (decorative shutters instead of functional curtains, therefore Logie woke at 5am every day).

It would also be churlish to admit it seems slightly unfair that I’m not on honeymoon with my brother and brand new sister-in-law (or without them, frankly, so long as there’s decent bread) in Italy.

So I’m going to move on to something else, quite serious for a change.

Time To Change is a campaign which does excellent work in tackling the stigma around mental health. Remember that brilliant advert with Ruby Wax? “1 in 5 people have had dandruff. 1 in 4 have had a mental health problem. I’ve had both.”

They’ve done a survey revealing that a quarter of young people say the stigma attached to their mental health problem has made them want to give up on life.

Just think about that. It’s bad enough having depression, or an eating disorder, or hating yourself so much you take a knife and cut your arm. But being made to feel so ashamed of your illness that you contemplate checking out is unspeakable.

And that’s the bit we can do something about. So next time you come across a teenager with a mental health problem, please treat them kindly, but like a human. As you’d want to be treated yourself if you were ill for a bit. It shouldn’t define them.

And definitely take no notice of anyone who whinges that their holiday wasn’t luxurious enough.

Husband headache

“You can write a blog about my poorliness, if you want” said my husband this evening. As he polished off the rest of Esther Walker’s best curry in the world, which I made over the weekend. It’s really been touch and go for him all day.

Last night he had a headache. He never has headaches.

It had nothing to do with playing cricket for several hours on Saturday, without much water, then drinking a sociable amount when we had friends for supper. And definitely nothing to do with drinking a very paternal amount for lunch yesterday, because it was fathers’ day (I prefer the apostrophe there) and the novelty of being able to order wine by the litre at Union Jacks was more than he could resist.

This morning he was too ill to get out of bed. Too weak even to sit up. “I can’t move!” came the forlorn voice from under the duvet. Logie bashed him on the head with his milk beaker to make sure, but it appeared to be true.

To be fair, I think he did have a bug, or at least dehydration.

Although today is Monday, he didn’t have to go to work, as we are on holiday this week. We’re going to Suffolk for three days tomorrow, then to Kent for my brother’s wedding.

“What shall we do?” asked the invalid.

“Don’t worry, I’ll do all the packing.”

“Should I go to the doctor?”

“Only if you think you’ve got meningitis or a brain tumour.”

I could actually see him weighing it up. It’s not his fault – living with a hypochondriac like me for three years is beginning to infect him.

Later that morning, I rang to check whether he was still with us. He confirmed that he was, though he was too weak to fill his glass with water. However, he thought he might just manage some duck paté, sourdough bread and a scotch egg for lunch, seeing as I was in the deli next to the osteopath.

On the way home, I stopped off at nursery to have a conversation with them about Logie, who has become a bit...oh, what’s the PC word...boisterous...lately, with other children. By which I mean he mugs them.

It peaked on Friday, at a friend’s house, when he repeatedly went up to both the other toddlers, hit them hard, preferably with an implement, and took their toy. Sometimes they didn’t even have a toy. And then he smiled. That afternoon, he attempted to push another boy off the climbing frame. We had words. He smiled.

But apparently he doesn’t do it at nursery. Interesting that, isn’t it? They have given me some of their lingo to try, eg “Please put that loud voice away” and “Look at your friend’s face – see how sad you’ve made her?”.

So we’re pretty much all packed. Jon has gone back to bed, because he fears he’s regressing apparently. I asked him if they were painful childhood memories but it didn’t raise a smile – he was too ill probably. I also asked if he had any tips for my eleven readers about his malady, seeing as he was so keen for me to write about it.

“Have a fairly good wife,” (he actually said “very”, or so he claims), “alternate paracetamol and ibuprofen, and rest.” To his credit, he then did the bins and recycling before returning to his sick bed. As a special treat he was granted permission to watch the rest of the county twenty20 in bed – I don’t normally allow cricket in bed unless it’s an international.

I stayed downstairs to watch Smash and write this. As I opened my laptop I got a text message: ‘I would be delighted to help out by eating a yog fanks pls next time you visit xxxxxxxx’. One minute later: ‘Can I have my yog soon please? Xxxxxxx’.

I took it up. “Oh, haven’t we got any blueberry ones?”

Roll on, happy holidays.

Steroids and antibiotics

That sounds like the title of a rock album, doesn’t it?

We went to a gig over the Jubilee weekend. Is ‘gig’ the right word for 60,000 people in the Emirates stadium, waving remote-controlled flashing wristbands? I wouldn’t know, because I don’t go to them very often. I get a bit dodgy in large crowds. But Coldplay seemed like a pretty safe but cool (in a middle-class way) option, and I do like to fantasise about being friends with them.

