Back again and back issues

Hello, it's strange being back here. I usually try to forget that I have a blog because I don't update it.

So, where were we? Well, the kids are 4 and nearly-3. For the most part life is still good. But my back? What is going on?

For weeks now, I 've been waking up in the night to lower/middle back pain that feels as if there's a lump of coal hurting in my spine. My GP has run a few blood tests and found evidence of inflammation (raised ESR) and is exploring the possibility that it could be the beginnings of arthritis or spondylitis.

Jesus. I bloody hope not. What will become of my general bonhomie and borderline smugness at having turned my life around after 20 years of a previous chronic illness? What of my unscientific, 'gut' feeling that mind/body medicine probably has most of the answers, if we just knew how to unearth them?

I don't know. My 'Nice Man' (still here too) says, 'wait and see,' and, 'don't get ahead of yourself'.

Tomorrow I'm back at the doctor. We shall see.

-C

Barefoot in the park

Tess is now  two and a third and I liked her wee poetic comment in the park today. She and Hugh were barefoot on the grass and when we came to walk on the concrete path, she said, mummy I hear my feet. I said, you hear your feet, Tess? Yes, she replied, like a pigeon.

-C

The gardening programme in my head

The only time I get a 'run' at the garden is when Francis takes the kids out on a weekend morning. You might think you could garden with kids playing verdantly around you in a pastoral utopia. Apparently not. Instead they throw muck, complain about it being 'too shiny' and then whinge for TV. Even though Hugh has out-grown Mr Bloom's Nursery (a kids' gardening show) he would rather stay indoors and watch it than, well, actually garden for more than 7 minutes.

So, I know very little about gardening and I'm making it up as I go along. Hence my surprise at the new-onset gardening show in my head. I was mentally narrating to the 'viewers' as I went about each cultivation task. When you cut this bush back, it may look a bit bare but, don't worry, you'll be rewarded with fresh growth next year. I began to take liberties. I'm edging the lawn here with this handy tool, but if you want a really straight line, you should mark it out with string first.

Then I thought about my blog readers too. And I realised that my infrequent blogging rate is directly related to the infrequent daytime head-space. My mind rarely gets a chance to meander. What a good word meander is. Anyway, today my mind enjoyed stretching like a sun-warmed cat, while I stood on a plastic garden chair and lopped at  hedges. Such is life on a good day.

-C

Slugs too trusting

I never know what to do with the nightly explosion of slugs in my garden. They cause conflict in the 'Never Be Cruel To Animals' part of my brain. I go out to try and kill them with a spade, but they are so trusting. The security light comes on and their big antenna - or are those their eyes (?) just reach out further. Exploring.  Saying hello. It just feels so wrong to bap them.  And yet, if I don't they will eat every lettuce, broad bean and strawberry they can find. And the hosta....well, it gets skeletal.

I'm stalling any squeamish massacres by surfing online for effective slug control online. Notice my euphemism there. Control. Poisoning them seems even worse. If only I could herd them all into some kind of holiday camp for slugs. Snail World. Slugs on sun loungers with cocktails and all the rotting vegetation they can eat. Just don't let them come back.

-C

Same old, great old.

Right, that's it. I'm still here. I was skulking and hiding, but a couple of kind readers have prompted me out of lurking. It had gotten to the point that I wouldn't even click on my blog pages, so embarrassed was I, that they were no longer updated.

Everything is mostly the same, but in a good way. In a great way. I still savour my health like only the recovered can. The kids are growing up happy and well-cared for. Hugh is 3 and a half, Tess has just turned 2. Nice Man is still nice to me.

Part of my hiding is due to my ambivalence about the way the Internet can take over your life: hours of your time can fall down the hole that is, 'Just checking my email/facebook/twitter feed'.

Recently I was at a wedding where there was a designated twitter page and guests were tweeting from one side of the room to the next. Some people love that stuff. The bride and groom were happy cyber geeks. Fair do's, and 'them to their fancy and me to my nancy', but frankly, I'm happier in real time, rather than parallel web time.

That's also a vain way of saying that this ubiquitous web-stickiness drives me nuts. Sometimes  I am tempted to poke Nice Man with a random gardening tool if he tweets when we're on one of our average family-fun days out: something like buying emulsion at B&Q or getting lost at motorway junctions. Here's a recent article by journo, Graham Spiers, saying how his wife gets grumpy when he gets carried away tweeting.

