Lordy, it's taken me forever to get around to this post. It's been on the cards for ages. Started and stopped, started and stopped. Partly due to slackness. Partly due to a rather prolonged and continuing period of bleechness. Partly due to a lap top that was on life support. But I'm going to pull my finger out. Mr Grumpy has done a MaGyver and created a laptop with a piece of duct tape, a used tissue and a hairy piece of gum he scrapped off the bottom of a table at the local Maccas. He may not be fancy. He may not have speakers. And he may insist that it is still 2010 despite repeated reboots, but technically he is a laptop once more. So I will now put on my Uri Geller hat, and will my fingers and brain to coordinate enough to tap out a couple of sentences on the old dog hair encrusted keyboard.
Time to get away from the "woe is me, life is crap" mantra I've been spouting of late. Time to find my happy place and live in the warm arms of denial for a few minutes.
A few weeks back (well actually a bit longer) I finally met a bunch of fellow Bobettes here in Melbourne for lunch. For a while now we've been in contact on an Australian FB group, with Bobettes coming from all around the country and New Zealand. The Dysautonomia community is very small here in The Land Down Under. Hell you are hard pressed to find a specialist, let alone others in the same leaky boat. But what started out as a handful of people has now stretched to 43 members! Diagnoses are varied, from Postural Orthostatic Tachicardia Syndrome (POTS) and Neurocardiogenic Syncope (NCS) to WTF?, but we have a wee little community who all share a group of pesky symptoms and a body that is not playing the game.
It was a brilliant day. The first time in a long time that I actually looked forward to meeting a group of strangers. Not that they are really strangers. Over the past six months we have all shared the highs and lows of living with Bob. The daily struggles, the tears and the hysterical laughter. It has been a great place to share local information, which is sorely lacking, and to find normality in the most abnormal of circumstances.
I can't recall the last time I went somewhere, where everyone reached for the salt and piled it on their lunch, and no one batted an eyelid. Or guzzled water by the gallon. Or did the standing shuffle to get the blood flowing. Where the bazillion things you do to simply last through a meal or stand up, and normally makes you stand out like a freak, finally feel normal. For those few hours our shared abnormalities were made normal and it was wonderful.
To sit and laugh with people who know the joy of lying down on floors in public, throwing up, looking like a drunk and all the rest of the joys that go along with this syndrome, is fabulous. The shared joys of the medical system, inconsiderate doctors and fun medications. Tips for managing, stories of when we didn't. Stories of lives outside of illness. Sharing our histories and finding so many commonalities, none of which our doctors have mentioned. Hands up who had severe gastro problems when they were a teenager, or mutliple traumas/health issues leading up to the final bomb of Bob. Hands up who has joint issues. Hands up..........
For all of us it was a challenge to get there. Many of us were ill leading up to the day,on the day, and the days after. Some couldn't make it due to bodies that refused to cooperate. Some are now in hospital (checking out the male staff off course, can't keep a good gal down). But I think we would all say it was worth it.
To all who attended I am so glad I got a chance to meet you all in person. To all those who couldn't make it on the day I hope we can meet up on another day. Big love to a strong group of women.
For all Australian's and New Zealanders looking for support come some say hi. FB Group.
Oh I forget to mention, four of us stayed till 6pm! 6PM!! That's like staying out till 3am on a bender, snogging total strangers, dancing with your undies on head, and eating a dodgy kebab from a mobile vendor at a petrol station, type of night for normal folk! (God, I miss those days)
WE ROCK!
Cheers
The normal for four hours on one Sunday in January 2011, Michelle :)
In honour of my resurrected lap top I give you, Back in Black, AC/DC.
17 years ago this past week, I narrowly avoided spinsterhood by becoming Mrs Grumpy. It was a close call really. Some days I look in the mirror and think, "I'm about 39 cats short of becoming crazy cat lady". Left to my own devices I have no doubt I would have soon become a weird old lady with birds nest hair and a face like a desiccated apple, who spends her days in in depth conversations with her furry brood.
