Departed

Oh, it's so long since I posted, but given all that was going on at the time of my last post, perhaps you understand some of why I haven't blogged.

As you have probably guessed (or perhaps hoped), I have been discharged from hospital since I last posted.  I had a long admission with a very, very slow weaning of the aminophylline, which went smoothly, but given the upset of my father's death shortly after I was moved from ITU to the ward, we all wanted to be sure that my lungs were going to cope with the reduction in IV and its replacement with the tablets.

Asthma is most definitely a physical illness, but like many illnesses, it can be affected by emotional upset and distress.  This doesn't mean that it's psychosomatic or 'all in the mind', just that physical and emotional well-being is intertwined, and asthma can become worse with both repressed emotion or expressed emotion.  Laughing or crying can both induce an asthma attack in some, including me, which seems most unfair.  When I was in hospital this last time, and out of ITU, I was trying to recover from a terrible asthma attack whilst also trying to find a way to grieve for my father without undoing the healing that my lungs had thus far done.  One of the junior doctors came to see me one weekend evening, still doing her ward round.  I poured out some of my upset that most of the time I was trapped with on my own, and as I forced back some of the tears she said, 'There's no harm in crying and letting some of it out.'  I replied that I wanted to and needed to, but the harm might be that it could set off the asthma again.  She held my hand, which was enough to tell me that she understood that dilemma and that fear, but didn't have the words to make it right.  I'm glad that she didn't try to make it right.  Through a series of comments and observations on both our parts I established that she was a Christian, and I asked if she would pray for me.  She told me that as a doctor she has to be careful about not imposing her beliefs on others, but as I had asked then of course she would pray, and she did.  This lovely young doctor sat with me in my hospital room, with my upset and distress very much on show, and prayed, and it was exactly the right 'medicine' for me that evening.

After my week in the Intensive Care Unit at RVI, I had another three weeks on the ward at the Freeman Hospital.  It was a difficult discharge, not so much because of the asthma, but because I felt like I'd had everything knocked out of me - physically and emotionally.  The one thing I was holding on for was cuddles with Isobel Artemis, my gorgeous kitten.  I had actually seen her once during my admission when a collaboration between my friend J, who was looking after Isobel, and N, the hospital chaplain, meant that J was able to bring Isobel to the hospital chapel (with the permission of Infection Control), and N was able to trundle me down there from the ward in a wheelchair.

I was so looking forward to seeing Isobel Artemis again and giving her masses of cuddles because I'd missed her so much ... but when I got home she wasn't there.  J said that Isobel hadn't been at home when she'd come in to feed her that morning, but we waited in hope that Isobel would return.  Isobel hasn't come home.  She's still missing almost eight weeks later.  I have been so lost without her and every day I wish she would saunter in through the cat flap as though she doesn't know what all the fuss has been about, but every day there is nothing.  I have registered her as missing with the microchip company so that we will be reunited if/when she's taken to a vets or shelter that scans for microchips.  I have registered her as missing with the company Animal Search UK who have put her details on her website and Facebook page.  They've also produced this poster.

 I've put up forty five of these all around the area, plus dropped about 2000 similar flyers through letterboxes in the area.  I've been out calling her at all different times of day (and night).  I've emptied the vacuum cleaner out in the back yard and tied a piece of my clothing to the back fence as both these things carry my and her scent so are meant to attract her home if she's anywhere nearby.  I've contacted the dog and cat shelter, and put her details on every appropriate Facebook page that covers the area.  I've contacted several vets practices in the area.  I've had a few calls from Animal Search UK with possible sightings that I've followed up immediately, but they've turned out to be other cats or nothing at all.  Nothing.  It's like she's just vanished.  The vet receptionists think that, given all that I've done to try to find her and there's been so little response, she's most likely been stolen.  I can only hope that she is eventually scanned for a microchip and discovered to be missing from me.  I long to have her home.

I will never give up on getting my precious Isobel Artemis home unless I get a call to say that she's been found dead, but I'm not good at having no cat in my life.  I'm going to get another kitten.  J has a grown up nephew who has cat who had kittens thirteen days ago.  I would like another little girl kitten if possible, and in a couple of weeks J's nephew and I are going to take the four kittens in Daisy cat's litter to the vet to be sexed.  One of the kittens is a little calico so is almost certainly female, the other three are tabbies like Daisy, and I'm kind of hoping that one of them is female too as I think I'd quite like a tabby.  Anyway, I went to meet all four of them when they were just two days old.

I can't tell from the photos which is which, but I do know that all four of them appear in these photos.  Let me know if you can tell the difference between them.  They'll be much easier to tell apart the next time I see them at four weeks old, and I'll hopefully be able to see more of their personalities too.

So, the other departure, the one I've been avoiding saying much about.  Dad.  We had to wait a month after Dad had died until we could have his funeral, in part because of a backlog at the crematorium.  It was a difficult day, and actually I don't want to say very much about it ... Although I will say that after the funeral and the wake I had a really good family time with my mum, step-dad, my brother M and his family, and my brother C and his family.  M and family were staying in an apartment hotel (a hotel comprised of little apartments, with self-catering facilities as well as food/drink that can be ordered and brought to the apartments) that we all congregated at both between the crematorium and wake and after the wake.  The children were able to run around inside and play together, which they all needed as there isn't much scope for that at a funeral.  The rest of us sat and chatted, and remembered Dad, and then we ate and talked about 'normal' things too - things that weren't about death and dying, or the people we've struggled with through the whole process, or the difficult aspects of Dad that were ignored in the wake remembrances.  We enjoyed being together and being a family, and you know, since then we've perhaps had more contact with each other than we had before.  Maybe it won't last, but at the moment it is good, and that is the positive that's come out of Dad's death.

Thankful

There are a various things going on for me at the moment, most of which I can't discuss in this public arena.  I'm afraid I'll have to be vague and just say that it continues to be a difficult time, so to counteract this, and to lighten the mood of my blog from recent months, I'm going to spend a bit of time thinking about things for which I'm thankful.


1.  Poisonous ivy

Specifically, I'm thankful for the poisonous ivy that's growing up the side of the house opposite mine at the back.  The ivy has been there for years, and other than cheering up a drab wall has been of little note, but this year it has provided a safe place for a pair of blackbirds to nest.  I live in a built up area only a couple of miles outside of the city centre, and very few houses in my immediate neighbourhood have gardens that encourage small birds, but there has been a noticeable difference in recent years.  Maybe it's the conservation work done by 'Friends' of the park down the road, or perhaps folk have been putting bird seed/food out, but over the past few years there has been a rise in the number of small birds in the area (as opposed to pigeons and sea gulls).  We've had a lone blackbird for the past two or three summers that has sat on the chimney stacks and filled the air with beautiful song.  I love blackbird song, and this year the air is rich with it because the lone male has found a young lady blackbird and the pair have nested high in the poisonous ivy opposite.  Apparently blackbirds have two or three broods a year, and my neighbourhood pair are already on to their second.  It's wonderful.  It's not often very noisy at the back, so if you're very quiet and listen carefully, you can hear the tiny chirruping of the chicks in the nest.  As the chicks have grown, the adults - particularly the male - try to entice the youngsters from the nest with a morsel of food and a short whistle of song.  With a lot of encouragement, the fledglings dare to take their first tentative flutters from the safety of their nest and soon learn to fly with confidence.  I love watching this circle of life unfold almost in front of me, and listening to the variety of beautiful blackbird song, and every so often one or other of the adults will venture in to my yard in their hunt for food.  I'm not quite sure what it is they find on the concrete or amongst the flower pots, but they always seem to go away with something in their beak.  Yes, I'm thankful for the blackbirds, and for the poisonous ivy for giving them a safe place to nest.

