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Womb for Improvement

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I hate being off work sick. HATE it. And not only because of the potential for disciplinary action, or that my wages are inevitably going to suffer. I miss the routine. I miss doing something valuable with my day that gives me a sense of achievement, even though I am still learning and prone to making the odd slip-up or three.

But the worst thing about being off sick is…drumroll…the sickness. If I’m off, I’m poorly; lately, said poorliness is akin to WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCKEROO IS GOING ON INSIDE OF ME? And WHY THE EQUALLY-ACTUAL-FUCKEROO IS THIS PERIMENOBOLLOX TAKING SO LONG?

I like work. It’s the sort of job where you can come in, make a brew, set up your desk and dive in, doing whatever it is that needs doing. I love learning, and this wee job o’mine certainly fits the bill.

But I don’t fit at the moment.

These days, I am also prone to bursts of gasping, yelping, and screaming—hardly ideal.

“Yes, Mr. McGinty, I can—ARGH!—sort that for you.”

“Bear with me a sec, Mrs. McGunty, and I’ll check your—OOF!—accounts.”

“Thanks for your—YOWCH!—payment, Mr. McGoonty.”

On a REALLY bad day (I’ve been having a lot of those, lately), I’d possibly run the risk of a FUCKFUCKFUCK in the middle of a conversation, or a FUCKING HELL, MAKE IT STOP as I’m trying to explain the law. This damned illness has brought with it a certain level of cussage that escapes my rubber lips on a whim, whether I want it to or not. (And no, it’s not Tourette’s, because I can help it. It’s just that I can’t help it.)

What started as occasional period pains progressed into permanent ones. Because I am me, of course, they weren’t mere run o’the mill period pains, and affected pretty much every part of me from the chest down. To put a cherry on it, those escalated into quasi-contractions, on an every-now-and-again basis. No fun, but manageable (barely). They were the margarine of contractions. The Diet Coke of contractions. Just one calorie: not contracty enough.

This week, though, I’ve had a demonic entity in there. A verifiable, downright diabolical what-the-fuck. I feel—no word of a lie—preggers. About eleventy million months along. This thing is huge, I can feel it. There is a chance of it making its own way out, too: uterine prolapse, they call it. FUN! Saturday saw 24 hours of contractions. Full-on, About to Have a Baby contractions. Fat Bastard Coke, Pure evil. Couldn’t walk. Could barely breathe. Had to use a mobility scooter. Ordered crutches.

Tuesday, the crutches arrived. How the bazoolah anybody over six stones can use these damned things is beyond me. Balancing on what might as well be toothpicks while lifting the weight of a bus condensed into something the size of a baby elephant must be an acquired skill. Fell into the wall once or twice. Shelved that idea.

I’d been soooo in the dark about perimenopause; I hadn’t educated myself AT ALL until I had to, having assumed it’d pass, sans problème, once I’d had a cheek-blush and a hot flush (my mother seemed to fly through hers, and I must’ve thought I would, too. Ha! What the shite, Lin?). If I don’t write about it, though, I’ll cry about it. (Who are we kidding? I do that as well. But only if the day ends in ‘y’…) So, now, that’s what I do. I write. About all of it.

Brevity is not my forte. If you’re still reading this, you will have already reached that conclusion: I do love a good ramble, it has to be said. I’ve had some lovely feedback, though. Readers have reached out to let me know they’re enjoying these blogthangs, to tell me they feel seen, that they identify with the whole medical sitch. And I love that. Shedding light on this motherfucker is a good reason to keep on keeping on.

I’m here for the haters, too. You know the sort: “Is she banging on about herfuckingself AGAIN?” (The sort who despise you, yet can’t help following you. Here’s a big hello from me. *Waves*)

I have to stay positive, even if I am dying inside. With that in mind, I’ve been getting proactive and chasing things up with my surgeon, with a view to finding out why I’m on week 40 of what was supposed to be a 27-week waiting list. I’ve been doing so for weeks. A month or so ago, I was promised a callback, and it still hasn’t happened, so I rang again yesterday. This involved the surgeon’s secretary being so kind as to point out that the delay is due to Surge being a CANCER cutter-outer who can’t fit in NON-CANCER patients, what with all the CANCER.

“She can’t fit in routine surgery, as she has so many CANCER surgeries to get through.”

“It’s not routine. I’ve been assured as such. **Lists reasons**”

She backpedalled, then. “Oh, I know, it’s just… we’ll be in touch when she can fit you in.”

