The best gifts are not wrapped

I had a good christmas. I tried to wish for charity gifts this year too, but my family refused it. Instead I asked for stuff-I-use-every-day, school books and other such trivalities that I spend money on regularly. I got a lot of that but I also got an e-reader.

I've always judged an e-reader to be quite useless for me. I love paper books and always will, and for other things I use my laptop. Yet I'm quite enjoying this gift and now see its uses (especially for studying). It's small, and weighs little in my bag and is very neat and easy on the eye. But yet, I didn't feel as good this year as I did last. Last year I saw all the donation cards rowed up and I felt peaceful and happy. Utterly so - despite my dislike for holidays.

There are, after all, gifts which trumphs all other costly gadgets. Donations to suffering animals (or people, if that's your preference) are a gift like that. Yet some things even trumphs that.

In mid-december, when people are still buying christmas presents and curse over wrapping them, my dad met with his surgeon. They had already informed us that his chemo-therapy hadn't worked as hoped. The day before the surgery they also tell us that they are less than confident that the surgery will be possible. The cancer might be too stuck to things they cannot remove. After all the oncologist's hopeful remarks, they land this in our laps. It feels out of the blue. Breath-takingly horrid. Mind-numbing.

24 hours of terrible wait. Of not daring to hope. Of tears in the bathroom between classes because I can't speak of it without breaking down so I don't want anyone questioning me of why I cry.

A late evening visit at the hospital. Seeing dad in the hospital bed and hardly daring to ask how it went. Then a smile, and he says they got it out. That the surgeon looked more than pleased.

That relief. It was too big for words. Too big to even feel properly. There's no wrapped-up, bow-clad present that can outweigh that. No money in the world that can compete.

I know it's not over yet. I know it might still lurk, that there might still be half a year of new chemos, that it might return, regrow, have spread. But the future is brighter, more hopeful.

I got my dad for a while longer.

Bad news

Some weeks ago my dad was diagnosed with cancer. It's been some rough times since - it looks hopeful so far but they've only performed the preparing operation. Chemotherapy is to come, then operation to remove the tumour. I've taken it very hard, and have been doing as much as I can to help him while my sisters have mostly been tending their own worries. I spend a lot of time being angry and frustrated. I also been trying to find an extra job for this autumn, plus I still have the horse to tend to and school starts in a week. So I'll be busy with a lot of things and might not be around much and likely won't be in my best mood. I hope everyone who knows me have patience. Better times will be coming, I hope.

Sometimes we all need help

I've let this blog be silent for long periods of time. Back when I started it I made a vow not to whine on it, and I've kept that promise most of the time. But that's also the reason that sometimes I've not written anything. Some of you might know that for several years I've not been doing too well physically and mentally.

About a month ago I had a long discussion with my mother which lead to me booking a doctor's appointment (not the first, I can tell you). They've tried to treat me for my pain and aches for a long time and gotten nowhere. This time we simply discussed the fact that my mother has noted a certain periodicity to my worst moods. I've noticed it myself but not really thought it that marked, but if she notices it, it has to be.

We decided to medicate me for something that's a badder relative of PMS (hormonal/mood disruptions before a girl's period). I've done one "round" of this and I've already started editing again on an old sci-fi novel I never got to work before. It's been so long since I last wrote something without immediately feeling the writing sucks, I can't even remember when that was. For two weeks I've not been insanely clingy, easily offended, or panic-prone. It's like magic. I'm still in pain, but at least I'm calm.

Of course, I've not even done a full cycle yet so it's not certain but it's promising. One part of me is afraid to hope it'll work, one part is angry that I've not tried this before and one part is crying in relief because maybe, maybe I might be returning to normalcy. Maybe I'll be able to keep friends around me again.

So thank you to everyone who stuck around (and please keep your fingers crossed!)

Blame it on the mother

My grandpa died a long, long time ago. No, this isn't going to be a sad story, but if you have a very righteous sense of humour, you should not keep reading.

So, my grandpa died and was buried in a town far from here. My grandma died (at the honourable age of 97) recently and was buried in her family graveyard. After some debates and letters sent back and forth, my mother was allowed to dig up my grandpa's ashes and move them over to grandma's family grave. The problem was that since he died a long, long time ago, she had to pick them up herself or pay an insane amount of money.

