Wednesday 30 September 2009

Good news, bad news and utterly devastating news

Good news: I just learned that my Father has had the all clear for his bladder cancer. So until his next test 3 months from now, we can all breathe a sigh of relief.

Good news: I have just had my hormone fertility tests back and they are all very good. I have good fertility meaning that I am very capable of having a baby. Now it all depends on what they find when they do a pelvic ultrasound next Friday. I know I have a fibroid so the ultrasound will show if its grown, if it might get in the way of a baby growing. If it has, I may have to have surgery to remove it.

Bad news: I still haven't heard about my mortgage and equity release. The Abbey National are being utter pains in the backside, asking for more bits of info every few days. It was supposed to have been sorted out by today when my current mortgage actually finishes but they are being shit. I'm losing faith in my mortgage broker... I contacted him over 6 weeks ago to sort this out and still its up in the air. His holiday was far more important and so MY life has been delayed 10 days.

Utterly devastating news: Yesterday, an hour after finding out about my Fathers' good news, I heard about a good friends' cancer returning, with a vengeance. Last year, at the age of 29, she had a mastectomy to remove breast cancer. She has only just felt herself, her hair has grown back, her confidence returned. Last week she found a lump in her neck. Yesterday they told her it was fatal. With treatment she has a life expectancy of 2-3 years... without treatment, 2-3 months. I don't know how to react. I'm in such shock it's hard to express it. Only when I spoke to her best friend late last night did it truly hit me, and we spent the next hour in hysterical tears. My friend and her best friend are meeting tonight to talk it through but my friend has already said she can't go through the hours of chemo and radiotherapy again and is saying she might refuse treatment. All I know is that if I she wants to jump out of a plane, swim with dolphins, get drunk every night... then I will be there, doing it with her.

Monday 21 September 2009

I MUST stop whingeing!!

I just read my last blog and bloody hell, I'm surprised anyone would read it. I don't half go on and on about shite don't I? Moaning about this, complaining about that... I am going to try and be a bit more positive from now on.

However, a couple of moans for good measure!!

I still haven't heard if I'm getting my equity release. My mortgage broker called last week and sounded a little frantic about getting my applications off, to various lenders. I wondered why he was getting so agitated until he said "Well, I'm going on holiday tomorrow so I wanted to get all your stuff done and dusted today!" So, he's gone to Spain for 10 days and I won't hear anything until he comes back.. bloody brilliant. There's me stressed to the hilt, not sleeping, wondering what my future will hold, and old mortgage guy is off on his hols. Have a lovely time, don't worry about me!! So another agonising week of nothing.

I've been sleeping so badly its affecting my work. I toss and turn all night and fall asleep in a sweaty awkward position. I wake abruptly when the alarm goes off and I don't feel at all rested. My body thinks I've been working as a contortionist, all twisted and uncomfortable. Last week I was half an hour late for work on 2 mornings. The studio was fine with it, they are friends and didn't mind and it all works out ok because I just stay a bit longer at the end of the day...

This morning was a different story. I didn't fall asleep until past 3 am. I woke at 6am with a neck spasm so painful I couldn't move my head. When I tried to move, it shot a dagger up the back of my head into my temple. Shit shit shit, I thought, I have to go into work, I cannot let this stop me working. I ran a very hot bath, took some painkillers, rubbed on some arnica and then got back into bed for an hour. Nothing helped. By 8am I knew I had to make the dreaded call to work. Oh, this is a different studio to last week, by the way. A really great studio in Kensington that I love freelancing for. They were hit quite badly by the recession and have only just been getting their favourite designers back in, so I was thrilled when they rang last week and booked me. Now I was ringing the studio manager and trying to explain what had happened... on her voice mail!!! Anything you try and say on a Monday morning sounds flaky. No one believes there is anything wrong with you I'm sure. They all think "oh, I bet she had a heavy weekend and can't be bothered" But thats wrong! I get paid by the hour. If I call in sick, then I'm sick. I am losing a lot of money if I don't go to work and believe me, I cannot afford not to. So when I do call in sick its for a very damn good reason. I simply cannot work!!

So I sent off the message and hear nothing back. I call again at 9:30 and she is in a meeting. I text her at 10:30 and no answer. Shit... she hates me. I then get a text from her saying please read my email. Oh dear! So I get myself out of bed, hot water bottle wrapped round my head, secured with a tea towel (quite weirdly, a good 50's headscarf look!!!) and check my email. The disappointment in her message is just pouring out of the screen. She not only has got someone to replace me today but for the rest of the week because as she says "we can't risk you not being well tomorrow". Ok, so thats fair enough... she has a point. I don't even know if I will be all right tomorrow. But she continues to say how understanding they've been in the past with my illnesses and they just can't take the risk of having unreliable freelancers!!!! No!!!!!