My dude, I get it. Fuck cancer. Cancer is bad. Cancer is worse than whatever the shit is going on with my own particular innards. What I have is NOT AS BAD AS CANCER. But why try to make me feel shitty about it? Should I sit down and shut up about my surgery being waaaay past the target date because other people have it worse?

I would never, EVER minimise cancer. SO many of my loved ones have lived with it and died with it, and I could be next (quite literally—I’m at risk of ovarian, uterine, and cervical cancers, hence the need for the op). But let’s get one thing straight: I don’t care about myself. Sucks to say it, but I don’t. I’m not chasing this up for selfish reasons. I’m chasing this up for my children’s mother. For my husband’s wife. I stay sick, I lose my job. I lose my job, my children lose their home. It’s as simple as that. I don’t feel any sense of entitlement, I am not owed surgery. Cancer patients are a priority. Cancer patients are more important than me—they just are. But change your damned targets and paint a true picture for your patients. If it’s gonna take 50 weeks, tell them 50. Don’t—for the love of fuck’s uncle—tell them 27…

…and maybe, just maybe push the boat out and hire an OB-GYN instead of relying on a cancer surgeon?

On a positive note, one person (aside from Rob, my perfect, perfect husband) who has been an absolute tonic through all this…drumroll 2: the return* …is Jen, my magnificent cousin, who works in the same office as moi.

*Is a second bout of drumming a repercussion? (I’m here all week.)

Me: “I’ve been told my womb could prolapse. Imagine me at work, and suddenly, there’s goo between my legs, ‘Don’t mind me, that’s just my uterus.'”

Jen: “I’ll make sure there’s some sort of uterus-pushy-in stick in the office.”

Me: **Falls about**

Jen: “Don’t laugh too hard, or Rob’ll have to come and get the stick.”

A Reaper Cushion I found on Etsy just now.

Hopefully, I’ll be at work tomorrow, stick or no. Maybe I’ll feel better by then, I tell myself; fingers, toes and eyes crossed. Chin up, girl; chest out, stay chipper. It’s not all womb and gloom.

You Must Be Lying (or: Live Your Truth)

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The inconsistency of disability and/or chronic illness is such that one minute, you can be ambling around the shops, nary a care, and the next, you’re on your back – and not in a good way. (There’ll be none of that, thank you very much!) You are on week 40 of the Organ Extraction waiting list, although you had been promised said snippage by week 27. The NHS app tells you that most people are treated within 18 weeks, and eight out of ten such organ-havers are treated within 32. Well, that’s nice. You’re two in ten. Humph.

You make an absolute arse of yourself, nagging the GP and the consultant.

“I could lose my job,” you tell ’em, “as I’m in constant agony and there are days I can’t even walk.”

Sometimes, you cry down the phone, or face-to-face at the doc’s. Occasionally, someone listens: you’ve reached the point where the GP is—finally!—writing to the consultant to ask them to fuckingwell get their fucking finger out (actual wording may vary).

Perimenopause is the Devil, and has given you a Mephistophelimp. Said limp varies from day to day: at the start of the week, your knee decides to fuck you over; Wednesday brings pelvic pain that makes you want to rip your insides out; by Friday, your hips and arse-cheeks have died a death. An excruciating one. You manage—somehow—to walk* with delicate placement: treading a specific tread with your left foot and balancing precariously on the ball of your right, and you’ve taken to using a stick as a replacement for the shoddier of your legs.

*hobble

Hovering on one pin, you discover, feels niiiice. Going all Flamingo takes the weight off and the pain away. You visit your even more poorly mother (bless her) in hospital, and because of the lousy set-up, the distinct absence of visitors’ chairs, ya rest yer manky knee on yer ma’s bed. SO NICE. SUCH A RELIEF! This discovery leads you to the interwebz, where you order a pair of crutches so you can travel by elbow in future, the crap leg swinging freely.

At The Big Tesco (because it’s never just Tesco, is it? And don’t get me started on The Asda), you hop** onto the mobility scooter thingie. Luckily, the shelves and their contents survive, because you happen to manoeuvre that thing like a frickin’ ledge. (You have skills, girl, and don’t you forget it—no matter what your crumbling carcass has you believe.) This is what it’s come to.

**stumble

By the time evening rolls around, you’re in such a state that you are, not to put too fine a point on it, utterly fucking done. Would that you had a saw. Off with the leg! Sever it at the hip! No – slice higher!

