Sometimes really irritating things happen that you don’t invite into your life and have no control over, and yet you have to deal with them. It’s only by dealing with them that the irritation goes.
Yesterday I received 4 items in the post. I opened the first one and it was a letter from rheumatology saying I had an appointment on 8 June at 1pm. As the clerk had rung me a few days ago and told me this I wasn’t surprised and already had it in my diary. It’s important to keep on top of these appointments and make sure they don’t clash. I always put them into the phone calendar so I know what’s coming up otherwise it’s hard to keep track.
The next letter was from rheumatology telling me I had an appointment on 8 June at 3pm!? What on earth. I was very perplexed and you are not seeing things. It is two appointments on the same day at different times. I know I need regular monitoring but not every two hours.
The next letter was from cardiology. It said that as I failed to turn up for my appointment on 26 May for a 24 hour ECG, I had been taken off the list and would not be offered another appointment. I knew nothing about this. I don’t even know who ordered it. I’ve already previously had a 24 hour ECG so I would have queried the reason behind it had I received anything asking me to come in for this test. I would never not turn up for a hospital appointment. I know it costs the NHS and I do t want to waste time or money. If I can’t make a specific appointment I always ring.
The final item was a card from the post office telling me I had been sent something in the post but there wasn’t enough postage paid. If I paid £1.50 I could retrieve the item.
Oh my days. I was so frustrated. As it was the weekend I could do nothing about any of it which added to the annoyance. Also it’s a bank holiday weekend so it will be Tuesday before I can sort it out. It’s really bloody aggravating. But that’s life. As I always tell people, life is only 10% of what happens to you. The other 90% is how you deal with it.
Sadly in my life and my line of work I come across many people who experience minor irritations like above or more major irritations but they don’t deal with them. Instead they let them slop around inside themselves and it makes them brittle people. They don’t let any of it out in any productive way except to be unkind and awkward to the people around them. It’s so sad. I’ve known and know so many people who keep everyone at arms length and never reach their potential. I sometimes wish I had a magic wand that could make these people feel safe and loved enough to be honest and let some of the pain out. Sadly I don’t have a magic wand so all I can do is model good practice and show a different way of doing things. Hence me blogging about the minor irritations of my post bag as well as some of the trauma and difficulties of living with cancer and the effects of the treatment.
My sister Trish was a point in question. All of us suffered in childhood from poor choices made by our parents. That pain got locked into Tricia. In order to cope with how bad she was feeling, she started to self medicate with alcohol. What she needed was to talk about the pain. What she did was try and squash those difficult feelings. The problem is these feelings don’t go away they are just temporarily dampened. Then they come back again and you need more and more alcohol to push them down.
Sadly Trish died from her alcoholism in her 40s. By then she was a shadow of her former beautiful self. She was pitiful and it was so hard to witness. I had only recently been ordained. Tricia’s funeral was the first I took as an ordained person. It was an honour and privilege to do so for my grieving family but it was tough.
My plea to you all is to take a risk and be brave. If you have pain locked inside you, whether it’s caused by your illness and fears for the future of trauma from the treatments. Whether it’s to do with a failed marriage, a bullying boss, a difficult childhood. Whatever the cause, please love and value yourselves enough to do the work that will releases you from the chains that bind you to the past. It’s so important to look after our emotional and spiritual self not just our physical bits and pieces.
I’ve been busy for a few days with stuff at home. My lovely sisters Gail and Dawn and their husbands have been helping me which is fantastic. Despite the busy time I was all set up to do a blog on Friday as it was World Blood Cancer Day. Unfortunately another irritation came my way. There was a problem with my freezer and unnoticed it had defrosted and all the contents were spoiled. It was a full freezer too. Grrrr! It meant I had to empty it all, clean it all out and take the contents to the tip. I couldn’t change the fact that it had happened so I just had to suck it up. Sadly it meant I missed a zoom meeting with MDS UK as well as doing a blog. That’s life. All I could do was shrug my shoulders and get on with it.
Fortunately some nice things have happened too. The sun is shining and I’ve been able to sit out in the garden with some of the family at different times.
Rose, one of the readers of this blog contacted me recently and said I’m always talking about my grandchildren but what about my children. My beautiful daughter Annie is mum to my 4 grandkids. I couldn’t be more proud of the amazing woman and mother she has become. Rose I’ve included a picture of us especially for you. I hope all has gone well this week with your surgery. Annie has been going through a bit of tough time so it was lovely to be able to spend some time with her in the garden and give some socially distanced support. It’s so tough not to hold those you love! It will come I’m sure but for now my partner and daughter carry the anxiety of what may happen should I become ill with covid. As a result they are very cautious with me. Annie will not even walk through the house to the garden without putting a mask on. I’m blessed to have so many people that love me. That far outweighs all the irritations.
To round up, my latest news is that I am soon to have my PEG J removed. It will be the first time in 5 years that I won’t have some kind of tube hanging out of my body. I can’t wait. I had a chat with the lovely gastro doctor during the week. He told me that my recent barium swallow test had shown that there is an anomaly in the way my oesophagus empties into my stomach. When he takes the PEG out and deals with another couple of bits he is going to insert a tiny microchip that he will attach to the bottom of my oesophagus. That will be connected to a receiver that I will wear for 4 days which will measure the amount of acid going into my food pipe. After I put the phone down I started to laugh. We have the nutty antivaxxers that won’t have the jab for fear of Bill Gates controlling them via a hidden injected microchip and me willingly having a microchip implanted. It must be awful for those people to live in such fear.
Wherever you are in the world I hope the sun is shining on you and I also hope that despite the physical cost of being ill you also pay attention to the emotional cost and find a way of letting some of the difficult stuff out and let more light in. Be brave and just go for it. You’ve got nothing to lose but so much to gain.
(The black and white photo is Tricia, the other is in the dark glasses is Annie and the other is me teaching my daughter to ride her bike. It was when I was fit an healthy and still playing football as you can see Lol)
#worldbloodcancerday
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