Wibble.

I have a special word for when things aren’t quite right with the world- I’m sure I’m not the only one to use it, but it’s a special Ali word in my mind.

Sometimes you can’t put your finger on what’s wrong. Sometimes there’s nothing really wrong, you just get this sense of impending doom, or a niggling worry, or a feeling that something just isn’t quite right. You wake up and you have something and, at the very same time, nothing on your mind. If you try and reason with the feeling, you get nowhere. It’s a continuous loop of inexplicable feelings.

I call this: Wibble.

Some days when I wake up and Steve looks at me and he just knows I’m having a wibble. He says, ‘Are you feeling wibbly?’ and invariably I say, ‘Yes.’

Wibbles are easily curable with very simple remedies of attention, cuddles and squeezes. You never really know why a wibble came, and you are never really aware of it leaving. It’s a day release lodger in your mind. When it goes you’re not sad to see it leave, in fact, you’re rather pleased and you hope it won’t come back again at any time soon.

My mum was very familiar when the concept of wibbles when she was suffering with depression. In fact her Community Psychiatric Nurse Stella posted her a plan with what to do on a normal day, and then what to do on a ‘wibbly’ day. The wibbly day meant a massive downscaling of effort- staying in, listening to radio, gentle walks, chats on the phone, you get the idea. The non-wibbly day would mean trips out with friends, shopping, trip to a museum etc.

I think I ought to apply this same concept on myself. Wibbly days should be met with introverted behaviour, reading, listening to my ipod and not being overly chatty. Keeping your head down and trying to go unnoticed is the easiest way to cope with a wibble in the absence of cuddle therapy.

In case you hadn’t guessed, I’m having a wibbley wobble today, but it’s ok. I have notified the powers that be and cuddles are on hand to be despatched this evening, along with some hard core snuggling.

Good bye my unwelcome friend, I bid you farewell.

Health test- the update

Quick health update:

I was made to sit through an hour of post-health-test-analysis in the pub on Friday night with Steve.

Frickin’ BUPA had thankfully printed out a 30 page report detailing precise statistics for lung capacity, cholesterol, white blood cell count, diabetes, weight, BMI blah blah blah, each page more painstaking than the last.

Working in insurance seems to have increased Steve’s boredom threshold so he took great delight in talking me through every page. Thank goodness, because if we hadn’t had the report to pore over, we would have had nothing to discuss. Ahem.

Turns out Steve’s been given the all clear and is spot on in terms of his health (ok, ok, his fitness is above average, but you’d expect that from a marathon runner) which is really lovely, BUT I could barely hide my disappointment at the lack of prostate examination. The doctor told Steve that this wasn’t checked in men until they are over 45 so I have to wait almost 16 years til he gets the probing.

As a result of the health report examination (and the resultant need to down wine) I ended up being slaughtered by the time we sat down for dinner at the new overpriced Gaucho Grill in Butlers Wharf. I had a £31 piece of fillet steak which I promptly puked up the second we walked in the door at Clapham. What a bloody waste….when will I ever learn? In the morning it crossed my mind that if I’d have made it to the back garden the small family of urban foxes would have had quite a treat.

The following day after just 2 hours of sleep I traipsed my sorry hungover arse down to Brighton for a dinner out at Murasaki and general frolics for Jonathan’s birthday. As ever, the food was perfect, and just kept coming and coming. Thankfully I managed to keep a lid on my behaviour and apart from the usual potty mouth I didn’t disgrace myself at all (I don’t recollect….well, apart from some hideous photos).

I met Anne So’s lovely other half Richard who was very impressive with his two-pea-chopstick-challenge, and the lovely Siobhan who I fell in love with the second she finished a glass of champagne and proceeded to smash her glass on the floor nonchalantly and with more than a hint of ‘russian’ness. Hurrah.

All in all the weekend was a booze fuelled social extravaganza (hence my addled brain and sub standard posting today…..I’ll be back on form tomorrow, honest).

Post op

Well, I guess the fact I'm typing this is proof that I'm ok, live and kicking and apart from being pretty sore and extremely pissed off I can't give my boyfriend the welcome home he deserves, I'm fine.

Here's what I learnt today:

1) The smell of burning flesh is the most disgusting, wretch inducing smell I've ever experienced. I'm not sure if the fact it was my own flesh made it even worse, or a little better. All I know is Steve's crunched up nose said it all.

2) All you need for a calm and drama free 'procedure' is for your Doctor to be kind, gentle and inject a little humour as well as a little local anaesthetic. My doctor told me that I was about to lose all my dignity (something I'm pretty natural at without being in hospital). He then unveiled my stirruped legs and promptly said, 'oh, haven't you got pretty pink nails' to which Steve replied that I'd done them especially. I hadn't. Honestly.