2.  Friends

I have some wonderful friends who have stuck by me in both difficult times and good.  They text me, phone me, come round to my flat, take me out for an afternoon, send me cards in the post and private messages on Facebook, make me cups of tea, invite me round to their homes, make me laugh, share my tears, sit with me, go with me to the coast or the park, swap a little part of themselves for a little part of myself.  At times my trust in friendship has been challenged by folk who have presented themselves as friends, but have turned out to be far from that.  Those around me now are genuine, safe, trustworthy, and true, and to know that for certain after betrayals that have been is very precious and definitely something for which I am thankful.

3.  Sunshine

It feels like a long time since we had any prolonged sunshine up here in the north-east of the country - perhaps a couple of years - but the last week or so has been beautiful.  Today has been a fair bit cooler with temperatures back down to 16-17C, but I don't mind because the forecast is for it to warm up again tomorrow and Friday.  Sunshine lightens me.  Of course it doesn't take the stresses away, it doesn't make them smaller, it doesn't make them any easier to deal with, but it does force in a smidgen of light.  The warmth of the sun entices me outside, even if it's just to the back yard, and wraps itself around me, like a hug from God.

4.  The cat and the vet

Zach is so precious to me.  He is a wonderful cat with enormous character who seems to know when I'm upset, when I'm ill, and when I need cuddles.  He also loves to come for cuddles when I'm lying on the sofa with the computer perched on my legs and tummy; he leaps up, on to my feet, clambers around the side of the laptop, sits on my chest in front of the computer screen, and purrs in my face.  Not particularly helpful for typing or seeing any of what I'm trying to do on the laptop, but his purrs are irresistible so he more often than not gets the cuddles he's demanding.  He's got his summer coat at the moment (obviously), which seems to be a great deal thinner than his winter one, and as he's aged he's lost a fair bit of muscle mass.  He's still very fit and healthy, but he'll be sixteen later this month so he's getting to be an old man and I can feel the bones of his spine when I stroke down his back.  He spends a lot more time sleeping now than he used to, although he still has a lot of crazy running around times, and he is still fantastic company.  I love Zach so very much and I'm thankful for the love and joy that I get from him.  He hasn't often needed a vet for anything very severe (only twice in his life), but even the little things they do for him make me thankful that they are there.  I had to take him last Friday because his claws needed clipping.  They'd needed to be done for a couple of weeks, but with stresses of recent times I'm afraid that they'd been somewhat forgotten about, and then on Friday he got the two innermost claws on his front paws entwined in each other when he was clawing at his scratching post.  He couldn't get them unhooked so I had to help, which wasn't easy and he was obviously distressed about the situation.  I explained to the veterinary nurse what had happened when I took him for his claw-clipping an hour later and she had the vet take a look at him.  The poor little lad has sprained one of the toes on each of his front paws, but he's okay, and after keeping a close eye on him for the past 5 days I think he's probably healed now.  So yes, I am thankful for the vet for keeping my precious little lad healthy and checking him over for free last week.

5.  My wheelchair

When I think what I used to be able to do it almost seems unreal ... it certainly feels unfair at times.  One of my brothers and his family are going camping this summer, which is something I used to love.  The last time I went camping was in 2006 when I had an amazing holiday on my own, camping my way around the country for four and a half weeks.  It was meant to be three and half weeks, but I extended it after spending a week in hospital (including ITU) in Cornwall, not letting a little thing like the inability to breathe stop me from having the holiday I'd planned.  It was fantastic, but I suspect that I'm not very likely to camp again as there's a significant lack of electric plug sockets in a tent from which to charge a powered wheelchair.  All the same, I'm thankful for my wheelchair - Noah - because it gives me other freedoms - the freedom of independence in the outside world.  Of course, there are limitations as many buildings still aren't fully accessible, and much of the countryside isn't at all wheelchair friendly, for example, but I can go out, on my own, on the bus, in to town, to the park, along many public footpaths further afield if I go out in the car. I don't have to rely on family, friends or carers to push me in an attendant-assisted wheelchair, or on my lungs for breathing to use a manual wheelchair, or on my balance (POTS) and lungs for walking.  My independence is important to me, and I'm thankful that I have access to a means to maintain that independence as much as is possible.

6.  My mind

Okay, so depression is awful, but depression isn't all that my mind has given me.  I'm thankful that I have the mind I do, because with it I can think things through, I can reason, I can consider, I can be logical, and I can be illogical.  My mind gives me choices and the capacity to make decisions;  it allows me to challenge situations and concepts; it contributes to my creativity; it helps me to recognise emotions and identify why I feel what I do when I do.  Without my mind I would not know that there are things for which to be thankful, and I wouldn't know that I am thankful for those things.

7.  God

The ultimate 'thing' for which I am thankful is God.  Without Him I would not have my mind, my thankfulness, my being, or anything else which deserves thanks.  I thank God for God.

Shuffling

It's a ridiculous length of time since I last posted, for which I apologise, but I really don't know what to say.  I'm sort of shuffling along, and I guess things are a little better than they were, but it's hard to see it day-to-day.

I'm not getting very much from the CPN, and have given up any expectations I had.  It's not that she isn't coming to visit, but more a difference in personalities, a clash of ideas of what might be helpful, and ... hmm ... how do I phrase this? ... I don't feel respected.  She obviously isn't a Christian, which shouldn't matter, and hasn't mattered in the past with other clinicians, and actually it shouldn't impact at all on the patient-CPN relationship, but it does because she dismisses my beliefs as unimportant at best, and as a sign of mental illness at worst.  I don't necessarily expect her to share my Christian beliefs, but I do expect her to respect them and not treat me as a nutter simply because I have a Christian faith.  I don't have extremist beliefs.  I'm not part of some strange cult or sect.  I am part of an Anglican Church community in the neighbouring parish to where I live, and within that community, some of my views are quite liberal.  All of it is far removed from anything that could be considered even remotely crazy.  So yes, it's tricky with her.  I feel as though I have to seem willing to try and at least give it a go, but I no longer have any expectations of helpfulness.