Well, what else have I got to say? So much that I don't know where to begin. If I can resist the coy urge to hide again, I will try and see what gives in future posts. One thing at a time.

Tomorrow night I'll head out to my new local bookgroup. We read Caitlin Moran's How to Be a Woman. I loved it much more than I thought I would. I was always a believer in equality - ie a feminist, but the book has opened my eyes to so many parts of life where we need to nuture that equality. When something breaks around the house, Tess will say, 'man fix it?' Yes, I say, or maybe a lady.

-C

In reply to Anonymous...

There are lots of Anonymous's out there, and one of them wrote -

You still haven't said what it was that got you better, Ciara! Why are people who claim to have been healed by these various techniques so unable to simply say what it was that cured them. I just don't get this reluctance. NLP/Lightning/CBT/Mickel are all like some weird religion such as Scientology who are completely secretive about the ways they behave. I just don't get it!

Okey dokey, Anon. I was like you, I just didn't get it....and the irony is, I'm not sure I really get it, even now. Yes, it seems freakishly unbelievable and improbable that anyone with serious illness could benefit from signing up to a bunch of nebulous concepts and behaviour changes. I know.

It was Mickel therapy I tried, but I guess it could have been any of the above. At first I railed against the recommendation that you don't discuss treatment while undergoing it. How ridiculous and self-limiting, I thought. How unhelpful to other sufferers. And yet, after a while I realise that repeatedly analysing the ongoing process got in the way of the 'flow' of trying to recover. It would be like trying to practise snooker/ yoga / tennis, and stopping to calculate the angle of every move, while debating the pros and cons of your game with others in the room/audience. Better to wait till the game is finished and discuss it then...

And yet - here's another twist - if it works and you do get better, miracle of miracles (!) some of us still don't fully understand how it happened. I was almost embarrassed. How could a behavioural therapy reverse a profoundly physical illness? Joe Public will reassure themselves that, yes, (it's as they thought!) you can't have been that ill in the first place. You just milked it for a couple of decades.

Of course some Recover-ees may feel cautious about what they choose to say. We face scepticism from all sides and we're not quite sure how to explain it to ourselves.

However, I am now more intrigued by the role of the psyche in all illnesses. What's the new field of research called? Psycho-neuro-immunology? There might be some answers in there.

I'm not even sure that I buy into the entire overview of these therapies - there are subtle variations down each path of MT/RT/ LP/ NLP etc. The single most important factor for me was having a therapist (is that even the right word?) who had overcome serious ME/CFS herself. (I think Recover-ees training as therapists is reasonably common in these treatments). Her experience kept me believing, or suspending disbelief, against the odds.

I think there are books and websites explaining the various 'plans for recovery', but in my experience, it would be quite hard to try it on your own. I think most people would benefit from a 'therapist' to guide them and keep them on track. I know it's expensive, and many people find that off-putting. I don't know any way round that, other than taking a gamble. It's up to every individual. I'll say again: I'm not trying to sell any thing or any one crede, I'm only speaking of my experience. I don't know if this helps or perplexes.

As they say at the end of Tele-tubbies, 'Time for Tubby Bye Byes'. Time for bed. My kids could be up at 6am. Still feels far too early. Drastic and draconian, even.

-C

Ground Elder - grinding you down.

I am trying to become a gardener for the time in my life. I have good ideas; I have enthusiasm. I have an Alan Titchmarsh calender that cost me a pound in the January sales. I also have a weed called ground elder that is causing me awe and despondency.

The ground elder just keeps growing and colonising - flower beds, the lawn, the compost heap. Its strangulating tendrils would be good in a Dr Who episode. Apparently weed killer and repeated digging will control but not eradicate it. Punters on garden message boards ask, 'how do I get rid of ground elder?' And those in the know reply, 'move house or get a nuclear bomb'. Here's a similar account of declaring war on ground elder.

Most evenings, I go out to the garden after the marathon childcare/tidy-athon that is your average parenting day...and then I try to find the stamina to dig out a bit more of the Ground Elder. I think I am veering towards obsession as I like to swear at it, and then spend too much time looking up Internet articles on how to kill it. Apparently you can eat it but it tastes worse than spinach.

Ah well, the apple blossom is out and the kids are loving the paddling pool. In this recent generous sunshine, it's not far from idyllic.

-C