Subconjunctival haemorrhage, infected sebaceous cyst and exercise classes

How did the school holidays go for you?

During the summer, most people used to roll their eyes and say something like 'only two weeks to go!' whilst pouring another glass of rosé, oblivious to the fact their child had just fallen off a swing.

Others would give you chapter and verse about the difficulties of finding childcare as a working parent— one woman I know seemed to mishear any question she was asked, and think you'd actually said 'please can you give me a detailed rundown of who has looked after each of your children this week, giving precise timings, locations and what the traffic was like on that day'.

My hols, since you ask, were rather violent.

The violence was from Felix, who is now three and two-thirds. He and Logie (five and two-thirds) use fighting as a sort of language — it's how they play, argue and converse. But Felix is usually the aggressor, and I am often on the receiving end too.

At one point, he hit me in the eye with a toothbrush. On the actual eyeball, because I literally didn't see it coming (he was flailing around beneath me doing his usual anti-toothbrushing morning protest) so didn't close my eye.

This resulted in a noticeable bloody blister on the white of my eye, which grew over the next 24 hours til it took up approx a quarter of it. It was gross.

Because I was overdue an eye test (that's the problem with ordering lenses online — they're always bloody BUGGING you to get your eyes tested every year) I went to my local optician to get it checked out.

This optician runs a small business just round the corner from me. He seems quite near retirement. The carpet is grey and looks about 30 years old. It's always very hot in there. I've only ever seen one other person in there, even though I walk past it every day. I transferred my business to him a couple of years ago, because I got fed up with Vision Express e-mailing me every 20 minutes and I wanted to support a local business. Actually that's bollocks — I thought he'd be cheaper, and I couldn't be bothered to go to Westfield any more.

Anyway, he does the job, and there's no chance of him or his 'receptionist' ever bothering me with an e-mail, because I'm pretty sure the screen on the desk at reception isn't anything as modern as a computer. I suspect it's a microfiche.

But he has quite a dour sense of humour, if indeed he has one at all. When I was told there were no appointments free til the afternoon (surely untrue), I took off my glasses and presented him with my Halloween eye. Just in case it was an emergency. 'Well,' he said, after doing some close-up whistly nose-breathing 'the worst-case scenario, which is unlikely, is that the retina could become detached. In which case, a few hours won't make any difference.'

Obviously this was thrilling to a hypochondriac like me, but it lacked the urgency I was hoping for. So I decided to go to my usual exercise class at the gym in the meantime.

Anyway, it was all all right in the end. I actually wrote most of the above about two months ago, and then never got round to finishing it. I was going to write some hilarious things about exercise classes — which I only started experimenting with earlier this year, despite the fact I've been a member of the gym for about seven years — because the most annoying times to have glasses enforced on you rather than lenses is when it's sunny, or when you're trying to exercise.

Goodness, exercise classes are scary. Though some of them are so ridiculous it's lucky that I don't have any friends in them, because if I caught someone's eye I would crack up. Either way, what I really dislike is the fact that once you've started, you can't stop. Even if it's too hard (spinning) or too ridiculous (zumba, complete with scarves edged with tinkly coins) you simply have to stick it out til the end of the hour.

Some high/low lights for me have included a step and tone class, run by a sharply camp man aged about 60, who seemed to think we were all in Butlins and I'm pretty sure despised women. He kept a rictus smile on his face while managing to say 'Lift your bottom a little bit higher' while substituting the word 'bottom' for 'flabby, overprivileged lard arse' in his head. He'd have made a marvellous Victoria Wood sketch.

Once I went to this class, only to find it had been cancelled and replaced with body combat, with a substitute teacher. She was very angry, this woman, about something. She also didn't really seem to know which class she was teaching, or which leg we did last. But every now and then she'd just unexpectedly yell 'GET YOUR FREAK ON' with enormous aggression into her head mike, and everyone was rather taken aback. Although no one said anything, of course.

I'm quite a fan of something called stretchworks, which is generally very good for elongating and decrumpling yourself. Unless you get a bit too big for your boots, and try the advanced class. As someone once said to me 'I don't know how they do it — it's like Cirque du Soleil'. 

At one point I found myself in fear of being crushed to death by the weight of my own breasts. We had to do a shoulder stand, then slowly lower our legs down over our heads. I sort of floomped mine down, but this involved such a shift in gravity that most of my ribcage somehow ended up over my face. I couldn't see or hear anything, so it was difficult to know when or how we were supposed to get out of this position. It became difficult to breathe. I tried not to panic. It was only the idea of being resolutely stuck in this undignified position, amongst a sea of Lululemon limber milfs looking at my arse with barely disguised shock and hilarity, that gave me the energy to topple gently over onto my side in order to escape.

Probably the worst thing I've tried is spinning. How do people pedal for more than three rotations while standing on the pedals? I mean actually how? I'll wager those machines will soon be designated official weapons of torture by the UN. Afterwards a friend sent me a sympathetic message: 'I tried it once and it made my vag bleed' so I've decided never to return.