It's not just the thing about her response to my faith, there are other things too.  I suppose most significantly is that a lot of the time she makes me feel like I'm just a case study for her student.  I'm 'good experience' for her; I'm 'something interesting to look up' when they get back to the office; I'm a 'good example of a high functioning, intelligent depressive'; I'm 'a complex and interesting case' for the student to follow through, and 'Oh, wouldn't it be good if the student could see [me] get well, although she's only on this placement for another three week.'  No pressure then!

Thankfully I still have the psychologist who continues to be helpful.  The sessions are hard work, but I trust the psychologist and feel able to tell her anything, even if it's sometimes difficult to say the words.  The difficulty is in expressing myself or trusting myself with the words (which, I am aware, sounds odd), rather than difficulty with trusting the psychologist.

There's still a degree of crisis management being needed in the psychology sessions, and when it's not quite crisis management it's kind of one step removed from that - maybe day to day management rather than minute to minute.  Eventually I will be doing some specific work on the flashback aspect of the PTSD, but the psychologist wants me to be a lot more stable and feeling much more robust than I currently am because it's very demanding.  I know this from previous CBT I've had for totally different reasons, so in many ways I'm in no hurry to start this work, but on the other hand, 'life' with PTSD is crushing.

Between appointments with the psychologist and the CPN I do feel like I'm just shuffling.  I keep trying to write, but it keeps not happening - you have born witness to my lack of writing even on my blog - although I have managed to do some editing last week for an acquaintance's End of Module Assessment for their current Open University course.  My brain wasn't in the best place for doing it, because concentrating is still difficult, but it did make me feel useful and it was productive, so the hard work was worth it.  The other thing I have been doing is playing the violin a bit.  I used to play a lot.  At one time in the past it felt as though my violin was an extension of me, and although I'm not back to that stage, it does feel good to have that creative outlet again.  I started off with playing the piano again a few weeks ago, and I'm still doing a bit of that, but I get different things from the piano and violin, and it kind of feels like the bit of brain that does the violin playing is perhaps next to the bit of brain that does writing.  I'm hoping that the violin-playing bit might nudge awake the writing bit and get it working again.  I've mostly been playing one piece of music - Bach's Concerto for Violin and Oboe in D minor, although I've been playing the oboe part on the violin as this is the part my old violin teacher had me play.  It may only be three movements long, but I can spend a couple of hours playing, replaying, and taking this piece apart.  I play along to a CD recording so that I get the experience of playing the whole piece with an orchestra.  I'm not sure my neighbours appreciate it, but I try to ignore that and instead get absorbed in the music.  Even though I'm not able to do it every day, I think the fact that I can do it at all is progress, and maybe, just maybe it'll even help me progress further.

I'm sure there was something else I was going to say, but my mind seems to have turned to mush and suddenly I can't think where this post was going.  I guess it's part of the shuffle - it's a bit directionless, but with a general hope that it might be vaguely forwards.  Um, yes, so er, I've completely forgotten where this was going so I'll stop, but I'm hoping to get back well before the time between this post and the previous one.

Beyond the CATT

It's the early hours of the morning and, yet again, I can't sleep.  I haven't slept properly since just before my hospital admission in the middle of January.  I am chronically sleep deprived, utterly exhausted, but getting to sleep is a real problem.  Even once I do eventually get to sleep I dream of violent and upsetting things, or have dreams based upon the realities of what happened during my last admission.  No sleep is restful and I am so tired that I feel as though my brain is melting.

The whole sleep thing is doing nothing to help my mental health in general, and it's most likely making things worse.  I'm doing all that I can to help myself - doing all that's asked of me and suggested to me by the professionals and helpful friends - but the extreme tiredness is crippling and inhibits any success those things may have.

In the past week I've also been finding things more difficult because the supportive input has been cut back.  The crisis team (CATT) said they thought it was the right time for me to be moved on and have my care transferred to the Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) as they can provide more long-term support.  The problem with this for me, though, is that CATT were coming to see me at least every other day, but the CMHT can only come a maximum of once a week, and I feel like I still need more input than that.

I was appointed a Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN) from the CMHT, and on Wednesday last week I had a joint meeting with her and a member of CATT who'd seen me quite a lot during my time on their caseload.  It went okay, I guess, but it's going to take time to get to know my CPN, how she works, and what she can do with/for me.  She came again on Monday, and to be honest I didn't feel like it was very helpful.  I was feeling distracted by the chaos in my flat caused by the arrival of my new cooker at the weekend, which was sitting in the living room until it could be installed later in the week.  I couldn't think.  I couldn't concentrate.  I couldn't work out my feelings.  The phone kept ringing with junk callers, and although I let the answer machine take the calls, I still felt distracted.  In fact, it all felt rather disorienting, even though I was in my own home.  I couldn't connect either with the CPN or with myself, and it didn't help that my lungs were being really twitchy too.

We made another appointment for her to visit me, but that won't be until Wednesday next week.  That's nine days between appointments, which is an almost incomprehensible length of time for me at the moment, and so very different from the two days (at most) between appointments I've been having with CATT.  I've been told that I can still call the CATT helpline number if I need to, and I have done once, but seeing as I'm not really under CATT's care any more it feels like I'm breaking the rules ... even though I'm not.  Yes, this is something only I can change, but it's not easy.  Nothing is easy at the moment.

You know, the other thing that I'm finding difficult about all of this is the simple thing of me needing to have this referral to the CMHT, and to be needing a CPN again.  I'm disappointed in myself, hugely disappointed.  Depression had been an awful part of my past that I'd moved away from.  I'd got my antidepressant dose down to the bare minimum.  I'd had very little contact with any of the mental health services for a number of years, and last year had finally been discharged by the psychiatrist.  I had two months short of ten years of freedom from depression, despite increasing difficulties with my physical health.  I studied hard and got two degrees, writing the majority of my essays for those degrees in hospital, sometimes in my head while I was fighting for life in intensive care (distraction from the horrendous things happening to me).  Suddenly I've ended up back in the midst of depression.  I've had input from the crisis team, and now I have a CPN again, and a re-referral to the psychiatrist.

This is not what I want!  This is not who I am supposed to be any more!  I'm so angry at myself for ending up back in this place and needing these people and services!  I had opted for life, but now it feels like all life has been sapped from me again, and I'm so cross that I've let myself fall back so very far, and worst of all is that I don't know how to get out of this.

Many have said, 'You've come through it before, so you can come through it again.'  That's not helpful.  It's really not helpful.  Last time I 'got through it' because I had a miraculous healing from God at 4pm on Monday 5th May.  My healing wasn't anything to do with me, or medication, or circumstances, or psychology, or psychiatry, or anything else.  The healing was from God and was instantaneous.  I'm not a fool and I know that not only can I not expect this to happen again, but it is incredibly unlikely to happen again.  The chances of it happening even once are minuscule, let alone twice.  I have no experience of coming out of depression in any other way, and as it was nothing that I did then I don't know how to get to that point.  I don't know how to get well, and that scares me.  And I feel so guilty because I feel as though God gave me that amazing gift of my miracle moment and I can't have looked after it well enough because here I am back in depression.  I've let God down.  I've let everyone down, myself included, but I am ashamed to have let God down.

