Sunday, January 29, 2012

School Holiday Fun Times

Hello my friend!

It’s always so lovely to receive one of your emails, they are both informative and witty – as one ought to expect coming from a man possessing these same attributes.

All is travelling along nicely as we count down the days until school returns for the almost 8 year old and begins for the 6 year old, late in the week. We had a deliberately quiet start to the holidays, as both boys were utterly depleted after a full year of learning and growing. It really takes it out of them, the whole school thing. Pussies, really. We had grand plans for the second half of the holidays, however two unexpected events nipped that in the bud. The first was when, in an uncharacteristic outburst of physical output in the garden, I upset my spinal applecart, as it were, and ended up out of action for 4 days with something called a sacral shear. Look it up, you’ll recoil in horror. Imagine your sacrum is twisted so that it is likened to two wet panes of glass rubbing together, and you will start to get the idea. That will teach me for not strengthening my ab region after carrying three babies in 6 years. The swelling was unsightly. The spasming painful in ways that literally took my breath away. It was fucked up.

So I recover from that horror with strong support from my sister and mother, and put into action Operation Holiday Fun – Phase 1. This involved a treck down to the Home Town, staying a night at Mum’s and a night at my oldest and dearest friend’s house. You met her at the races. She wore grey. Anywho, the drive down was seamless which is no small thing given the car full of children, push bikes, luggage etc. I put in down to the built in DVD player that we wisely optioned up to when we purchased the Kluger a couple of years back. We only use it on trips of 2 hours or more, but sweet jesus it was worth it. We arrive in the Home Town at half past five, and decided to have a play in the local park for half an hour before making our way to Nana’s, as she is on her way home from work. As we pull up to said park, which features a skate bowl, wide open spaces and brand new play ground, I get a phone call from my a friend. You may recall her from my former life as my bestie, with whom I would go out and drink etc. So, she calls me to let me know that she has finally graduated from rehab, a first for her despite half a dozen previous attempts and several facilities. Obviously, this was joyous news, and I chatted with her for 15 minutes or so in between getting the bikes and scooters out of the car for my children and making my way over to the play ground with the 2 year old (a major swing fan). As I am winding up the chat, a figure appears in my periphery, and it turns out to be an old school chum. We hang out, her with her three sprogs and a ring in, me with mine, and we arrange to catch up for morning tea on Friday morn at our other friend's house, where we will be staying Thursday night.

So all good thus far. I drop the children off to Mum at 6, then head out and order pizza for everyone. A pleasant night is had by all.

I awake to the disconcerting awareness that my eyelids are itchy and swollen, and quickly diagnose a mozzie attack. I am not impressed. There are about 5 individual lumps on each eye. This does not make for a good look. As the day wears on, further “bites” emerge throughout my scalp, neck and ears (inside & out). I arrive at my friend’s sprawling family home scratching the living shite out of my general head area. We diagnose an errant flea. As the itching and burning worsens through the day into the evening, we investigate how one rids oneself of a flea in the scalp, and conclude the ol’ vinegar shampoo followed by a leave in vinegar rinse is the go. We apply these and feel very good about our aceness. Mum pops over in the evening with some antihistamine. She warns in an ominous tone that the raised itchy burning welts and lumps appear, to her, to be an allergic reaction rather than bites. I roll my eyes in typical daughter fashion. She leaves. I drink wine with friends and go to bed.

I awake to find the situation has, in fact, worsened significantly, and that the rash, as we will now call it, is appearing either side of my “fun bits”, down my arms, between my fun bags and further down my neck. I look like a right freak show, and scratch with unbridled abandon despite my friend's screeching in her best motherly screeching voice that I should stop. Mum, meanwhile, has made an appointment with a GP in Leongatha for me at midday. Our other friend arrives at around ten, and I make my apologies and leave for my appointment at half past eleven. The kindly old GP takes one look at me, asks me a few questions and then snickers that no flea ever made such a meal of a person, I have indeed had an allergic reaction to something and the “bites” are actually hives. Hot, burning, itchier than the itchiest itch EVER, hives. I had begun taking a dose of magnesium vitamin supplement in order to attempt to combat the severity of the PMS I had been experiencing. The dose suggested on the label was, specifically for PMS, take 3 x 150mg tablets daily. I had done so twice. This, in hindsight, exceeds the recommended safe dose for adults by some 200mg. To cut a long story short, the GP was right, I was wrong, my chiropractor agreed and I feel like a fucking imbecile. Our chiro explained that what I had, in fact, done, was to chelate my blood, and the hives, which had started to turn black in some areas, were actually pools of blood being pulled from deep inside my muscle tissue and organs. The only thing more traumatic, he continued to inform me, that I could have done to my blood system, would have been to got the blood transfusion option. Righto then.

It is taking a loooooooooong time for my body to right this massive imbalance, and I am getting the odd hive break out a couple of times a day but the severity is easy to cope with in comparison to a week ago. In between all of this was a visit from our mutual friends, which was lovely but marred by the discomfort I was in. Given the rareness of an audience with the wonderful red headed chum, however, there was no chance of my cancelling so it was a matter of suck it up, soldier on and drink plenty of wine in a vain hope of rendering myself numb. It didn’t work but I’d have been foolish not to give it a red hot go, I’m sure you agree.

So that’s been my couple of weeks. Fun, huh? The children are looking forward to getting back into the swing of real life, and I suspect equally looking forward to getting the fuck away from their cranky pants mother. Being vaguely handicapped and physically deformed by hives, it turns out, doesn’t really agree with my personality type, and I’ve behaved like a right fucking bitch. Something for them to serve up to the shrink when they reach that stage of life, obviously.

I must now away, my lovely friend, I trust that the days consisting of therapeutically painful foot rubs and the like wont drain you too much of your joie de vivre, you poor pet. Don’t know how you stand it, frankly. Rightio, off to the washing, change an arse and put a 2 year old to bed, wash the dishes AGAIN (did I mention that our dishwasher packed up? No? It did) and get stuck in to the ironing.