Instead I've become a zealous convert to body pump, where you lift weights to very loud music. The sort of music you imagine they'd play in a post-apocalypse film, where humans have gone half savage (but hung on to a few techno mix tapes) and dance round a fire at night, banging empty oil drums. I find it rather empowering, despite the fact I barely have the strength to lift my phone for a couple of hours afterwards.

But in order to close the loop on this rambling, time-delayed post, I need now to tell you that I have an infected sebaceous cyst. Which, if I still had my bloody eye, would complete any decent Halloween costume. It is on top of my left shoulder, just before the slope to my neck, and it is utterly repellent. I had a small white bump there for years, which I always assumed was a mole. Earlier this year the GP told me it was a harmless cyst, but I couldn't have it removed on the NHS because it counted as cosmetic surgery.

Only now it's got infected, as I was warned could happen. It's swollen to about seven times the size, is red hot and angry, and looks like it could explode at any moment. I'm on antibiotics four times a day for a week, and if it's not better soon apparently the next step is to go into hospital for IV antibiotics. Even though I always imagine the worst, I wasn't expecting that. Though imagine how much work I could get done. 

Then again, I don't think they do body pump in most hospitals. Even though I don't come out 'on a high' like some people claim (I come out with a camel toe and a white line around my mouth) I need to keep my strength up to protect me from my children.

Questions, lies and coughs

I hate the question 'How are you?'

Because, on the whole, I don't like lying. And I'm never short of material when it comes to ailments or complaints. 

But when this inquiry comes as a passing greeting, I simply don't want to get drawn into conversation.

The over-friendly barrista who just made my coffee might be a bit phased if I were to describe the green stuff I've been coughing up all week.

If I were in the office today, the unlucky colleague who made tea at the same time as me wouldn't want to know that my left buttock is quite sore, as that gluteal muscle so often is, because I'm one of those people whose sciatic nerve runs through their periformis. She'd just be killing time while the kettle boiled.

The check-out assistant in Morrison's doesn't want to know that my boobs ache today, for no apparent reason. (Is it a hormonal thing? Is it some sort of lingering protest about my new sports bra?) I doubt this is covered in staff training, even if they do have a go at role play in the customer engagement module.

The school mum whose name I can't remember and it's now far too late to ask, doesn't want to know that actually I had a tummy bug over the holidays, that peaked on Christmas Day, turned into mild pancreatitis, I had to go the doctor, miss my godmother's bread sauce, and although my husband had the same bug a few days earlier mine was obviously much more serious because I have IBS (I really haven't dwelt on that enough recently) and had my gall bladder removed years ago after various infections (helicobacter pylori — I love to remember that name), gall stones, bleeding in my stomach and mild pancreatitis once before, so these things are prone to cause me immense pain.

But the other reason I hate this perfectly innocent question is because it's a really hard one for people with mental health problems. Trust me, it can be the hardest thing in the world to answer, when inside you're feeling total panic and despair because all you know is that something is terribly terribly wrong, yet externally you feel obliged to gaily respond 'Fine thanks!'

Or you're so numb, you haven't a clue how you are, who you are, or how to carry on — 'Good thanks'. Or you've been awake half the night, in a cycle of anxiety, and simply being in daylight amongst other humans now feels so surreal and likely to tip you over the edge it seems bizarre that nobody else has noticed — 'Fine, how are you?'

I mention this today because it was Time to Talk Day yesterday, the big PR day for the mental health anti-stigma campaign, Time to Change. It's a brilliant campaign, and a brilliant aim — to get everyone to have a conversation about mental health on the same day. (I'm late, as usual.) 

Of course, some people are crying out (silently) for someone to ask them how they are, for an opportunity to share their problem, to get some support. Sometimes, in the right context, 'How are you?' is the perfect conversation-opener. One on one, with a friend, I find it hugely helpful to talk about my mental health, and a sympthetic listen can alter the course of my whole day.

So I've just got to tell myself that answering 'Fine thanks' isn't a lie, so much as a foreign greeting ritual. Apparently in Tibet, the custom is to stick your tongue out. I gather that killer whales have entire greeting ceremonies, involving tail slaps and chest bumps (like those American brothers in tennis doubles?) so we actually get off lightly with two harmless words.

Nevertheless, I've come up with a few reply techniques to get round the question:

• Ask, without missing a beat 'How are you?' [For people too thick/in a hurry to notice you didn't answer. Also, don't stop to hear their answer, so as to make it clear this was a meaningless exchange.]

• Say, with as much credibility as you can muster 'You look well!' [Works particularly well on school mums who are wearing make-up, so long as they're one of the ones who don't normally wear make-up.]

• Joke, 'Don't ask!' [but don't make eye contact, otherwise they will.]

• Pause for thought, then in a completely dead-pan way, say just one word: 'Medium'. [This is something I learned from a very clever, Eeyore-ish editor with whom I once worked, and to be honest only works if you're in quite a cerebral environment and can deliver it with the requisite amount of black humour.]

Alternatively you can just summon up your fruitiest, chestiest cough, which serves the dual purpose of providing an answer to The Question, without actually having to speak. Best of all, you're not even telling a lie.