Reflections

I've been thinking about Nn's death, and whilst it's bound to have a significant impact on me I wonder if it's had more impact because it was suicide.  Death is a taboo subject in most of society, and suicide is even more so.  I'm going to talk about it here though, because not only has it raised itself in my life now, but it also had a significant presence in my life in the past. 

I suffered from disabling depression for many years.  I was drowning in an emotional sea of black treacle that sucked me down into its depths and so nearly suffocated the life out of me.  I spent a significant amount of time in my twenties in hospital with depression, and to be honest I didn't believe that I'd ever be free of it.  I wanted more than anything to be 'normal', to be happy, but the more I wanted these things the less achievable they seemed to become. 

I self-harmed.  Actually, I started to self-harm (si - self injure) when I was in sixth form, though I always hid it as much as I could, but as I got older and the si became worse it was impossible to hide from everyone, because it was too severe to patch up myself.  Very few people understand self harm and think of it as attention-seeking behaviour.  Perhaps it is for some, but not for me - I never wanted others to know, and I hid it as best as I could, but when the cuts wouldn't stop bleeding or were too severe and deep for me to manage I had no option but to go to A&E or my GP to get sewn up.  No, for me si was a huge mix of things.  To a certain extent it was about tantalising death - I didn't care much if I lived or died (and later I definitely wanted to die), and venturing that close to arteries, tendons, bones, ligaments, etc was almost like letting fate decide.  But ironically, si was often also about survival.  I hurt so much and so deeply in my soul.  The only thing that told me that I wasn't physically dead was the emotional pain I was in.  Oddly, I often didn't feel the physical hurt of cutting myself until sometime after I'd done it, and then it was almost a relief because it was a different kind of pain, a tangible pain, something I could see and was justifiable.  If I hadn't cut I would've imploded more entirely, I'm sure.  Contrary to the 'tantalising death' thing, si was also almost the opposite of death ... it let the edge off the agony and stopped me from killing myself ... a kind of letting off steam from the pressure cooker... 

I don't si now.  I haven't si-ed for 8 years.  The last time I cut/si-ed was 22nd April 2003, though of course I will always bear the scars.  There's nothing I can do about that, but I refuse to be ashamed of them, and whilst I hid the wounds at the time, I refuse to cover my scars for the sake of others now.  If people don't like what they see then they don't have to look, but I have to live with the scars everyday, and if I allow others to make me feel ashamed of them, then I'm allowing others to make me feel ashamed of myself.  There is a stigma to mental illness and depression, but there oughtn't be, and I won't, if at all possible, be ashamed because of the depression I've suffered from in the past, or the actions that depression led to.  Depression is horrendous enough without adding extra guilt into the mix.  So yes, I have the scars, and whilst I don't flaunt them (I'm not proud of them either - they're just a part of me), I don't hide them away unless I want to, and yes, there are some situations in which I will do that for myself, and sometimes for my mother as I know that she can sometimes find it difficult.

Self harm so nearly wasn't enough to keep me alive though, and for a long time I was intermittently suicidal.  For years, in fact.  It reached a head in 2002/2003, during which time I took several overdoses (very significant ones, far removed from any category of 'a cry for help'), and tried to hang myself.  That is where I feel a particular connection to Nn in his final act.  Unlike Nn, I was found just as everything was going black and disappearing into a haze somewhere beyond the sound of the familiar wheeze of constriction, this time from strangulation rather than asthma, but the same sound nonetheless.  Despite being in hospital with depression at the time, I hadn't expected to be found until after I'd succeeded, and I was distraught when I realised that I hadn't succeeded.  Nn was in a different physical situation from me and had no interruption, but I do know something of what he experienced in those last minutes of his life, and that has made me reflect a great deal on his death, his life, my life, my past depression, my subsequent fights for life through multiple asthma attacks, the whole complicated thing of 'life'.  It fills me with such huge sadness that Nn felt such despair that he chose to kill himself ... and I remember the despair I felt myself when I was suicidal.  I remind myself that this is remembered despair, not the feelings of today, and I remind myself of the fantastic moment of miraculous cure.

You may not have seen the list of 'Facts about me' near the bottom left of this page, but there's a fairly random list down there of snippets about me.  Third on the list is, 'at 4pm on Monday 5th May 2003, walking down one of the grimmest streets in Newcastle, I experienced a miracle.'  This was at the height of my suicidality.  My world had been the deepest, darkest shade of black imaginable for what seemed like forever.  I couldn't remember what it was like to live in a colourful world, or to feel that I was doing anything beyond existing.  I had no hope of anything ever changing.  At the time I was being desperately let down by the mental health services, who I believe were actually making my situation worse, and I was so nearly, so very nearly successful in my suicidal acts.  And then 4pm on Monday 5th May 2003 happened.  Nothing had happened to change my world; no event had taken place; nobody had said anything or done anything; no change had been made to medication; but suddenly everything changed.  I was walking down Westgate Hill in Newcastle, which several years earlier had been voted the 4th grimmest street in the country (what an accolade!), when I suddenly felt something I didn't recognise.  It worried me that I didn't recognise what I was feeling, and the worry caused me to glance up from my fixed focal point of the grey pavement just ahead of my feet.  The grim street was still shades of grey, but the grey buildings were topped with bright red tiles and looked over by an intensely blue sky.  My eyes hurt with the colour.  It was like regaining sight after years of darkness.  It was astounding, astonishing, amazing.  And that feeling, it was becoming more overwhelming.  What was it?  It was the feeling of being alive!  I wasn't just existing, and I wasn't in a monochrome world any more!  I was alive and living in technicolour!  I texted my mum.  I texted that for the first time in years I suddenly felt alive!  I have been alive ever since, never having returned to those depths of depression.  Sure there are low times, especially after near-death experiences, or other significant events, but they're different from depression - they're normal responses to difficult circumstances/situations/events, and they don't last.  Monday 5th May 2003 was my rebirthday, a miracle day.  I was a Christian before this wonderful event, for many years before the event, and I never stopped being a Christian throughout my depression, but I felt forgotten by God.  I felt as though I didn't matter, and questioned why I felt that I should matter as there were so many other, much more important things going on in the world, but it saddened me that I didn't matter even to God.  And then God showed me that He hadn't forgotten me, and that I was as important as anything else on His 'to do' list, and that He really is there even when we think He's busy with something else.  I don't think anyone ever expects a miracle to happen to them.  I certainly didn't.  I feel incredibly privaledged to have experienced a miracle, and for it to have been so completely life-changing ... life-giving.  I wish with all my heart that Nn could've had the same miraculous event occur in his life.  I am so thankful that God stuck his oar in when He did with me, saved me from myself, from my suicidality, and gave me colour and life again.  It's just over 8 years ago that it happened, but I remember it as clearly as if it happened today.  It still fills me with awe, I still get excited when I think about it, and I know that I am truly blessed.

