the first time.

The first time it happened was about 10 years ago.  I was at a conference and went to the loo during the coffee break.  I'd poo'd myself.  Horrified, mortified, I cleaned myself up, dropped the pants into the sanitary towel bin and went back in with no pants under my trousers. I think one of the most upsetting things was that I'd had no idea it had happened.

It happened again, not daily, but often enough for me to start taking spare pants with me, and wet wipes. thank god for wet wipes.  then its sort of gradually stopped, probably because I took up pilates.  Once at the doctor I sort of tried to mention it in a roundabout way but she didn't pick up on it and I couldn't bring myself to actually say what was happening to me.

And I learned to live with it as it gradually came back. Luckily my lifestyle doesn't involve wearing flimsy or stylish clothes, I can wear jeans and things. I couldn't bring myself to mention it to anybody.  Absolutely nobody, not my best friend, not my mother (but that's not surprising, i don't tell her anything), not my doctor, not anybody.  I had no idea what caused it, or when it would strike. It was embarassing and humiliating and did absolutely nothing for my self-esteem. It felt like I was the only person in the world with this.  One day I asked my friend and fount of all knowledge, google, for advice, and found nothing of any help (including on the official websites) - it seemed that other people did suffer from it but nothing could be done and it didn't give any useful information about what causes it.

So i suffered in silence.

There, I've said it. That was hard.  Its taken me weeks to even write it here, totally anonymously.

Result!

another test, more indignity. but this time its different. I so nearly chickened out of this one - its not been so bad, i mustn't make a fuss, other people have worse than me, i mustn't use up NHS resources........and then I thought, well, maybe in 6 months it will be back with a vengeance making my life a misery and then I'd regret not being on that waiting list to get it sorted.

so i went. and the procedure was hardly under way when the doctor suddenly announced it was done, test finished - because he knew (and could show me on the screen) exactly what was causing the trouble and would be able to inform the surgeon exactly what to do to fix it.

fix it! fix it............after 10 years! before i left, in a complete daze, the nurse said "you know I bet 4 out of 10 people you know have much the same problem". but we never talk about it. never admit to it.

well I'm going to now.  they have convinced me I am normal, OK, and what's more fixable!!!

more anon!

indignities

Another hospital appointment, another procedure, more indignity.  trudge to hospital, dressing gown in a shoulder bag, navigate to X-ray department.  Clothes off, gown on, dressing gown on (to hide the unappealing sight of my back view through the slit in the gown).  Quick few drops of Rescue Remedy (it really does help - its supposed to contain alcohol - is it just the alcohol? Can 2 tiny drops of alcohol do that?)

And do you know, it was fine.  Interesting. No indignity, just very professional people doing their jobs well and treating me as a rational and functional human being, explaining everything as we went along, encouraging me to take part, to take control, to understand and to learn to manage my condition.

Do you know what a prolapse is? its when any or all of your uterus, bladder or rectum collapses into your vagina. Its not life-threatening but you find yourself being incredibly careful when you cough or even laugh in case it all falls right out and you are left with bits of your insides greeting you in a way that nature never intended.  It means that what collects in your bladder or rectum can bulge into your uterus and then not be able to escape out as it should - so you can be desperate for a pee and nothing happens. At the moment its all held nicely in place by a wonderful, non-technical and extremely effective rubber ring (it looks just like the rings you chuck for the dog to bring back to you), but this lovely ring can't fix the weaknesses and ineffectivenesses of the opening of the bladder, or indeed the rectum so that what was once nicely held in until I decided it should come out, can sometimes leak out unprompted by me.  and even, unknown by me.

No fun at all.

And sometimes its hard knowing exactly what is going on, which is scary and humiliating. Hence all these undignified tests and procedures. And I am finding a branch of our much-maligned National Health Service where wonderful people treat me with respect and care and are determined to find out what is going on, what can be done, and to give me the opportunity to make informed choices about what to do and take back control of my body and my future.

The woman told me yesterday that lots of women happily decide not to have surgery, happily leak wee as a matter of course and carry on with their lives using pads, and even, she said, she really said this, live with a prolapse that has come right out of their body - just carry on with life and elect not to have surgery to put it right. Astounding.

So I spent 20 minutes watching my bladder working via a TV monitor and learning all sorts of things about my body in the process. We are so lucky to have access to this sort of stuff.

a catalogue of errors

Hmmm. this blog about the 2 things I need to deal with in my otherwise contented life turns out to be a place to explore a separate, fundamental and ongoing thing.

