Hot spoons

My dreams are getting weirder and weirder. I'm having bad thoughts and I wonder when it will stop and where it will end up. This week I have been so up and down. I just try to get through every day step by step, hoping for some calmness and just living for the end of the week and when I can finally feel warm inside and curl up next to J.

I wish I could put my finger on this mood but I am just hoping there will be an end to it.

Their names are never spoken

Life as a cripple is going alright. When I got to work today I was greeted with the shout of "morning, hop-along!" and then when the fire alarm went everyone wanted to leave me on the stairs, like that scene in The Office. Later on I tripped over one of my crutches and went flying. In the afternoon my crutches got stolen, and B build a barricade around me so I couldn't get out.

It's a bit tiring having everyone ask "what have you done to your leg then? what's wrong with you? you're a bit immobile, aren't you?" but I guess no one knows how insanely annoying it is until they are on crutches. I will NEVER ask anyone any questions about their health again. Particularly questions like, "So, I suppose you can't have sex then - you probably can't open your legs, can you?" Still, when #1 was on crutches, someone asked her if she was paralysed!! At least I haven't been asked if I'm a paraplegic.

I'm sensing a return of the depression and I don't like it at all. I'm having really dark, evil thoughts and it's a little bit scary. I wish I could shake this off, or at least find a reason for it (other than the obvious few, which I don't speak about). I want to sit in the dark and listen to music and bang my head repeatedly against a wall until I can't think any more and then see how things are.

Things need to change around here. I'm taking steps (like joining the orchestra) but I need to do more.

On the plus side, I will be seeing real life pandas in three and half months, at Vienna zoo!! I am very, very excited about it!

Old Lady Lamb

Yesterday I went to the hospital for a check up, and to get my stitches out. The stitches coming out was quite tickly really, and then I nearly fell off the bed I was lying on, as I forgot that it had been raised to about 3 foot high. It's quite a comedy of errors every time I go to the hospital, I tell you.

The results of my operation are as yet unclear. They showed me pictures of the inside of my hip (REALLY strange) and showed where I had the abnormal bone, and what it looks like now - ie gone. I have to start doing a lot of physiotherapy before it turns into scar tissue, or else I'll have to have another operation to take that out... Overall prognosis isn't 100% positive as they're not sure whether this will ease the pain. Also, they have discovered I have arthritis. My transition to old lady is nearly complete!! All I need now is a fleet of cats and a tartan blanket to cover my knees while I do a cat-themed jigsaw puzzle.

Anyway, I was in the plaster room chatting to one of the nurses, and my old consultant, Mr xxxx comes in. I saw him once, in March-ish time. Back then we had a conversation that went like this:

- So what do you do?
- I'm a student.
- What do you study?
- Chinese. Chinese anthropology. (sheepishly, as I always feel like a twat telling chinese people this)
- WOW!!!!!! I'm chinese!
- (had kind of guessed this from name/looks/accent)
- Do you go to SOAS?
- Yeah. Masters degree.
- Well guess what - you go to SOAS, and you probably have PSOAS tendonitis!!! What a coincidence!
- Ah yes.

Then he wrote a letter to my GP about how lovely I was.

Anyway, he tracked me down yesterday. And remembered everything about me - and asked what they had done to me, how I was, how my summer was, how exams had gone, what I was up to know, etc... really flirty... completely random. I pestered him for a bit with some questions about my hip and he was all like "if you have any questions, just ask me... when are you in next?"

But then I thought I should stop asking questions cos then he'd say "get on that bed" and would prod my leg like everyone seems to do and make me rotate my legs. I found out yesterday that while I was unconscious, the doctors were moving my legs about in the air. This would be slightly less embaressing were it not for the fact that the nurses had forgotten to give me paper underwear, and so that I was in fact naked. There were at least 6 people in the operating theatre, plus medical students, and they have now all seen my vagina. How nice.