Water balloon

I have swollen up with water retention again, pretty much as I did last time I was in, and like last time it's sore and uncomfortable and miserable. Unlike last time, the doc has been very reluctant to prescribe any meds to help relieve the water retention, so while I've been telling them for at least a week that I was starting to swell up, nothing has been done. I asked them for some furosemide, but I was told that nature would take its course. Nature refused to take its course. I asked again, but I was told to try to move around more and that would help. I moved around more, and walked on the spot in my room on my own for as long as I could comfortably go and for longer. Moving around more didn't help. I have continued to swell, and the fluid has gathered once again mostly around my hips and waist, and I feel like a balloon that's about to burst, and my skin is sore and stretched and nothing is comfortable. I asked again for some furosemide to help, but I was told that they were reluctant because I'm on so many meds already. I can understand that to a degree, but not when I'm so uncomfortable that I want to cry. And the stress built up, and the whole damn lot just got too much to contain, and the water burst out of my eyes in a torrent of tears and pleading, and desperation for something to help get rid of the swelling. I was told that in their opinion my feet looked a little better today. That's because it's all around my middle and my hips and my waist...except that actually it's all still there in my feet too, and I hurt and I'm bursting, and my body is going to pop and my skin is going to snap, and I'm sore, and I'm crying, and I don't understand why they won't give me something to help. I was given furosemide last time and it did me no harm; in fact it helped, as it ought. Why so different this time? What is the reluctance? What is the problem? Why don't they give me a reason? Apparently I have to understand that there's a hierarchy of doctors and that if the more senior doctor doesn't want to prescribe the meds I'm after (for whatever secret reason) then the junior doctor will not take any initiative in doing what is actually necessary for the patient's welfare. Okay, so I understand there's a hierarchy. I understand that junior medics have to play by the rules of their seniors. I don't have to accept the lack of reasoning for the 'action' being/not being taken. I don't have to agree with the decision. They don't seem to have to see it from the patient's point of view; and God forbid that they should see real patient distress in discomfort as reasonable. And no, this is not my usual experience, and no this is not my all-encompassing opinion of these people and their attitudes - it is my experience of them in this instance, in this situation, when I'm sore and stretched, and I'm tired and fed up, and I'm drained by the cycle of illness. It may 'only' be fluid retention, but it's just all a bit too much, and sometimes it's the seemingly small things that tip the balance from coping to emotional melt-down. Today I reached melt-down, and I cried, and I cried, and I lay in the darkened room, and I cried, and I hid under the sheets and I threw my dressing gown over my head, and I cried. Then I cried some more, and I felt wretched and I wanted the world to disappear, or me to disappear, and I wanted to stop hurting, and I still want to stop hurting. And I want illness not to be a part of my life, the major part of my life, the pivot of my life. I want to be normal, not NFB - Normal For Becky. And I'm fed up and miserable and wallowing in self-pity. And I cry and I weep and I feel lonely and miserable and as though nobody in the whole world possibly understands what any of it is like, particularly not these doctors who's knowledge of all these things is most likely through the pages of their text books rather than personal experience. And today I feel like an experiment that's gone wrong, but is still rather interesting to watch in some odd way. I don't want to be an experiment. And I have cried, and I have exhausted myself, and I have cried some more, and I have wept through cyberspace to some friends, and they've let it be okay to be miserable. And I've covered my face in snot because I haven't got any tissues, and my friends haven't been disgusted by the snot. No, they've found a use for it - use it as glue and throw glitter on it. Make the mess a pretty mess. And I'm still enormously full of water and feeling like I'm going to burst, and I'm hurting and I'm sore, but I'm loved by my friends, and I'm calmed by my friends, and I'm held by their cyber hugs in a real warmth and the glow of cyber glitter and cyber snot, and the mess is still as messy as ever, but it doesn't matter because I'm held by their love when everything has just got too much.

The nurse weighed me and it was found that I had eleven pounds of water retention, so now the doctor believes that I might actually be feeling as sore and uncomfortable as I was telling her I am. I was given one tablet of furosemide, but I don't know if this is just for today or if I will get it again tomorrow and some to take home. What I do know is that there's no way that I've got rid of 11lbs of oedema this afternoon, and I still hurt, and I'm still stretched, and I'm still a water balloon. But I hope that tomorrow I will get another pill to help wring the water from my over-stretched body ... and if I don't I will have to hope that the water in my body can somehow all be released through my tear ducts as that seems to be the only other way that any fluid is leaving my body.

And maybe this doesn't make any sense to anyone but me. And yes, it's a ramble and a mess, but today I am a ramble and a mess. And sometimes life is messy and it can't be written about in a neat and tidy way with pretty language and sentences that flow easily. Sometimes it's all too much. Sometimes bubbles burst.

And then my vicar came and he brought me communion, and it's so long since I had communion because it's so long since I've been to church, because so much of the time I feel too ill to get there or be there once I've got there. But each day I've been here I've curled up with God, snuggled under his blanket and poured out all my prayers of thanks and confession and supplication. So communion feels good. No, communion feels wonderful. Communion brings me a little peace and a message to 'be still and know that I am God,' so I am still and I know that He is God, and I rest with him a while. Then I do some cross-stitch to distract from the discomfort of my water-filled body and the discomfort of my crying mind, and it turns out that a combination of communion and cross-stitching Mr Tickle (and have one of your friends tell you that he's going to call you Polly from now on) can actually help emotional melt-down.

Hurray!

Hurray! I managed to get through the chest infection without becoming a resident of my friendly neighbourhood hospital :oD It was a very close thing at time, and I suspect that if I hadn't had the spur of the christenings at the weekend to help me then I would have given in and gone in. Sometimes my stubbornness pays off though, and this time I got lucky :oD I was pretty ill for several days, but was thankfully just well enough to make the drive to Combermere Abbey in Shropshire, where we were staying, on Friday, and by the time Sunday came around I was feeling a lot better. I've still got some of that post-infection fatigue, which probably isn't helped by having gone gallivanting off round the country at the weekend, but the weekend was soul-reviving, and it was wonderful to see Oliver and Daniel again (and the rest of the family of course!).