This surprised and upset me because the "illnesses" she is referring to were all totally real and unfortunate. Two of them were last summer:

I fell off stage at a party and badly sprained my ankle so I had to keep my foot up for a couple of days with frozen peas but managed the rest of the week in the studio on painkillers and crutches.

Then, just when I thought it was safe to come off the crutches, I attempted the stairs at the same studio and fell down 2 flights, pulling my shoulder out as I grabbed the railing. I carried on working but the next morning was in agony. I went to my osteopath who said I might have torn a ligament and was pulling on my shoulder to see when we heard a pop and then I blacked out. He had actually dislocated my shoulder trying to make it feel better. I went to hospital and was put back together and told to rest it for a few days. So I had to call in sick for that!! Not my fault!!!!

Then there are my excruciating period pains which I have to warn all new studios about. Basically for the first 24 hours of my period I am totally incapacitated. I am bent double with hot water bottles front and back and codeine coming out of my eyeballs. I have had 2 laparoscopy's, 1 colposcopy and other investigative work done to see if they can understand why my periods are so painful. I had a bit of endemetriosis removed and have a sizable fibroid which they said might have something to do with it but they didn't think it worth removing!! Their conclusion, after all these years is that I'm unlucky, its inherited (very true as my mother suffered terribly and had a hysterectomy at 30 and my sister has had a partial one at 43... not much hope for me then). But I have to explain to my prospective employers that this one day, almost every month, is a non work day. Embarrassing, humiliating but true. Of course, I can't say for sure that it will be the second Monday of every month... so sometimes it comes early and I have to call and explain. I hate it. Its the fucking bane of my life. I want to rip my insides out it hurts so much, so when I have to call and say "sorry its my period" I sound like a stupid, pathetic work-shy idiot. That's what she's referring to I think.

There is not much I can say back apart from sorry and please know it was real pain and I'm not making it up and I love working there and please don't drop me as a freelancer... I don't want to come across as unreliable. That's the worst feeling ever.

Ok thats the moaning done... I have just started getting paid for work I did 6 weeks ago. Money in the bank... weeeheeeee. Its been nearly 3 months since I had proper money! I can start eating nice things again and maybe going to the cinema once a week like old times and bloomin heck, I could really push the boat out and go to the theatre!! There's a hell of a lot of good stuff on right now!! AND if I do get my equity release I'm going to bugger off to the sun for a week and lie there and do nothing but read and swim and play tennis... yes, ON MY OWN most probably but who cares. Sun and sand, oh joy!!

Thursday 3 September 2009

God, I'm bored!!!

No one tells you, that as a single 41 year old, you will suddenly find yourself with no one to play with. All your friends are coupled up with babies and invariably need 6 weeks notice to do anything! Then, on the day you are supposed to meet up, have dinner, have a drink, go to the cinema... whatever, they ring you and say they can't make it due to sickness (child) or tiredness (them), or both. Its completely infuriating. Understandable but infuriating. I don't ever say anything of course, I totally understand how they must be feeling, probably more pissed off that THEY have to cancel. But, I think it's jolly well time I found some new friends. People who will turn up when they say they will, can stay out late, go off at a moments notice. I'm not saying I want to relive my twenties or something, all I would like is for someone to be free to go to the theatre, for a drink in the local, a drive to the sea. I haven't got a bloody boyfriend so I need my friends.

I'm bored and actually quite lonely. Never in my life did I think I would say that. My life has been so full of, well, living. Friends in abundance, phone always ringing, diary full!! Now I look at my diary and the gaping white pages stare back at me. I am thrilled at the doctors' appointment penciled in, it means I can have a good old chinwag with him... free therapy!! Ooh and I'm going swimming on Wednesday and maybe go and see the new Almodovar on Thursday! On my own!! And there's a possible dinner party in November but that will probably be canceled or rescheduled! 

I'm not really quite sure where everyone has gone but what I am sure of, is that if I had a horrendous accident or fell over in the shower and hit my head, no one would find me or even know I had been hurt... for DAYS!! Most of my friends don't correspond with me until I ring, text or email first. Sometimes I think that may be why I want a baby... to feel loved and wanted and deserving!! 

I sometimes wonder if I've done something to deserve this kind of crappy outcome but I honestly think I'm a good person. If this karma (what comes around, goes around) theory works... then I should be married with 3 kids, living in a huge country house, with a horse, chickens and two black labs!! Karma is shit!!