But no, you persevere. You get out. You stay in. You take all manner of painkillers, massage in the Ibu-gel, and try the exercise bike. And d’ya know what? It works—sort of. It’s the one pain-free activity you can do. Must be something about the muscle groups you’re using; there’ll be a scientific explanation for why you can do this but not that. This leads to thinky thoughtstuff: your busy little brain gets all a-wonderin’. Maybe I should get my skates on. See what those muscles can do. Maybe I should go for a run—

—then you breathe the wrong way or blink too hard, and the pain, back with a vengeance, kicks you right in the cojones (whether you have a pair or not). There is to be no skating. No running. A bit more moping, maybe. Writing, definitely; a lot more complaining, fo’ sho’.

Perception is everything: how you see yourself can have a gigantic impact on your health. How others see you comes into the mix, too: when you have a disability, a chronic illness, or even a health-niggle, your ailments often wear an invisibility cloak. If your symptoms vary from day to day—or hour to hour—the cloak might slip, and it can seem to others that you are taking the piss. You must be lying.

“She was fine the other day.”

“She was limping last week; how can she be darting around today?”

“She’s fine; I saw her at the market, laughing at the superfluous apostrophes.” (Okay, that last one’s weird. But so am I.)

But you know the truth. You know your truth.

And I know mine. Mine involves variety. No two days are the same, no two limps are alike. Drugs can work, drugs can fail. I’m brim-full with positivity, or I’m bed-bound, sleeping so I don’t have to be awake. I can get proactive, chasing up appointments and making plans, or I can wither away into a crumpled heap, consoling myself with tea (ALL the tea) and biscuits. One constant remains, though: writing. No matter my mood, the words are there. They want to come out, and I must let them.

These are my words, this is my life, this is my truth, and I shall continue to live it.

One I Made Earlier: Selfie After a Previous Operation. (I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but I AM STILL FUCKING WAITING FOR THE NEXT ONE.)

Good Grief…

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Death. It’s a bit shit, isn’t it. There is no question mark, for ’tis no question. Death is crap. It’s a reyt loada shite…

…but it’s supposed to be. The innate shiteness of the end is what keeps us alive, after all. It’s an integral part of what makes life so utterly, utterly precious.

(Disclaimer: apologies, but I can’t bring myself to use the terms ‘Passed’ or ‘Passed Away.’ I have my reasons. Soz aba me.)

It’s been a rubbish few days, what with Auntie Agnes having been at the end of hers. For the last couple of weeks, our Aggie had been surrounded by her doting relatives – her children, in-laws, grandkids—and her sister, Pat, my brilliantly bonkers mother. But with one ending came the start of something else. I saw love. Real love. I saw tenderness. I saw people, ripped and raw, every tear a story unto itself. Relatives I hadn’t seen for decades were there in a heartbeat. Each time we would visit, we would see one of Agnes’ loved ones stroking her hair, holding her hand, telling her tales about her childhood and LFC and cats and how great it would be if England were to win the World Cup.

And I’m totally here for it. I’m here for all of it.

I was alright after Agnes died. Immediately after, I mean. I felt a sense of peace on the ward, in the air. Her son—my cousin—took a moment to pop over and hold my mum’s hand, not five minutes after his own mother had breathed her last. When my dad died back in 2022, I don’t think I’d have been fit to console anyone. (Had anyone else been there. Which they weren’t. My father was known for being a bit of an arse.)

On one of our visits (we usually turned up unannounced, which is kinda how we roll, considering that nothing ever goes to plan in this household—making advance arrangements is nigh on impossible), I happened upon something beautiful. My amazing cuz, Jen, sitting right up close to her nanna, stroking her forehead. That she was already utterly engaged, engrossed, committed to this level of care both broke my heart and mended it at once. ‘She’s having a lovely manicure,’ Jen said next, rubbing lotion into the hands that had worked so hard and touched so many.

My poor auntie hadn’t been able to eat, all she’d managed was to have a nibble of a strawberry. Staff were buzzing around: any number of NHS goddesses, flitting from one patient to the next, making sure they’d had their meds, eaten their dinner… or dosing up the end-of-lifers on the good stuff. And the good stuff is really good. You can see it working, right in front of your eyes. A painless state: you couldn’t ask for more.

The lack of drama was astounding; seriously. It was difficult to tell who was merely under the weather and who didn’t have long left, because of the sheer seamlessness of the service. Every patient—and I mean every patient—received the same standard of care, regardless of longevity. And man-oh-maaaan, the aftermath is beautiful. It’s only the day after, and already I’ve seen an outpouring of kindness. And because I apparently just have to share every single aspect of my life with interwebular strangers or there isn’t a y in the day, I just happened to mention on the Facethang that there’d been a bereavement, and the comments and messages started to pour in. But I was fine to go to work. Just fine. I’d deal with my caseload as normal, and it might even take my mind off it, right?