Here’s one of my favourite daydreams. I am chatting to them (dunno how I got there, but I worked at Comic Relief with celebrities for a few years, so there used to be an outside chance) and I say “Sorry to do that hideous fan thing, but can I tell you what X&Y means to me?”.

And they roll their eyes a bit, but say “Sure”, and maybe Chris Martin sketches that palms together head nodding thing.

“When I was an aid worker in Africa,” (they perk up a bit here) “I flew back to Kenya from London on the day X&Y was released. We left Heathrow at about 10am, so I just had time to buy the CD. That night, we had a party at our house in Nairobi. Many of our friends were aid workers or journalists, and our house was party central at that time.

“When you’re witnessing the most horrific stuff, travelling all over, you need to go a bit wild on the rare occasions you’re back at base.” (They nod here – they’ve been there.)

“We got totally caught up in the music, played it all night at top volume, and several people downloaded it. By the next day, it could be heard in charity outposts and refugee camps in Uganda, Congo and even Somalia. I took it to South Sudan, where I was working, soon after the peace had been declared. ‘Fix You’ went down particularly well.”

At this point they take turns at embracing me. They insist on writing a song about me. I probably do guest vocals on the rest of their tour.

Anyway, this fantasy was possibly induced by cider. Occasionally, cider seems like a really good idea, when it’s sunny and you think it’ll be refreshing. And drinking bottles rather than pints means you’ll need the loo less, so aren’t as likely to miss your favourite song. But then you remember that it’s just really sweet, you feel a bit sick and your bladder didn’t get the memo.

 Speaking of nausea and uncomfortable abdomens, I’ve been on these mega antibiotics lately which have made me feel GHASTLY. They’re the ones you absolutely can’t drink on, otherwise you spontaneously burst into flames or something, so I imagine most people think I’m pregnant. Which I’m not.

I shan’t describe how I got it, but it’s possible that the inflammation and possible infection inside my insides has set off the pesky nerve in my back, and that’s why it’s playing up. God it’s touchy, that nerve. Like an oversensitive teenager, slamming its bedroom door. Or Logie having a floor tantrum when he is inexplicably denied permission to play with the loo brush.

I hope the steroid is still working, so my back and all the knock-on wonky bits might settle down. I have mixed feelings about steroid injections at the moment, as my godmother recently had some in her knees and wrists, providing dramatically wonderful relief. But she fears they might be wearing off already, which I can’t bear for her.

Ceci is the most capable, uncomplaining person I know, so for her to even mention the problem in her joints was unusual. She is responsible for most of the cake-induced endorphins in the Chipping Norton area, and thinks nothing of turning out canapés for 200 whilst midwifing four cairn terriers into the world.

The good news is that she hasn’t got Sjögren’s syndrome, because she hasn’t got dry eyes, which are the main symptom. And a syndrome never sounds good. Although it might make a catchy single on my ‘Steroids and Antibiotics’ album – I’ll suggest it as a collaboration with Chris...

Head injury

He fell over again.

Less than two hours after banging his mouth on a table at nursery, Logan fell onto a shelf and cut his forehead. No dithering about whether to collect him – they said I ought to take him to get checked out, because he’d been rather unsteady on his feet after the first fall. Which is perhaps why it had happened again.

I zoomed.

We are v lucky to be near an excellent walk-in children’s clinic, at Hammersmith Hospital. You get seen speedily, by a paediatrician, without an appointment. They are very efficient and reassuring.

If only we’d known about them when Logie was just a few months old, and NHS Direct told me to call an ambulance because he was making a choking noise. The ambulance took 66 minutes to arrive.

Yes, 66. Try just counting to 66 – even that feels like forever. He clearly wasn’t choking, otherwise I would’ve got in the car, or started screaming in the street. But NHS Direct put the fear of god in me – “Put the phone down, call 999, tell them we said to call and that it’s category A”. Even typing that gives me a fearful rush of adrenaline.

Turns out it was just a funny noise he was making, because of excess saliva or his discovering a way to get a reaction. But it wasn’t terribly relaxing, ringing 999 and being told each time it was on its way, don’t move – or waiting for hours in A&E. In a corridor, because he’d been sick earlier that day (unrelated) so we were ejected from the nice paediatric waiting area.

Anyway, back to this week. He’s fine. No concussion. A split lip which has now blistered up, and a cut on his forehead. Arnica has helped the bump go down. He is a very brave bear.

I on the other hand have been in a right mood since then. I got all dramatic yesterday about not having enough sleep, so my lovely mum came and did the early shift this morning. My back is grumbling again so I’ve booked a massage tomorrow, cos I can’t get to the osteopath. I just ate a Kit Kat chunky by mistake. How hard my life is.

Anyway, this long weekend will be lovely. Logie has a t-shirt that says ‘Happy Jubilee Mrs Majesty’. If I don’t perk up I’ll need my head examined.