Last week my son spent a good hour on the phone cataloging my errors, failings and general uselessness as a human being.  Not much fun.  And however much I tell myself he's being an arrogant teenager (well, he's more than a teenager but you wouldn't know it sometimes) and is busy trying to work out who he is and how he relates to the world, and to hanging on to a form of being that he has managed to forge for himself in this hostile world and probably desperate that I don't disapprove, and using attack as the best form of defence - I just grieve for my intelligent, talented, thoughtful son - the person I laughed with and who talked to me and shared his plans and dreams, the person who was such delightful company and so enriched my life, and who could have done anything. God how I miss him.

Of course he had to go - that isn't the problem, at all, it was never a question of me wanting him not to go off and live his life - quite the opposite.  He could have done anything - he didn't have to be "a success" to gain my approval and I was happy for him to follow any path he chose.  Except of course this one - drinking to excess, living for instant gratification, possibly - oh god I hope not probably - taking drugs, wasting money, not following any passion or career path - well, not in any way that will lead to anything that I can understand................Even that would all be OK. well, OK-ish, if it wasn't for this hostility, this seeming need to put me in my place and blame me for any estrangement between us, and always seemingly unprompted - I don't criticise him, don't tell him how to live his life, it just seems to come out of the blue.

And of course, my upbringing and subsequent zero self esteem doesn't  help.  Its a long time since I've felt such a mess.

Ah well. I have booked my ticket for 3 months on the other side of the world later this year and will hang on to that and to all it will bring.  I will escape my mother and hopefully live with my embarrassing and inconvenient medical issue and find a path where I feel I have a right to be here and make a contribution just by being myself.

falling off backwards

My life is pretty content, if you take the bigger picture. But the buggar is the ongoing issues that need sorting.  Its good to parcel them up and see them as projects that need to be dealt with - like work: clock on for a bit, form a plan, do stuff, and clock off and go walk up a mountain.  Mind you its taken me most of my 62 years to realise that!

This wonderful contentment has crept into my life over the last year or so - after a lifetime of looking for it, and failing miserably (don't get me wrong, there's been lots of fab stuff, but it was up and down, up and down, and down again, at times seeming relentlessly) - suddenly it became my default state of being.

But right now I'm feeling a bit vulnerable because for the first time I am considering ratting out and not being there for my mother. It would be good to talk it over, but not something I can discuss with just anybody because it involves saying things like I don't like her, I don't love her, she's been horrible to me all my life, has said horrible things about me to everybody around her, she has affected who I am and how I relate to the world (all negative, I am afraid) in a big way.  And now she's old and vulnerable and on her own.  She's on that upward curve of neediness, the one that starts gradually and gets steeper and steeper (til you think you'll fall off backwards) and we're just on the cusp of where it gets steep.

She got very ill 2 years ago and since then I've known that in a way the party is over: she will need more, she is my mother and felt I could not live with myself if I turned my back on her.  So I have done my daughterly duty which mostly consists of very practical things like sorting papers and ferrying her to and from hospital appointments.

But she played me last week - she has it to a T - she got me running over there for something I could have done over the phone in seconds, and which certainly didn't merit "[pathetic wavery voice] oh I can't go on like this......please can you come and [long pause] well i can't really wait til tomorrow [when I was due to go anyway]".  I arrived, having put my life on hold to sort out her living arrangements, to curt dismissals of my offers to do even the smallest thing.

So, I could do with a bit of support.  I could do with having a bit back - specifically from my son who is on the other side of the world busy proving he doesn't need a mother  - but who instead of a sympathetic ear gave me a litany of complaints about me as a person and about my perception of my mother (who has played him as well.  its what she does.  divide and rule).

So, this week its been exhaustion.

singing for joy

sorry i can't make this all doom and gloom - its meant to be looking at, and working out how to live with, two very difficult and negative elements of my life. And it will, and one day I promise i will tell you what is this horrible unmentionable condition that is making (bits of) my life a misery.  But so far I can't bring myself to say what it actually is, even to you who don't know me and will never meet me.

but first to share with you something that sends me off on duty visits to my difficult, depressing and controlling mother on a cloud of happiness. I sing.  For 58 years i would die rather than have anybody hear me sing - i was brought up to know i was tone deaf (at home "no you can't have piano lessons you are tone deaf, it would be a waste of money" and at school "you there, third from the left at the back, don't sing, don't make a sound, just pretend") and because my upbringing rendered me terrified of ever getting anything wrong i just didn't have the balls to sing anyway.  Oh as an adult I sang in my car, for hours on end at the top of my voice, but that was it, nobody could hear me you see.  Then when I was 58, after 2 years of psyching myself up, i went to a little workshop which claimed to get people singing - and it changed my life! Now I sing, and sing with joy and gusto and it is quite simply wonderful.

So, dropping into a community choir on the way to my mother's and having a good sing means I can get through the visit to Ma with at least some equanimity, and no longer need to allow myself that one g&t on the train home.  Win-Win!

