My progress with LDN for my 5 profile autoimmune disease is beginning to bite now, mind you so am I since starting my physio again today. I had clenched teeth and I have been hissing at the humorless postman again. Personally if I posted a parcel the wrong size though somebody's letter box and the person the other side opened the door grinning inanely and offering to help, I might turn the corners of my mouth up and even say hello. He remains blissfully unaware that one of my best friends spied him from the top of her tallest tree, in her garden - (yes she climbs trees, just like us), running over her child's bike... and then carefully taking the bike and placing it strategically behind one of their own cars. She decided to stay put on account of her temper being on a scale with a severe volcanic eruption. She will grill him later on when tempers have subsided.
We had a jolly start to the Easter Hols with my nephew turning up with a vast drum kit, to sit alongside my young son's and also the arrival of my eldest son, who filled the house with rather rib vibrating drum and bass, with the bass amp turned up full. In the middle of thrown together exotic dinners - an old friend turned up and assured me she could sleep anywhere as she had brought a special sleeping bag which was equipped to withstand minus 12 if necessary. I am not sure where her memories of my hospitality and spare room come from - although people do camp in the garden when we are full up. She is hilarious and likes to tell me lots of batty things, which of course reminds me very much of myself. we did lots of flopping about in front of the fire and hoovered up some whopping dinners I made. Meanwhile the younger ones and my man all disappeared into the sauna in the garden and cooked themselves and then lay in an icy paddling pool telling me how healthy they felt, they then got far too chilly as it was a frosty night, and all shot back in the sauna again.
That aside, My man has now disappeared for a short break away in Eastern Europe to do work, which will involve sitting in cafes skypeing his friends to say how warm and flowery it is and drinking various cold lagers and sipping the local fire water known as Rakia, Which once made my friend Dithers so tipsy - that she veered off the footpath we were following and ended up stuck waste deep in shrubs several fields away and had to be rescued by my husband - and told to go to bed. I have also tested it and it makes me twice as rude and outspoken and makes me snore like louder than any man I know, but a most delicious brandy styled affair made from whatever fruit is in people's gardens.
Meanwhile I wandered up to London with my children for a holiday, combined with hospital appointments. We had to curb most of our activities and stay hanging out in Dither's flat - as my youngest's chronic migraine would not allow him to do anything other than one brief shopping expedition, involving only one shop. He had to go to bed two days in a row, which was hard on him. The first night I took everybody out to a local Indian Restaurant, however my son felt too unwell to eat, the waiters came up trumps, none of them I might add with English as a first language excelled themselves by distracting him and us with that game four pictures one word which everybody is playing on their phones, they got every one right, and we ended up with them all sitting with us playing the game with my youngest,and myself and dithers, so two ladies, two teenagers an array of fab curry and 5 waiters all on one table.
I cancelled all outings and activities, and the one shop we managed was the giant Top Shop/Top Man at Oxford Circus, central London, and my youngest two went off and came back clutching mountains of items to try on. I became ultra nosy and intrigued at the re run of boys going past me in drain pipe trousers, which have come back again.... arms like pop eye and legs like pipe cleaners etc. . Apart from this I cancelled everything else including a planned trips to drop in on people - everything that we did went on in Dither's flat so my son could go to bed. We did between us conjure ups some fab evening dinners and enjoyed ourselves nevertheless.
Dither's sat on my bed every evening and was still full of spine tingling snippets from her holiday, I was amused to hear about her hair on end evening walks in the pitch black apart from star light, on an island with no people, and her intrepid venturing into forests full of extreme noises and endless rustling and the deep scratching taking place outside her bedroom window, at the dead of night.. In the mornings her first appointment in her lonely paradise, was to see if a particularly large and gruesome cockroach had appeared on the same shelf as her carefully balanced toothbrush, this before doing battle with the termites and finding some sort of breakfast. It appeared every morning and triggered the same level of deep disgust.
She then proceeded every morning I stayed in London to show me how small her tummy had become with the endless swimming in the sea, this conversation would last roughly ten minutes and involved me having to scrutinize her from all angles, At the same time she indignantly recounted her stop over in the USA on her return journey - having missed one flight due to a storm, she was propelled into a large American airport hotel. Having queued up for a long time, the only dinner available was a crisp vending machine - she apparently spent the night tossing and turning in the largest bed ever seen in the history of her travels, whilst fantasizing about eggs over easy, waffles and maple syrup and every other cliched item seen eaten for breakfast on American films watched since childhood. She apparently galloped to the hotel breakfast in the morning and was confronted by plastic white toast with instant coffee, so ordered a cab and arrived early at the airport and sank her fangs into a kings size american burger. This all being told to me first thing in the morning as she discussed the whether I could see the reduction in tummy size.
After recounting this in her flat , she then disappeared to ferociously cook bacon and scrambled eggs with various vats of strong coffee. I shall send my husband next week to inspect the size of it, as he has work in London and will stay there, the goings on of Dither's tummy and what size it is has been going on for twenty years now! Only eclipsed of course by my own at times! My man is a good sport and when he is with us, he does stick his own stomach out and moan about how fat it is, and asks us both whether it is the right size or not etc.
Our hospital appointments went well. Regarding my application of LDN considering I have an awkward autoimmune profile, including full psoriatic arthropathy - I have now since January lost fifty percent of my psoriarsis, and my weight is slowly coming down. So not all doom and gloom, however I am still being plagued by infections, which I hope will calm down, but I have to remind myself why I ended up on this LDN path, I had up until December been getting slowly then rapidly worse and worse with no break in anything and substantial loss of mobility. To have a half an hour work out today felt like a major achievement. I felt like somebody elsea damp dish rag an hour later but I am sure it will even out over time.
I had a break between appointments in the hospital cafe and became transfixed by a man who stirred his coffee for a full five minutes, almost hypnotizing me in the process, and he then sneaked out his lunch from his jacket pocket which consisted of five layers of thick brown seeded toast and lettuce all in one sandwiched pile - with what amounted to a culinary assault course as he attempted to open his mouth wide enough to take a bite. I had a flash back to childhood. I can remember my mother being told to 'will you stop that child staring' - with reference to myself of course. I just can't help myself.
Before leaving London to come back out East, I had one of those long delicious lady's baths that are so reassuring if you have the time... I then put on my best floaty, older woman's arty velvet coat and blow dried my hair.. and stepped out into a torrential downpour. It happens every time I do this, I could put money on it. Between you and me, I should be sent to countries with drought problems and told to sit there wearing that coat and clutching my hairdryer it might help. Having finished being indignant - my eldest son then drove me to see his grandfather who is ill and whom I had not seen for a while... Having sauntered across the road in a this-woman-has-not-been-recently-drenched-goose-stepping manner.... I then descended some slippery steps wearing my awful flip flops and went flying down the entire flight... nothing hurt or broken just a vivid green application of vivid green slime to the back of my black velvet coat.... I can never maintain appearances. All in all some good results, despite our family wings being clipped on the latest trip - as I sit here I an developing yet another cold, and I hope this time it will not stick on my chest.
Hoping Easter was good all round for peeps on here!
and please SIGN and SHARE: change.org/en-GB/petitions/...
Mary F x
T3 - the saga continues but with good news and a conundrum!