Luckily fate intervened. I met a man who has a more realistic, although what I consider despotic, pet policy than myself, and I have been restricted to one slightly feral and very incontinent cat, and two intellectually challenged great danes. Avoidance of cat crazy is a good reason to get married people. I mean, I still intend to become one of those old ladies who farts, swears like a sailor, tells inappropriate jokes, and uses her age to freely grope hot young men. But that's the kind of crazy we should all aim for in our advancing years. Oh, and before you ask, 40 cats is the official crazy cat lady decider. 39 all okay. 40 and you're in pathologically unhealthy feline lover territory.
We met long, long, ago, in a galaxy far, far, away known as the Australian Defence Force Academy. Such a romantic venue. Guns, camouflage gear, buzz cuts, marching, cheap alcohol, co-ed dormitories and the smell of gun oil and shoe polish in the air, how could you not find love? I still find it amazing that he saw me in my un-sexy Navy uniform and wanted to date me in the first place. Maybe he had a secret thing for old ladies, because frankly the white female naval uniform looks like a lawn bowls uniform. Hmmm, maybe that explains my prodigious lawn bowls prowess? All I know is there is nothing more romantic than a guy who is willing to clean your rifle, and spit polish your shoes.
17 years. 17 long, oh my lord how long, wonderful years. Being the sentimental type, Mr Grumpy loves to sing me AC/DCs, Jail break, whenever we discuss our years of wedded bliss.
Jury found him guilty
Gave him sixteen years in hell
Bwahahahahahahahaha. He's a funny man. You should have seen him when our 16th year rolled round. He was in sarcastic nirvana. But that's what you get when you marry a man with a fondness for flannel, scifi, red wine and 70s and 80s mullet rock. I should also mention that he wanted to have Motley Crew's, Kick Start My Heart, as our wedding song. Needless to stay he was disabused of this idea rather swiftly. Mind you considering we ended up with the gag inducing, hideous theme to The Body Guard, I Will Always Love You, (don't ask, long story) as our song it would have been a better choice.
It's amazing we've lasted. Or as my delightful brother in law said in his toast, "lets hope they stay together for a while", (yes BIL, I will be milking that one for ever). We were married young by today's standards, me 20 him 21. Mind you we met when were 17 and 18 respectively so we'd been together for a while. Ahhh the stupidity of youth. Add to that and I was up the duff with our first by my 21st (oh yeah party on down, 5mths pregnant, mastitis, antibiotics, and still having morning sickness, every girls dream come true) and we have repeatedly bucked the life milestones trend.
It hasn't all been roses and candy canes. We fight. We yell. There are days where I would gladly put his junk in a garlic press and crush down, hard. Or put his head in the loo and flush and flush and flush and...... I'm sure he thinks the same about me. But that's the beauty of marriage and it doesn't mean I love him any less (though I do wish he would outgrow his childish delight in the act of dutch ovening me, or farting in the grocery isle and running off so everyone thinks it's me).
Marriage is about putting up with the crappiness, and thoughts of homicide, because it is generally outweighed by the good stuff. The fact he remembers the day we had our first date. The fact he knows I hate carnations (bad teenage boy baggage) and has never ever brought me any. The fact he knows exactly how to make my cup of coffee or only buys the brand of chocolate I like. The fact he knows the exact amount of Vegemite I like on my toast (for my international readers that's just waving the Vegemite covered knife in the vicinity of the toast, not thick like peanut butter which is a disgusting rookie mistake). The fact that he still likes my boobs, even though they have gone from a B cup to a singlet (his favourite saying is “more than a mouthful is a waste”, Shakespeare eat your heart out). The fact he sat in an MRI and held my foot because I was so nervous. The fact he accepts my quirks and just shakes his head. That is what love and marriage are all about.
So happy Anniversary Mr Grumpy, and many thanks for still thinking my butt is worthy of grabbing in public.
Cheers
The Old Ball and Chain Michelle :)
For those who like their love posts a we bit more soppy, I have managed to do it once before in an ode to Mr Grumpy.
Just for Mr Grumpy I give you, AC/DC's classic, Jailbreak (1976).