One of my abiding nightmare memories of school was music lessons.  We sat at individual desks and one regular exercise was for the teacher to give us a piece of music on paper, she would start off singing the first note "la" and then point at each of us - when it was our turn we had to sing the next note.  I used to watch it getting closer to my turn.  I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me, anything, anything, but have to do this, to show myself up to everybody, to have her walk up to my desk and loom over me, waiting, waiting. there was no escaping it.  there would be a long silence.  I would look at the note and not have a clue and wanted to die rather than expose my awful voice getting it wrong. Again.  Eventually, realising there was no escape I would mutter, speaking, "la" and she would move on.  Now I realise that everybody else either felt desperately sorry for me, or more likely were too worried about their own imminent turn, but at the time it was traumatic.  Hell, i still feel traumatised thinking about it now.  And even now, knowing i can sing, and am absolutely not tone deaf, i still can't sing on my own.

can't stop grinning!

Friends can't help but notice I seem to be spending half my time in hospital at the moment having tests and, caring and concerned, they want to know about it.  I vaguely mutter things about "womens bits" and "its nothing sinister" and tell them its boring and change the subject. One of the many things that is hard is accepting that for the first time, this is something that is due to bits of me wearing out and no longer functioning properly for all sorts of reasons and IT ISN'T GOING TO GET BETTER.

Always before, things got better.  They could fix it and then it was just a case of getting fit again.  This time they can tinker with it, repair it, do some incredibly basic, practical quick fixes, but they can never make it better.

But its not all bad, this old age business................today I got my new railcard. As a newly qualified state pensioner I can trade in my bus pass and get the railcard for £9.  And was ever £9 better spent!!! So I get 1/3 off all rail fares and can gad off all over the place (and I am a big rail traveller).  NO complaints there! Neither are there any complaints about my state pension arriving every month - enough money to feed and clothe me and pay the bills will be deposited in my account for the rest of my life. It feels like a validation of what I've done with my life, like "they" are saying that I've done my bit, been a good girl and have earned the right to relax and enjoy life with none of this work hassle. Can't stop grinning in fact!

in vino veritas

An email arrived this morning from a friend.  She told me about the way her husband's mother treated him, how he hated her and how the guilt besieged him all his life. She wrote to me because, after a glass of wine, I talked about my own mother, without love, and then the next morning was wracked with guilt and sent her a sad little email.

It is, after all, not done to complain about one's mother. Mother love being unconditional and precious and the foundation of one's happy childhood. Well it is for those that have it.

And now my mother needs support and its down to me to provide it, and so a glass of wine can prompt me to say it how it is.  Loads of women my age have parents who need support, you see them running themselves ragged for 10 years and more, but its hard to relate to them because they love their parents and I am stuck with someone who has simply been horrid to me all my life. Its the pretending.  Pretending I'm doing it for love because its easier that way.  Well, anyway, people assume I'm doing it for love and for the most part I don't disillusion them. And I absolutely do not want to become a boring and bitter person always banging on about what a hard time I am having because there is a huge amount of my life that is simply fab.

So that understanding email from my friend is very precious.

And, very selfishly, I am going to desert my mother for a couple of months or so in the autumn and leave her, and hopefully my unmentionable problem, very far behind as I gad off to somewhere very far away!  Hooray!

shocked by a teenager

A lovely day, waiting for a train in the sun, a friendly, rural town station surrounded by shrubs and flowers.  Chatting to a teenage girl who was perusing an archery catalogue, she's doing Duke of Edinburgh and loving it.  We talked about archery and dressmaking and she told me she wants to join the RAF.  Why? I asked, Because I want to fight she said. Astonished, I stared at her, she was about 14 or 15, articulate, open, bright, together, petite, pretty, feminine.  Why would she want to fight?  You might have to kill people I said, and her gesture clearly said she was quite happy about that.

I was on the way to a hospital appointment, the latest saga in the mission to sort out my most unmentionable problem, the thing I talk about to nobody except the doctor who is treating me and the people he sends me to for tests.  I don't tell my best friends, or random acquaintances, or family, certainly none of my nearest and dearest.  I cringe at the thought of it and wipe clean my browsing history in case anybody should see it and realise I've even been researching it. And it took me 10 years to even mention it to a doctor, and probably wouldn't have done even then, except something else happened which exacerbated it, and as all those bits of me were being examined, prodded, poked and generally violated, I took the plunge and confessed to this most horrid and embarrassing problem.

And they have been wonderful, treating me with courtesy, dignity and humour, and the chances are it will be sorted.  My consultant said he can't fix it so it will be like it was when I was 19 but, hey, if he can fix it at all it will be fab.