I had what you might call an 'interesting' journey down to Shropshire. The traffic was heavy from the outset and it got a heck of a lot worse very quickly, taking me almost three hours to get from just Newcastle to York - a journey that should take under two hours! However, I should have guessed that it wasn't going to be straight forward when I got as far as Washington and saw a man standing on the wrong side of the railings on a bridge over the motorway. He was perched precariously, and was in such a position that if he'd jumped off the bridge the driver of the vehicle that would hit him wouldn't see him until he was in mid-fall. There wasn't anywhere I could stop immediately as it was a motorway, but I knew I wasn't far from a service station, and I knew that I couldn't risk doing nothing, so I drove the short distance to the services and thought for a second what to do. Although Washington isn't far from Newcastle I really don't know my way around and I had no idea at all how to get up to the bridge where this man was. I decided that the only thing I could do was call the police and explain the situation, so I did, and they seemed a little perplexed at first as to why I wasn't with the man or hadn't spoken to him, but once they understood that I was just a passing motorist on a busy motorway who'd seen someone looking actively suicidal they quickly got into gear, and before long I was in the company of a couple of nice policemen. The told me that other officers were on scene and thanked me for contacting them ... and then I felt a bit useless because I couldn't do anything else, and I don't know the outcome, but I'm guessing that he was stopped from killing himself and possibly others on the motorway as I didn't hear anything on the news ... not that I would've done while away in Shropshire ... It was all a bit surreal, and completely unexpected. It also brought back a lot of bad memories of times in my past when I was actively suicidal, but it was probably because of those times that I knew I had to do something, even if I couldn't get to the man myself. Being so depressed that you can see no way through other than self-destruction and suicide is one of the worst chronic experiences I think there is (though I'm sure some will disagree and suggest other things). I sincerely hope that whoever the young man was he is getting the help he needs.

After all that it didn't seem to matter so much that I was stuck in traffic for hours on end - there were worse situations I could've been in - though it was tedious. The journey as a whole should've taken a little over three and a half hours, but it took almost six and it was pitch black when I stumbled across Combermere, and I'd have missed the turning if it hadn't been for my sat nav. Anyway, I eventually made it and met up with various aspects of my family :o)

The whole weekend was lovely, the children are wonderful, and the baptism was delightful, even if the vicar was a little odd. Regardless of his sexuality, he was incredibly camp, and I wasn't too sure about some of his theology. When we were gathered around the font at the back of the small, country church, he said, 'The font is like a big washing up bowl. God is the Fairy Liquid.' Er ... riiiiiight. He took hold of Daniel (6 months old) at arms length, failing to support his head in any way at all so Daniel looked most uncomfortable and was straining to keep his head up, and the priest then proceeded to pour the water not just over Daniel's head, but into his eyes ... twice. I can confirm that this combination of circumstances is recipe for a screaming child. Oliver (2 years old) was next, except the priest reached out not for Oliver, but for Ollie's cousin, Gemma (18 months old). My brother and sister-in-law steered him towards the right child and Oliver was almost dropped into the font head-first. This didn't bother Oliver though, and he spent the whole time giggling and thoroughly enjoying the experience of baptism :o) In fact he seemed to have an altogether lovely time ... except for when the priest accidentally kicked him over on his way back up the aisle at the end of the service.

On Monday morning, when Mum, J and I had packed and vacated the cottage we'd been staying in, we went over to where my brother and his family were staying so that we could help them pack and/or distract the children. Daniel was fast asleep and looking ever so scrumptious when we arrived so no job to be done there except keep an ear out for him waking. Oliver, on the other hand, needed a bit more occupying so we took it in turns to play games with him, or help pack things up. Ollie had clearly loved 'his party' the day before, and summed up his weekend when he ran between Mum and J on one sofa and me on an opposite sofa, throwing himself at us with his face covered in smiles, and calling out, 'Happy people! Happy people! Happy people!' Utterly delightful!

Twelfth night

It's twelfth night and therefore officially the end of the festive season so all the decorations have to come down :o( Not that I had put any decorations up other than my cards on ribbons, because there didn't seem to be a great deal of point seeing as I was away for most of the festive period. However, this coming Saturday I'm having a (not) New Year's Eve party to celebrate it being (not) New Year's Eve. In other words, it's an excuse for a get together of friends and friends of friends as lots of people have been away and not had a chance to catch up with each other, and now the long slog through the rest of the dark, cold, winter days begins with nothing to look forward to until Easter. So you may not be aware of this, but it's actually still December and Saturday is the 41st of the month :oD I had meant to record the fireworks off the telly on 31st, but I forgot :o( so at midnight on Saturday we're going to have to make do with the bongs on Radio 4 ... though I might, if I remember and decide I can afford it, I might get a few fireworks to set off in the back lane. Tee hee. That'll confuse the neighbours ;o)

Other than taking down Christmas cards and decorations, what does one do on twelfth night? Well traditionally I don't do anything specific, except perhaps feel a bit sad about disassembling the festivities, but tonight I have been to the pantomime at Newcastle's Theatre Royal :o) It was Robinson Crusoe and the Caribbean Pirates and it was great fun, though perhaps rather risque for some of the young kids there. Most of it will have gone over their heads, but I'm not convinced that all of it will have done. Anyway, it was wonderful fun and the 3D effects they had were fantastic. It also tickled me that the friend I went with and I had no children with us - we were unashamedly there for ourselves without the security of a small child to pass off as our reason for going :o)

Going back a while, but keeping with the festive theme, I wanted to tell you about something that happened in the 12th December. A small group of us from church went carol singing around the streets near church. We weren't collecting money, just providing a bit of festive entertainment and reaching out into the community as a church to remind people what Christmas is really about. Although it was cold and damp, and later started to spit with the kind of rain that feels like needles on your skin, we all had a fun time and lots of people seemed to enjoy our efforts, with one or two even joining in themselves. When it got too chilly for us and we'd been out a while we went off to the vicarage to warm up with mulled wine and mince pies. Well, most people did, but seeing as either of those would've killed me (allergies) I gave them a miss and opted for a decaf tea instead, which eventually helped me to defrost. It was a lovely evening, with lots of fun, lots of festivity, lots of singing and a fair bit of dampness.