3) Be prepared! It's a bloody good motto, so next time you see a do-gooder scout or cub give them a high five. If you know to expect a burning sensation, a large cold speculum, or a painful needle then you don't feel half as violated when it happens. Doesn't stop it hurting though.

4) Don't be startled when someone sticks a large patch on your arm, you ask what it's for and you get told it's to earth you so you don't get electrocuted. Just feel pleased that someone has thought of this on your behalf.

5) Take someone with a strong stomach who loves you unconditionally. This way no matter what happens they won't really bat an eye lid. This time I was a 'brave soldier' which made me feel proud and 12 years old all at the same time. As a result I also got lovely perfume, some hot pink Havianas and some uber cool boardies for my next diving trip.....knarly dude!

And finally,

6) Be thankful for all the people you love who took the time to send you texts and give you hugs and say all the right things, even if when you tell them it went fine they reply with:

'Damn. I was hoping for a bit more drama'.

Pre op.

Okay, so we all know (because I've been so bloody self indulgent about it) that I'm going into hospital this morning for my operation. I say operation, when minor procedure might be more apt, but it sounds far too American for my liking. So operation it is.

Think drama, think men in masks rushing around shouting 'clear', think techy looking machines making ominous bleeps and whirring noises. And then forget all that, because the only think you really need to know about my operation when it comes to quite how degrading it is, is.....stirrups.
Men will be picturing a porn film with some kind of riding theme set in a hospital together with tightly fitting jodpers and black boots and nurses with pert breasts, tight dresses and sparkly white teeth.

Girls will be shaking their heads in recognition of the humilation and vulnerability that goes hand in hand with this monstrous creation which much surely have been devised by some sadistic man by the name of Clause Von Torturestein.

In essence this really isn't a very pleasant experience. Of course us women know our damage limitation off by heart so to avoid making a bad situation really bloody awful, we wear a dress or skirt (which- for the boys- means you can at least cover your cellulite and stretch marks whilst your lady garden is on display and on a wide screen TV close up to boot). Marvellous.

So onto how I'm feeling about this morning. The only way I can describe it is that I feel as nervous as I did the morning I sat my maths GCSE. My hands are shaking, my heart is beating so fast it feels like it might dislodge and pop out of my mouth and I can't type for toffee, or spell (but you knew that anyway). So all in the all, the mental preparation for calm and measured reasoning in order to banish anxiety.....no hope.

Liklihood of massive drama queen attack- 'fair to good' (who am I trying to kid, if I were racing in a the grand national I'd be odds on favourite), so best make that 'certain to absolutely inevitable'.

The good thing is that Steve has landed and is on a train on his way to face up to his boyfriendly duties, the bad thing is that I'm so nervous I'm not going to be able to show him how pleased I am to see him without the use of tears.

I know it'll be fine. A million people face much worse things all the time. The thing is, when it's you facing something, no matter how small, and no matter how often you put it into perspective, it's still yours to face.

God I wish I had a stunt body double.

Taking a LEEP of faith

Things have been a little slack around these parts of late, but maybe it’s just the case that I’ve been saving all my energy for my best ever yet blog posting (and of course waiting for the grand unveiling of my sparkly new design).

I guess I’ll have to let you be the judge of that.

So then, quick re-cap. Steve flies to Australia for just over 2 weeks this afternoon. Last night I headed over to his for a fancy night out at our favourite restaurant, Chez Bruce, but the day’s events had taken their toll.

Yesterday morning I was busily typing away at my desk when my mobile phone started singing to me. It was not, for a change, one of the many repeated mistake calls from Dan, but an intriguing ‘unknown’ number. A posh voice asked me to confirm my name and then he introduced himself as my consultant, Dr Disney (this name has not been changed for comedic effect, it really is his name). We spoke about my results and he told me that he wanted me to come in for some treatment and that this treatment would be LEEP- currently the most common for cervical changes of the sort I have, CIN 3, or cervical cancer stage 0 if you will (so barely even begun).

LEEP involves passing an electrically charged loop over the lesion and effectively cutting it clean from inside you. It takes place under a local anaesthetic. This piece of skin is then used diagnostically to check to see if the cells have got any worse or whether they are happy they got all the nastiness. LEEP is 85-90% effective and can be repeated once if it’s not. After that you’ll be pretty much void of any cervix, so if you fell pregnant you’d need to have a C section. And if that doesn’t work then its hysterectomy time, partial or total, depending on your situation. But on the bright side, that’s a 90% chance I’m going to be absolutely fine.

Being Ali and being hyper neurotic, I of course had to research every dubious and ill-formed article and US chatroom and I sat and read whilst my heart sank and I felt gradually more nauseous. Talk of miscarriages, infertility, horror stories about the agony of the treatment etc etc. At this point I started to think that perhaps I ought to have insisted on having a general anaesthetic.