WRONG.

I turned up at the office, put my laptop bag on the desk, and the very minute someone asked me if I was okay, I knew I wasn’t. I felt as though I didn’t have any right not to be, though. After all, this was ‘only’ my auntie. Agnes was someone else’s sister, mum, nanna…

… but she had been a bigger part of my life than I’d given her credit for. She’d been so ace that her parents had gone on to have three more kids, one of whom was my gloriously frogbox mother. She’d been so ace that she and the aforementioned mother-of-mine would have daily conversations about the virtues of tea and how it tasted better in a china cup and how it was even better when someone made it for you.

“You had a cup of tea today?”

“Yeah, have you?”

“Oh, aye; I had one just before.”

“Was it nice?”

“Ooh, it was lovely.”

“Ooh, good. I do love a nice cup of tea.”

“Me too.”

And that’s how it would go. Occasionally, they’d move on to food. You know the sort of thing:

“Have you had any dinner today?”

“Eh?”

“Dinner. have you had anything to eat?”

“Oh, yeah. I had a biscuit.”

“Did you have a cup of tea with it?”

You can guess the rest.

So here’s me —at eleven-of-the-clock, as Mum would say— trying to put into words the unputintowordsable. What can I say that hasn’t already been said, read, and regurgitated a million times over? It might be original/cool/downright inspirational if I said This, or That, or took such-and-such an approach and applied all my writerly training to deliver a punchy bit at the end. Perhaps I should just fly by my pants’ seat, as I am wont to do. Maybe I should just…

…write.

This is but part one of many imminent rambles, I fear. Block me, unfollow, whatevz. This is something I’m writing for myself, not with readers in mind. I need it out of me, and that’s enough. I shan’t be including some of the things our Agnes said towards the end. Those things are private, and for the family alone. But my feelings I am free to share, and I am happy to do so. There is no right or wrong way to feel. As long as you do feel. That’s the thing. For me, that’s the thing.

Agnes was 92 when she died. Mum is 84. The tea-conversation has happened circa 17,029 times, by my estimation. The mathematics be dubious; the Twinings English Breakfast be real.

Agnes, you will NEVER walk (or drink tea) alone. You’ll be walking alongside everyone you ever loved. As for me, well, tomorrow, I shall be painting my nails strawberry red. Liverpool red.

Foe is Me

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Not getting any better. Not even remotely. HRT would help enormously, but I can’t have it – they won’t do the op if you’re taking it. I have no choice but to suck it up and get on with it until my organs are sucked out of me. Which is likely to be September, I’m told.

But get on with what, exactly? I don’t want to do anything. I can’t do much at all, really. In this heat, I am all but absofuckinlutely, well and truly, utterly fuckin’ buggered. My knees and my hips keep seizing, my collection of gooey gynaecological objects has gone cuckoopants, and I am so high on painkillers that a flock of seagulls has just flown past me. And yes, I did have that hairdo in the eighties. (More like a hairdon’t, but I digress.)

Despite the one-foot-in-the-grave*-ness of it all, there is a thing, and the thing is this: I might be signed off sick but I still have to parent. I am still a carer. I still have to do the mom-stuff and the daughter-stuff when I can’t do the day job. Which means I still have to get the shopping in (which all but kills me), feed people, deal with my elderly mum’s care needs, and do all the Mom-as-PA nonsense with the kids’ schools.

(*I wonder what the cremation version is. One speck of ash in the urn?)

My brain (cell) is all NOPE, probably because it’s in tune with my equally nopey body. And as meltdown malarkeys would have it, I have little aptitude for thought. What little thinking I am doing includes but is not limited to the likes of:

“Is it completely inadvisable to operate on oneself? I have a delightful kitchen knife…”

Alright, so I am my own worst enemy. I’ve never been a fan of myself (or my stupid body), and lately, the self-loathing has reached a new low. But I do have moments of clarity. Moments where I try to have a word with myself, and stay positive. So, with that in mind, I thought it might be just spiffing to shelve berating myself for a while. Stop beating myself up for not being able to work/take the kids out/do normal human things. I can’t bake; hell, I can’t even do the wordthang (there’s a novel that isn’t going to write itself, a poetry collection to compile, and my collection of Liverpool horror stories needs an edit). That’s how I know I’m ill. I’ve lost the will to write, to pun, to rhyme (Is that one collective will or three discrete wills? I ask my annoying self…).