When I got home I was feeling all cheery and festively fuzzy inside. I needed some milk from the shop though so rather than going in and getting all cosy warm and then having to go back out into the stinging rain I went as soon as I got out of the car. Outside the shop was a young man sitting on the ground, wrapped in a worn out coat, getting very wet, obviously cold, and begging. This is a residential area, not the centre of town and I don't think I've ever seen anyone begging in the area before. He was leaning against the window at the far end of the Spar shop, but when he saw me heading towards the door he asked me if I could spare a few pence. The temptation with beggars is to ignore them, to bypass them without often without acknowledgement, but I couldn't do that. I couldn't brush aside those words of 'good will to all men' that I'd just been singing about. I couldn't pretend I hadn't seen him. I approached him and he told me that he needed to make £15 so that he could stay in the hostel over night, that he'd managed to scrape together the money the night before, but that when he'd got there they were full. He told me he'd then bought alcohol with yesterday's £15 to help block out the cold as he spent the night on the street. And therein lies the dilemma we face when someone begs you for money - do you give them the money in the hope that they will spend it on food, hot drinks, or a place to stay, rather than alcohol, or do you suspect that it'll go on booze so don't give them what they're asking for. It's a difficult call, and really who am I to say that someone who's sleeping rough and is freezing cold shouldn't do whatever it takes for them to get some rest, even if that means drinking themselves into a stupor, but at the end of the day I rarely do give money. I didn't give money to this young man either, and I still don't know if I did the right thing. However, when I was in the shop I noticed they were doing a two for one offer on those enormous bars of Dairy Milk. It wouldn't give nutrition, but it would give calories, and the young man on the street looked like he needed calories, so I bought him the chocolate. When I came out of the shop, he reached out his hand to me and said, 'I need a miracle. Please, can you help me?' Christmas is a time for miracles, but they're not something I've ever performed, or ever expect to be able to. I knelt down and said that I didn't have a miracle, but I did have some chocolate for him and I could pray for him and the miracle he needed if he wanted me to. This is something that I have never done before - prayed for a stranger in the street like that. It's not really me, but it was all I had to offer this desperate young man sitting on the ground in my community. I don't think I'd expected him to accept my offer of prayer, but he did, so I held his hand and quietly prayed with him for the miracle he needed of getting somewhere warm and dry to stay for the night, for longer than that one night, and for the chance to get his life back on track. Afterwards he was almost in tears. He clutched his big bars of chocolate and asked if he could hug me. Again, this is something that I've never done before - hugged a homeless person - and I wavered for a second or two, but it struck me that one of the things that this man needed was human touch, and something other than that given by the police as he's moved on from wet patch of pavement to wet patch of pavement. I hugged him and he cried and he thanked me and he hugged me some more. I felt inadequate, and I felt humbled by this man's simple acceptance of prayer and chocolate as my offering to him on such a cold, wet night when what he really needed was a warm bed. I wished that I could have offered him a place to stay, but I couldn't. After a few minutes I got up and came home, but as I passed by the door to the shop also passed one of the shop keepers who was looking at the young man with disdain, and then threatened to call the police to have him moved on. I was angry. He hadn't done anything wrong. He didn't have any place to move on to. There was a genuine desperation in his eyes and I had made the choice to talk to him - he hadn't forced me to, and he hadn't forced me to give him the chocolate. I was almost mute in my anger though, and all I could think to say was, 'You'll be closing up soon. He'll go then.'

I haven't seen him since, but I have thought about him a lot. There was something about him that stirred something in me. Maybe it was that he was in the middle of my local community, rather than in the impersonal city centre. Maybe it was the desperation in his eyes. Maybe it was the time of year - the approaching festivities and the fun evening of joyful carol singing that I'd just had. Maybe it was his plea for a miracle and my inability to provide one. You find God in the strangest of places and in the most unexpect of places and people, but there was something about this young man that suggested God's presence ...

I still pray for him. I still wish I'd been able to do something more for him. I do hope that he's okay.

Opening up

We're doing a series of weekly meetings at church at the minute called 'Opened Up'. We've had 5 of the 6 Wednesday evening meetings so far, which are getting us to look both as individuals and as a church how we can open up - where we're up to at the moment, how we imagine things ought to be, where we might like to go, etc. As I say, it's not just thinking about these things on an individual basis, but more to do with looking at the church, our church, the community around us and opening up to them. I haven't been able to get to them all, but I've got a lot out of the ones I have been to and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens as a result.

Part of the structure of the 'Opened Up' evenings is that all those who come have a meal together before the meeting gets under way. The catering is being done by a cafe near church called Cafe Bar One, and where I've been before but only been able to have jacket potato with cottage cheese to eat. Cafe Bar One know of my allergies, but haven't really known what they are so for the first couple of weeks of the 'Opened Up' evenings they gave me what they knew I could have. It was great to be provided for, but I was feeling a little miffed that I'd only get a jacket potato on a Wednesday night when everyone else around me got very yummy-looking food. Well, a couple of weeks into the series I had a call from Jez - the chef at Cafe Bar One - who said that he'd really like to be able to make more for me for the church evening meetings than he had been doing. He asked if I could take him a copy of the list of foods I can't have and he'd work something out from that. I wasn't expecting that, but was extremely pleased and so took my list down the next day, although I have to say that I wasn't certain Jez would still feel like trying to make me something more exciting than a jacket potato after he'd seen the 6 page document that is my dietary requirement list. When I took the list down to the cafe Jez wasn't/didn't seem to be terrified by it, but rather said that he was interested and excited. I left my phone number with him and said that he could call me if he had any questions or wasn't certain about anything he could or couldn't use, and then left him to it whilst expecting to receive a call from him during the week. I didn't get a call. However, the following Wednesday I did get a delicious meal of Tuscan bean casserole :o) Jez hung around before the meal and meeting until I came so that he could go through with me everything that was in it, and then waiting for a little while afterwards to make sure that I didn't have any immediate reaction. I didn't. I didn't have any reaction other than, 'Oh my word, this is delicious!' :o) Jez then said that if all went okay then he'd make up some things that are Becky-friendly and that could be easily frozen and defrosted so that I can have some yummy things to eat in the cafe and don't always have to have jacket potato with cottage cheese! WOW! My world is opening up as a direct result of the 'Opened Up' evenings. Okay, so it's not exactly what the vicar had in mind when he planned this series, but this is such a positive thing for me, because I've been so desperately limited in where I can eat out. Peppy's is fantastic, but it's good to have a cafe I can go to as well as a restaurant, especially one that my friends and I sometimes go to after church :o) Hurray for Cafe Bar One!!!

I think it can be difficult for people to comprehend the impact that true food allergies can have on one's life. So much socialising is done around food that actually, when you factor in the complication of an allergy (let alone many, many allergies), you find that social occasions can begin to get limited ... that life gets restricted. It's fine if those around you are comfortable with cooking for you, and if you are confident in the scrupulous care they need to have taken to avoid accidentally killing you, but on the whole restaurants and cafes etc aren't willing to take that risk (and unless I've spoken to the chef at length and I'm confident they have full understanding, then I'm not willing to take the risk either). I think a lot of the reluctance/straight refusal from restaurants etc to cook for me isn't actually a concern for me, but a fear that if anything did go wrong then they'd be sued. I'm not that kind of person, but I guess they don't know that ... and it wouldn't be good publicity to have it in the news that one of your customers unfortunately blew up, stopped breathing and died.

Perhaps I'll do a post sometime with more specific details of my allergies, so that you have a fuller understanding of the difficulties they impose. On a day-to-day basis I'm used to it all now, though I do have to stay on my guard even with products I've known to be safe in the past, because manufacturers have a habit of changing their recipes without advertising the fact.

Anyway, for the time being I'm sending out huge praise to Cafe Bar One, and I'm delighted that my world is opening up that little bit more.