I left work feeling wobbly and probably even a little bit wibbly and headed to Steve’s pondering on my way whether this treatment would provoke a similar response as the last, i.e fainting and seizure. I literally turned the corner of the street saw out of the corner of my eye a red flash and realised that there was a girl lying on the floor, frothing at the mouth and have an epileptic seizure. Irony of ironies. If there is a god, I don’t know if this was a warning, or a ‘stop being so f*king self indulgent you pathetic cow!’.

Being first at the scene I went into my now fairly finely honed ER routine (don’t want to make myself sound like a freak but this is the 3rd time this year I’ve been the first at the scene of an accident and had to call 999, I swear they are a friends and family number). I phoned the ambulance, I checked her pulse, I held her head as still as I could but didn’t restrict her fitting, I checked her heart beat and I did other very important things like stroking her hair and her hands softly in case somehow she could feel reassured by my presence. I knew from the research that I had done after my recent fit that people aren’t at risk from tongue swallowing, so I didn’t force her into the recovery position. I even checked her wallet for her name and kept saying her name over and over, ‘Philippa’ ‘Philippa’ as she lapsed in and out of consciousness, glassy eyed and fixed pupils.

Ambulance arrived in no more than 5 minutes time, by which point Philippa had quite a little crowd and had come too enough to tell me she suffered from epilepsy and had frequent seizures. In a verging no out of body experience, I told the ambulance driver, ‘This is Philippa, she suffers from epilepsy. She has had a seizure lasting 2-3 minutes with full body shaking and foaming at the mouth. She had fixed unresponsive pupils for at least 2 minutes after the seizure ended’. It was at that point I realised that I watch far too much bad hospital drama.

I saw her into the ambulance, wished her luck and went on my way, feeling more than slightly freaked out.

3 hours at home, pondering over the day and waiting for Steve to get back from work so we could go out for dinner. Waiting, waiting, worrying, pacing, waiting. Worrying, waiting. Steve gets home and I’ve managed to work myself up into such a pickle that he gives me a big hug and tells me everything will be fine and I can feel myself go all stiff inside. I’m angry, but I’m not sure why. I suppose I’m angry that this is all still dragging on and I can’t see an end in sight. I’m angry that he’s leaving for Australia tomorrow and I’m going to be left pondering this horrible treatment on my own. I’m angry that our lovely evening has been spoilt because I’m feeling too upset and wobbly to enjoy a fancy dinner, and I’m refusing point blank to just say those simple words. I’m terrified.

After several attempts at cuddles, reassuring words and eye contact Steve picks up the phone, calls the restaurant and cancels the booking whilst squeezing my hand firmly. My resolve crumbles and I start to have a damn good cry and it all floods out. I feel like if someone put a little camera inside me what they would see if something black, rotten and mouldy and worst of all, dead. I am scared that if things don’t go to plan, we might never get to have children together. I ask him how he’d feel if I couldn’t have his children. He tells me that we’d just get lots of dogs instead and I cry harder. He tells me I’m being silly (of course!) and not to assume the worst. This treatment will work and in 6 months I’ll be fine. I fall asleep in a snotty mess and when I wake up, Steve’s just coming home from Tescos with a big bunch of lovely flowers and all the ingredients for spaghetti bolognaise. He pours me a glass of white wine, gets me one of his cosy hoodies and sits me down whilst he cooks, yawning quietly all the while.

We eat and sit in silence and then we hold hands tightly.

And all the fanciest things in the world could never match the calm feeling I get sitting with my Steve in quiet contemplation.

It’ll be ok.

Ouch....get that thing away from me

One day you’re contemplating what outfit to wear to the races and the next day you’re thinking about whether or not those dodgy cells in your cervix might turn out to be something nasty. Funny how life throws a googly almost to punish you for being stupidly shallow and avoiding facing the real issues in life. I guess that’s what you call, erm, ‘getting real’.

I’m not being dramatic about my little impending hospital appointment (much) but it’s hard not to be a little bit scared when you don’t really know what to expect, apart from some poking and prodding, possible lasering, freezing, cutting and biopsying, depending on what’s erm, ‘up there’. My friend Sam, I’m sure won’t mind me saying, has gone through many a similar procedure in her time. Having had kids, I guess this is somewhat of an inevitability. I knew asking her about this would result in on thing- brutal honesty. There was talk of ‘hot lasers’ ‘hand squeezing’, ‘some bleeding’ and also I’ve heard speculation about ‘nappies’. None of these things fill me with much delight it has to be said.

The classic moment came last night when Steve and I were discussing said hospital appointment and I told him that after a biopsy or lasering or freezing, I was to become a sex free zone for a month whilst my insides sorted themselves out. He repeated the words ‘ a month’ as if it were a truly alien concept- I think he thought being the ‘hand squeezing recepticle’ was as bad as it was going to get…

I’ll keep you posted….29th June is D day if you’re interested so all positive vibes for ‘not too much abnormality’ are happily received. Sam- I know I’m being a massive girl, but godammit it’s my bits, I’m entitled!