So, I started a sentence with ‘So’. Then, in the interests of staying just PEACHY POSITIVE, I wrote a list of things I am able to do at the moment:

  1. Write lists
  2. Mope
  3. Complain
  4. Whine
  5. Shout at clouds.

That’s it. I’m officially ancient. I don’t need to yell, “Where’s me cane?” because I already have one. I use it to point at things.

Meno-pause? Meno-just-STOPPIT-already!

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We’re now halfway through the year (almost) and I’m six months worse.

(For the previous whine-fest, go here):Ablation, Asherman Syndrome, and Me – Libera te Tutemet

I’d been coping alright at work, what with having a very understanding boss who makes sure I have reasonable adjustments in place: extra bathroom breaks, a rise-and-fall desk, yada yada… then This Weekend happened.

We were in town with a couple of the crotchgoblins when I had to bend down to de-stone my shoe. This was the precise moment I realised One Can Not Bend That Way Anymore. What. The. Bazoolah? I had to lean on my lovely hubby and ended up doing this weird, awkward thing where I tried to bring my foot up instead of taking my body down… you had to be there, I guess, but trust me, it was a comical sight. Except I wasn’t laughing. Quite the opposite: floods.

I spent the next half-hour hobbling back to the car and whining about being knackered and wondering When Did I Get So Old?

Allegedly, it gets better after DA OP. The hip pain, all the pelvic nonsense and the inability to fold oneself in half, they’re (supposedly) due to the hormonal shitshow I’m experiencing right now.

Symptoms of menopause and perimenopause – NHS

But that’s cool, right? I’m perfectly normal. RIGHT?

I had no sleep last night. Zero. One of the symptoms, par for the course. But with me, it’s a whole different story. I have to have ALL the symptoms at once, because of course I do.

My brain was no friend to me: It made sure I ran the whole gamut of gamuts. Worrying, restless legs, anxiety, overthinking, even guilt—I knew, as I was lying there awake at 4am, that I’d be calling in sick at 8, but there’s always that moment, that sliver of self-doubt: Am I poorly enough to be off work? Will they believe me? What if they think I’m swingin’ the lead?

And then there’s that other moment. The one where you whack yourself over the noggin with a good ol’ reality check. It goes like this:

Who exactly are you trying to kid? Look at you. You’ve just rubbed freeze gel on your thighs and Ibuprofen on your knees. You have had no sleep to speak of, you’ve been to the loo seventeen times in the last six hours, (that’s seventeen journeys up the stairs, each of which took an inordinate amount of time because LOOK AT THE FRICKIN’ STATE OF YOU), and you’ve had to cave in and reach for the drugs even though you KNOW they’ll set your stomach off, because otherwise you won’t be able to move. And you’re worrying about work? Get outa here.

So, I listened to myself, for once. I called in sick, and will have to face the consequences—being off is barely even a choice when I’m like this. Why? Well, for one, I can’t word. I can type just fine, but when I am in this much pain, speech goes out the mucky window. I find it hard to string sentences together, and can even sound leathered. Imagine me on the blower to a customer: “Yesh, Mr. Schmith, I shall short it out for you thish week…” That’s if I had the chance to be on the phone at all, what with having to all but camp out in the bathroom.

So why the blog? You know me. I love a good whine. That’s ‘whine’ with an aitch. None of that drinking bollox for me these days. Can’t tolerate it. Not for want of trying, like. Over the last few months, I have tried to drink. I’ve poured myself a glass every now and then, and it’s either given me acidmadness or intolerable stomach cramps. So, yeah: no.

If I am writing, no matter the subject, I am alive. I am here to tell my story. And who knows? Maybe it’ll resonate. Perhaps someone will read this and come to realise they’re not alone. You need to talk? Hit me up.

There’s a lovely lass in the office who’s been helping me with this stuff (thanks, JJ!) – so if I can be that person to someone else, I am all ears (and shoulders. Honestly, they are covered in middle-age flab so they’re infinitely comfortable). Speak and I shall listen. Come: rest your head, let me put my bingo wings around you.

One I made earlier: pics from a previous procedure

My Verse

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It seemed as though my verse had gone;

I hadn’t rhymed in far too long

He took my words and killed them, see;

And then, there was no poetry.

No stanzas came, no stories nor;

All victim to my saboteur

My words no longer coursed through blood;

For what is poetry, sans love?

Of pen and ink: my paper broke;

Of diction: nary a word was spoke.

CM