Merry Christmas!

I’ve posted some more blogging below for you to read over the Christmas break!

At least decorating the Christmas tree didn’t take me eight hours this year and I now can enjoy Christmas lunch without the fear of choking!! Unfortunately, my tone deafness persists -  singing carols is NOT my strength!  I’d better go and assemble my ritual gingerbread houses before Dad eats them all! Thank you all for your support. I know how slow my recovery has been/ still is and your support has made it a lot easier.
 Love & Christmas hugs, Em

19/12/06

Days like today you give up. I remember fights with my ex boyfriend
or lack of sleep draining you, but this feeling is different. Today I feel like a drain without a plug. At least in the past, disagreements could be resolved or sleep deprivation was easily cured.

Many expect my motivation to be never ending, but I am human and today have stopped to recharge. I rarely stop, resisting my inner thoughts of ‘rest’ and ‘be waited on’, it only concerns others and means my recovery will be even slower. Suddenly stopping forces you to reflect, something which is so vital but that is hard to do.

Stopping allows you to somehow notice bodily aches, how heavy your head really is. My head feels gigantic!

I will never return to the ‘old em’ – that’s something that is even harder to accept when those around you appear disappointed with the ‘new em’.

Friends are there through good and bad but I have reached a point where my hourly visits from them feel fake – me not wanting to waste the valuable time or concern them and them not worrying me with their tiny issues compared to mine.

Christmas time is full of presents, parties and new resolutions to be made. For me, it’s a time for grieving. A year ago, as an in-patient the Christmas buzz was constant, This year, everyone’s busy with work functions or family celebrations. My twin’s overseas, i‘m jobless and single.

Each year I make gingerbread houses at Christmas. I wish that royal icing fixed me! Dad taste tests the gingerbread, as if to ascertain whether the dough becomes w
orse or better with each fifteen minutes. Mum cooks the large quantities of dough and royal icing. I sit infront of a huge supply of sweets and chocolates- honey comb; mint leaves, candy canes, smarties… a diabetic’s nightmare! I decorate and of course, like all real chefs, I taste test. I make biscuits, trees, houses and even attempted to my personal assistants horror (my mum) a train! I point and boss Mum and she pretty much does it all. If the roof is crooked or the icing runs, it’s never my fault. Days of work, the house covered in icing; mum’s radio dead from spilt egg whites; my teeth furry from eating too much sugar; and I take full credit. There’s no art in delegation, mum is amazing. Dead tired we sit and stare at the end products knowing that the demolishers on xmas day will never appreciate the work that’s gone into it. Each munch I cringe. Munch. Munch. Cringe. Cringe.

Christmas cards I once hand wrote, now a generic letter is sent around, I print 40 copies, realise later the spelling mistakes. ‘People won’t care’, many say when I consider reprinting. I secretly hope that my mistakes will go undetected, scared that my errors will confirm their assumption ‘ that I’m dumb’.

MY POSTURE

At rehab they called me ‘lamanna banana’. My spine curved around to the right f
orming the letter ‘C’. If I stood on the leaning tower of pisa it’d be straight in my realm. Looking up or tilting my head backwards to put my head on a pillow made me feel so dizzy. I no longer needed to go on a ride at luna park! I used to be a shop-aholic, now I had automatically halved my shopping options, not wanting to look at the top rack of clothes. Instead, I became a window shopper, and not only because my wardrobe revealed pjs or tracksuits, but also the large panel of glass was an immediate deterrent: I could either see my reflection or I could imagine falling straight through it. I had my twin to try things on.  Still today, activities such as backstroke and star gazing are avoided.

MY BALANCE

I felt like I was permanently on a hook. Dangling. Touching the ground so lightly only on my tippy toes.  Therapists could push me in random directions, and I’d come right back – I now was a weighted doll, a tipsy rolly pollie toy I’d played with as a child. Desperate to cure my bad balance, I even purchased ankle weights to make my feet heavier. However, everything from swiss balls to medication didn’t rest
ore my good balance. Although hard to accept, I’ll never dance or play netball as I once did. Instead, I carried things on trays and wore flat shoes.  I would wake each night in pitch darkness, my disoriented body clinging to the mattress, fearing that if I let go I’d fall down, down, down. I wanted to shake with fear, but even this little movement might cause me to fall. The nurse found me screaming. On returning home this happened nightly until I purchased a night light from the baby section of Target. The tiny light stopped my screams from that night on. I had prayed the night before my operation, for God to carry me. I was now ready to be put down.