I'm not really bothered about having arthritis. I'm more bothered about how I'm going to get my handwashing dry in time to go out later, given that it's zero degrees. I'm so vacuous. I'm also bothered about money - my parents have suggested moving back to theirs to try and save some money, as there's no way I can save a penny living in London and earning slightly less than a pittance. I am trying to decide whether it's a good idea. I can't live with my parents, we would all go crazy. But I can't afford to stay here, not without a dramatic rethink anyway.




Here is a picture of me in hospital. I still have a bruise on my hand from having a tube shoved down my vein.


And here are my customised crutches. I am the most stylish cripple you ever saw, yo.

Time to put the suncream away

It's funny how priorities change. A year ago I was panicking over how I would cope at uni again. Seven months ago I was wondering whether we would actually be able to pull off the play, and would the hastily constructed viewing platform collapse before or after someone forgot a crucial line? Five months ago I was living in the library and trying to cram as much Chinese grammar into my skull as humanly possible. A few weeks ago I just wanted to get the dissertation done. Now my main grievances are that I can't carry a cup of tea from one room to the other as I need both hands for my crutches, and exactly how am I going to fill my days? At the beginning of this week I was unhappy. B called me and I lay on the living room floor sobbing, and he didn't know what to say, as he was in the office, and I was lying crippled on a rug.

In what may be a fleeting moment, I feel okay. My leg hurts a lot. Yesterday I left the house for the first time and saw another person on crutches, so I waved at them. Things today seem less bleak than at the beginning of the week. Momentarily I don't care about trivial things that should never have bothered me in the first place - like overhearing a comment directed at you that you weren't meant to hear ("she's actually quite attractive", in a disbelieving voice). I want to read books and watch films and plan for what I'm going to do next, and write letters and email old friends.

Today the sun has come out and I'm sure that this sudden influx of light is not unconnected to my mood. If I'd written this twelve hours earlier I would have written something darker.

Chile

Today I watched "The Motorcycle Diaries" and cried when I saw Chile. It's really breath taking, but so far away. Neither Santiago or Chiloe were in the film, more's the pity. I'm sure I've seen films featuring Chile before but none since I met M, so none where it has been so relevant. I really want to go. It was a good film overall, with the scenery complemented by the ever beautiful Gael Garcia Bernal. A friend of mine once saw him outside a pub in Shoreditch and I was jealous for about a hundred years.

Bullshit (aka current affairs)

I haven't written in this for ages and ages. I guess I have been quite busy doing stuff. I handed in my dissertation a while ago and dyed my hair that morning. Accidentally dyed my ears too but I guess that's what happens. Writing this chronologically is going to be a nightmare as so much has happened. Lots of drinking, post-dissertation. Quite a lot of crying as everyone left London. We took M to Heathrow, which was nice as we got to spend time with her, but awful because Chile is just so very far away.

On friday I had my operation. I was meant to leave hospital the next day but I was quite ill so they made me stay in til sunday. My mum and J both came to stay for the weekend, and between them and my housemates, I was really well looked after. Now I am at home and everyone is gone/at work and I'm pretty miserable, to tell the truth. In some ways it's nice to have some time to myself - check my emails, read a book, go on facebook - but I feel so lonely and depressed. Last night I cried for ages because I thought about how mean I have been to J, how grouchy and grumpy, and how much I would miss him if he left me. I'm feeling really sorry for myself, and I need to snap out of it. My leg is very very sore though, and my painkillers make me throw up, so I'm not taking as many as I should. It was quite a serious operation (my consultant told me, just before he hit my bed with his bag) and I'm not allowed to do "too much" for a while. I have crutches but they are starting to make my hands a bit sore. They're also very plain and not me at all - so they will be decorated :)

I have loads more to write but I'm not really in the mood. I'm off work for 2 more weeks though so I'm sure I will get round to it. First I will try and shake myself out of my misery - then perhaps this will be less self-indulgent bullshit and more humourous self-mockery. Or whatever it is that I normally write. Bullshit most likely.