I woke up this morning to the glorious sound of rain hitting the pavers out the front. Long-awaited and welcome like you wouldn't believe. I've had my peace plant stuck outside so long waiting for this moment I've even been watering it outside, rather than on the hallstand where it usually lives.
The rain is coming down and I'm tucked up in bed with a cup of tea in my favourite mickey mouse mug, a glass of water within arms reach, my oil burner gently wafting lavender in to the air. I'm watching Studio 10 do a wonderful job of interviewing Dolly Parton whom I love. She is a wonderful warm southern belle with a singing voice from heaven and a natural gift for writing songs that are relevant no matter how long ago they were written. I have to admit '9-5' is an absolute favourite. That line 'pour myself a cup of ambition' is fantastic. Just sums it up beautifully.
Right now, while I write, I'm sick. I have something scary going on in my brain and spine. I have an outstanding example of a herniated and bulging disc located at c6/c7 - not the best spot I'm told. I have a bone spur on the other side. I've suffered balance problems for as long as I can remember. I walked in to the same door at the same place every day for eight years. My dearest flatmate in the whole world watched me do it and could never figure out how I managed it. It wasn't as if little people visited and moved the doorframe on me - I just kept walking in to it. I always had bruises on my right arm - and when asked why - I'd say 'I walked in to a door' and the amount of looks I got from that was surprising. I was actually walking in to doors. Not face-first in to door handles like some women say when clearly they're not walking in to doors but fists of abusive partners. Nope, I was actually physically walking in to doors.
I'm so ill, we've had to delay our wedding by twelve months in order for me undergo the medical tour (opthamologists, neurologists, neurosurgeons, spinal surgeons, pain specialists, cortisone injections, general practitioners etc) and get properly well in the meantime. I'm on enough drugs daily that I could open a pharmacy in my front room - but as I need every last one of them I aint sharing.
I walk through my home and lose my balance, I lose my balance standing up, I lose it sitting down. I have swelling on my brain and elevated pressure in my spinal column, I'm suffering daily migraines (managing with more drugs on that front) and have bugger all energy - the perfect evening for me at the moment is a cuddle with my lovely husband-to-be and a silly movie on the telly. How life changes.
I rang my mother the other day to advise her of all of this - but she had to go because she had beans cooking. Disappointing? A little, but let me just say I'm used to my mother making everything else a priority BUT me. We're delaying the wedding but haven't set a new date, well, we have, but lets just say we're not exactly telling everyone the new date. Which is entirely our call.
We might even just elope and marry on a beach in front of a jaw-dropping sunset. Just the two of us. I love my husband-to-be - he is everything in a man I'd ever hoped for.
He is strong, wise, funny, a typical man (farting in bed is a common occurence), he's not tidy by any stretch of the imagination - but he loves me - warts and all and that's enough for me.
He's seen me at my worst, he's gone to the supermarket to buy 'ladies things' for me, and has held me when it's all gotten a bit much and I've started crying and been unable to stop.
We're both scared about what this all means, we're worried about the disc replacement op, we're worried about me having a swollen brain (I told him to back off on the compliments years ago but he wouldn't listen) but we're managing to find a sense of humor through all of this, and that is the glue that's keeping us on something of a keel.
I had a lumbar puncture last Wednesday and I'll be straight up - they hurt like FUCK. They had three goes, and got it in on the third go. Thank fuck for that - because even the local anaesthetic made no bloody difference. But my wonderful sweetheart showed up at the hospital to collect me with not ONE cherry ripe - but SIX, and a giant toblerone AND a star bar. And then he drove me home like I was the most fragile egg he'd ever had to handle.
What a sweetie.
And then fetched and carried and fetched and carried for me all night - even sleeping on the sofa so I could sleep undisturbed.
Today he is helping a friend of mine whose had an operation on her leg and has had a bit of trouble with her bed not behaving. So he's marched off in to the early dawn complete with tools so that he can drop round and fix it on his way home. She's a friend of mine. I feel like the luckiest girl in all the world to be marrying such a wonderful, caring, compassionate, generous, funny, sweet and occasionally as wise as the dalai lama of a man. I guess I'm also lucky that I can see all of this in him. That I am grateful for as well.
Bless.
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