Today, my grandpa got to make a roadtrip across the country for the first time in a long while. My mother and I have had great fun discussing this fact on the phone.

We agreed that he had to be disappointed that he wasn't allowed to ride shotgun but had to sit in the back, and I pointed out that they had to buckle him in. And my mom's husband did a bad first impression by pronouncing grandpa's name wrong. We're not sure if he'd enjoy the modern music played on the radio, but we think he enjoyed passing the different towns for the first time in a while.

So if you wonder why I've got a slightly twisted and unintelligible humour, there's a good explanation for that. 

It's my mother's fault.

Good news all around

I know I'm awfully quiet on the blog nowadays but I'm trying to find my centre again - the who I am instead of who I have been and who I wanted to be. It's difficult. I'm not very good at adjusting goals downward, and I'm lousy at not being as great as I want to be.


Good things that have happened:

I managed to edit through (again) the manuscript for which I had/have the highest hopes. I started a new WiP.

The doctors finally checked me over for rheumatic diseases and brain tumeurs - nothing abnormal was found. I've got a prescription for muscle-relaxants that has improved my neck & back and my sleep.

Albeit through very sad circumstances, I will inherit enough money to get me through the college degree I want (biology) without agonising about extra work hours.

Also, today my short story was published in the local newspaper. It's in Swedish, but the "article" looks very pretty. It should be possible to read the text if you click on the image.

 

 

My short story "Never Loved" in the local newspaper.

Friday Fun - Happy Together

And I think she knows that

I bite my own hand to soothe the pain in my back. I realised that a few minutes ago, and I have no idea for how long I've done it. When the pain started with headaches, I used to sit through group meetings with my eyes closed and two fingers pressed against the root of my nose.

I need my ways to cope. Physical discomfort has always been the best way to distract - whether it's the flu or pressing my nails into my flesh. Some days (alright, most days) I imagine myself taking a knife and stab myself in the back of my neck.

Instead I get myself more chocolate, pour myself a cup of tea (if I'm not currently heat sensitive) and mutter to Mutant Cat who's curling up in my lap that she's in the way (even though I don't want her to move).

IRL / rant

I vouced to myself to become more regular on this blog, to post something every Thursday. I had also vouched to never let this blog be a place where I complained or ranted about my personal problems.

I'm going to break both those promises to myself.

I've lived in pain for four years. It's not an excruciating kind of pain - maybe 1-5 on a scale of 10 - and it's not close to the very tangible problems of living with say lupus, migraines or fibromyalgi. It started as a headache and for the last years it's spread to my shoulders, back, and now recently my lower back. Doctors say it's psychosomatic, i.e. all in my head. They could be right because no one has found any fault with me, not that they've made much of an effort.

The pain is there nevertheless.

I found ways to deal. I can't take painkillers because 1) they make me addicted and 2) because they only help at the 'topmost' pain - it takes a 5 to a 2. I tried keeping super busy so I wouldn't have time to think about feeling crappy. That didn't work out very well. Now I try to afford a massage session once a week, I exercise a lot to improve my strength, I avoid heat (even sometimes tea) as it makes me collapse (literary), I take extra iron because it helps against the nausea and the dizziness.

I've never had a fabulous self-confidence but I've effectively kept that voice down in the past. Unfortunately, when you spend all your energy on battling pain, there's not much left to lift yourself up.

And people don't understand. When my sister spent her whole pregnancy feeling nauseous, family and friends asked her if she needed to lay down, if she thought she felt good enough to come along to family dinners etc. That's something people can relate to. They can't relate to being unable to actually focus your eyes on a face. They can't relate to how unbearable a small pressure in your head can become. How noise and talk sometimes help me, how other times it cuts hard. They can't relate to having a half cup of energy left, or how I can run 10km but only visit them for two hours. How horrid it is to stand in the warm drying room, reaching my arms over my head to hang laundry.

I'm not saying this for pity. I'm not saying this because I want help. I'm saying it so you'll understand that if I suddenly go quiet, or don't write a blog post, or snap at you, then it's not your fault.

And I'm hoping that you won't judge me too harshly. I'm not at my best at that moment. I know it's a poor excuse for being rude. I try to be better. I hope one day I will be better.

Until then, I will take each hour as it comes. Step after step. And I hope I won't stand on too many toes.