:o)

Lent

We are almost three weeks into Lent now (the six week lead up to Easter). As my recent hospital admission began the day before Lent (Shrove Tuesday - I missed out on the pancakes too!), and I was ill at home for several days before that, I didn't have the chance to properly consider what I may give up/take up for my Lenten promise. I appear to have given up health (and sleep), which wasn't a deliberate decision and not one that I think God would be wanting me to keep to. Despite being nearly half way through Lent already, I do feel that as a Christian, I have an obligation to take up a Lenten promise, even if it's only for the remaining period. However, I'm having great difficulty in thinking what this could be, and also feel that my options are somewhat limited ... though perhaps this is a misconception. You see, I could give up something foody, as many do, but my extensive and diverse severe allergies already limit my diet, and whilst I can and do eat as healthily as possible, it is important to be able to keep a balanced diet. I'm sure there is something I could do without ... like Green and Black's 70% chocolate, but while I'm having such difficulties with the workings of my GI tract it quite probably wouldn't be good for me (by further reducing possible nourishment, which is already depleted by the nausea and pain), and also wouldn't be much of a hardship as the aforementioned nausea and pain are already reducing what I eat.

Other than giving something up for Lent, many take something up instead ... but what? My instinct - or perhaps it's a nudge from God - is that I ought to devote more time to prayer. Because I am a Christian I really should be praying everyday, but I'm ashamed to admit that I don't. I do pray frequently, but I don't have a routine in which I have a specific time that I dedicate to God.

It is quite possible that I have just found/admitted to what my Lenten promise should be.

Now as, on the whole, I don't know who reads this blog, I don't know how many of you are Christians or have any understanding of what Christianity is about other than Jesus being involved in it, and he was a good bloke who was born in a stable at Christmas and died on a cross at Easter time. Because of this, I feel that I ought to explain something of what this Lenten promise I've been talking about is for ... though I'm no religious leader and consider my faith to be relatively simple, so it's not going to be very in-depth. So here goes my attempt to explain something of this.

As a Christian I believe that Jesus was the mortal embodiment of God - God made into man to come and walk among us. This can seem a bit complicated when you also begin to consider Jesus being the son of God ... but both are right and true. Now then, in the 40 days (6 weeks) leading up to Jesus' death he had a rough and testing time, to say the least, suffering isolation; temptation by the devil to save himself and betray God; desertion and betrayal by friends (apostles); humiliation and degredation; the knowledge of his impending death (that on it's own can't have been easy); and ultimately the torture of crucifixion. Why on earth did he do this? For us, for everyone, for every single person in the world and for all of those to come. He did this so that we - all of us - could be closer to God, could be saved from sin and the devil, could be cleansed of all our wrong-doing. That is altruism beyond altruism. When Jesus died, and in the lead up to his death, he felt every single pain of the suffering we would if we were to go through it - both physical and psychological - because although he was God, he was also a man, a human. What pain, what suffering, what torture to endure.

Jesus gave up everything. Jesus gave up his life. This was for us - you and me and those before us and those who will come after us. What do we give up? Chocolate, crisps, things that are bad for us. It's no comparison, is it? We do those things in part for our own benefit and well-being, when really the history of it shows that we should either give something up that would benefit someone else (maybe by giving up our time for people in need), or that we should take up something that will reflect something of the burden that Jesus took upon himself for us, or the dedication of his love for us. Whatever we do, it should be God-centred. It should be significant. It shouldn't necessarily be for our own gain, but for the gain of others and for the rememberance of Jesus. Tough? Yes, but not as tough as what Jesus did.



I don't often write about my faith, as you will know if you've read the rest of my blog, but sometimes I have things I want to say about it. They may not always be 'right', but they are my current understandings. I make myself vulnerable to you by sharing these things with you, but I make no apology for telling you something about my beliefs - they are intrinsic to who I am and they way I try to live my life.

ITU

This is an immediate follow-on from the previous post, and it's an extract from one of my hospital diaries. I'm going to be reading it out in my talk tomorrow as an example of what it's like to need to go to intensive care ... and the fear. It is taken straight from my diary as written, with no alterations.

'Some people don't understand why I'm reluctant to go down to ITU. Can't they comprehend the fear? Can they not understand that going to ITU is terrifying, because you know that they're running out of options to keep you alive? I know that's why they want to take me - to keep me alive - and I understand that at the time too, but it's horrible and the things they do to monitor you are painful, and all the time all I can think is that I want to go to sleep and I want to be alive, but I can't have both those things at that one time unless I deteriorate that little bit more and they put me to sleep ... only then there isn't the guarantee that I'll be alive when I wake up.

'Desperate for breath. Desperate for sleep. Desperately trying to stay alive. Trying not to panic. Trying not to cry. Trying to get comfort for my fear from those around me who cannot assure me that everything will be alright. The best advice they can give is that getting upset can only make my lungs worse, and they will do all they can for me. Breathing is hard, lungs hurt, interventions to monitor are painful and obtrusive, fear grips as medications fail to help, nurses try to comfort and get the SHO, who looks afraid and sends for the registrar, who is obviously concerned so calls the consultant, who knows he can do no more here so contacts the anaesthetist, who comes in a swathe of green cotton and a small entourage behind, and they all look worried and take me downstairs to be prodded and poked and have more monitors stuck on me and needles into me, and it doesn't matter where they go, or how much it hurts to get them in, they just have to do it to keep me from dying. All the while I'm surrounded by all these people I'm completely alone, because I can't breathe enough to tell them I'm scared. I plead with my eyes for them to help and for them to stop, and I know it's a contradiction, but I want both those things simultaneously. Death doesn't frighten me, but dying is horrendous, and feeling alone whilst dying is terrifying. Maybe one day I'll be ready for it, and not in a way that is just exhaustion and the inability to keep on fighting, but right now I'm not ready.



'God's in it all somewhere, I know that ... I just haven't figured out where yet.'

Requiem aeternam

I have some friends whose youngest son is now head chorister at Durham Cathedral, and last night I went with them to hear him/the choir sing Faure's Requiem in a communion service for All Souls Day. It was lovely, and amazing as the choir had only been practicing for a week. It was lovely to have the requiem as part of the service, rather than just as a concert as is most usual these days, and it was a great opportunity to think about those people we've known and loved, but have died. There was an opportunity also to light a candle in memory of those who have died so I lit one for my friend Laura who killed herself in July.

Laura was a truly lovely person, highly intelligent and incredibly gifted musically. She had so much going for her, but was sadly unable to see the good in herself and had suffered from terrible depression for many years. She was someone who would go out on a limb for a friend - she would do anything she could for anyone - but tragically was unable to see that she too was worthy (and more worthy than many in the world) of all the love, support, help and good things that came her way ... although she was continually let down by the mental health services, which did nothing for her confidence or feelings of self-worth. Laura is greatly missed by many, and I don't think she would have believed you if you'd told her before she died about how many people would attend her funeral and memorial service; about how the Laura-shaped hole that's been left in the world is gaping and cannot be filled by anyone or anything else; or about how many tears have been shed by so many people all over the world for the loss of such a wonderful and amazing young woman.

I hope and pray that Laura is finally at peace. I prayed with all my heart for her in the cathedral yesterday evening, and although some (non-christians) may say it was in my imagination or is wishful thinking, I felt as though Laura had at last found her peace and was at rest. If only she could have found that peace here on Earth ...

Rest peacefully Laura.