First up I'm sorry to all those who came along on Tuesday to the Norwich Writers' Circle to buy 'Leave My Bed Untidy' by Michelle Proby. I was unavoidable detained. I guess the best way to fill you in is to go to the beginning.
The third week of February my Mother was diagnosed with cancer.
That statement alone is enough to send my mind into absolute free fall. How do you process that your Mother, your full time carer, has the most feared condition in the western world? How do you cope with that?
I'm not entirely sure I'm still sane.
Most of the time I feel O.K. I feel positive and O.K. with the fact that Mother has cancer, after all, it's more treatable now, she's been on the Salvestrols for years so the tumour can't be that big, if anything there's a chance she started bleeding because the tumour started dying and being shed (the human body is lazy and will take the easiest route to dispose of unwanted tissue). All great, all the stuff she needs to be surrounded by to get out of this alive.
However, I am suddenly on a hairpin trigger where it comes to anger and frustration. The slightest thing has me snarling and snapping, wanting to throw things and break things, yell at everybody and anybody in the area. I've had a back ground headache for weeks that just won't go away and my eczema hasn't been this bad since I left High School. After all I'm used to it playing up every winter, I had the creams I need to rub in and normally it just stays as a patch on the back of my wrists. No problem to one who is used to it. This year it has suddenly flared up so bad it's from my wrists all the way down to the second knuckle of my fingers. I've also had an acne flare up like nothing else, which isn't helping.
As I said, part of me is wondering if I'm entirely sane any more, especially as the slightest thing puts my bladder next to my eye and I start snivelling like a leaky tap.
To add insult to injury last Friday was the due date for my fourth blood donation. Now I don't like doing my blood donation for the simple fact that I'm afraid of needles. I have been afraid of needles since Mr Evans, my head teacher down in Wales, had to tell us about a boy who found a syringe on a building site, decide to play around with it, injected an air bubble into a vein and was dead an hour later. I mean, you would kind of expect something like that to put an eight year old off needles for the rest of their life. However, as a matter of principle I go to do my donation. Mother comes along with me, holds my hand and blabber away with me so I don't concentrate on what the nurse is doing. It has worked, half of the time. The first time I was very nervous and I told the staff about my phobia. They were brilliant and it barely hurt. The second time, they had to jab around to find the vein. The third time was even better than the first time.
This time they totally missed. They were busy jabbing away, I was yelling 'OW' and when the second nurse came along and said something about 'bruising around the catheter' I really started freaking out. Great isn't it? Turning into a great blubbering, hiccuping mess on the couch in front of all the nurses and everybody else. Just blooming brilliant! Now I'm going to have to get over my fear of needles, I'm also going to have to try and get round my memories of going to pieces on the couch in front of the nurses. Just great.
PS. I made a mistake on 'Leave My Bed Untidy'. Michelle is not schizophrenic, although the doctors did consider that at the time when the police picked her up. She has been told since then that she doesn't have schizophrenic but lack of sleep brings on similar symptoms. The last time she had an episode, the doctors had played around with her meds and she hadn't slept for four days straight. I imagine that would start anybody seeing things, not at least an autistic.
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