There's a woman sitting in the carrel opposite me (in the library) who just answered her cell phone, and she has a South African accent, and I'm finding myself wanting to jump on her and hug her for no reason at all. She's my mother's age, average-looking, and most importantly, female. Before she started talking I barely noticed she was there. There is no reason whatsoever for me to feel this way right now.
It's the accent. I could listen to those accents all day. Even fake ones do it for me, if they're reasonably good; Leonardo DiCaprio did it pretty well (in my uneducated opinion) in Blood Diamond, and I found myself drooling over him in a way I haven't since Romeo and Juliet came out when I was about 12.
I always knew I had a thing for South African guys, but if it's affecting me even with middle-aged women now, I may start to worry.
Things are okay right now. Anyone who's been keeping up to date with my statuses knows about my Dad's stroke, but he's over the crisis period now, and what's left is a lot of hard work. Luckily he has private health insurance with work (even though he retired awhile ago, he's done some occasional consulting work for them, so they kept the insurance up, which is a gift from God) so he's been moved out of the Whittington to a private room at the Wellington Hospital, in St. John's Wood. Which is great - while the Whittington gives really good patient care (or as good as any overworked staff can give), it was impossible to rest there, and you can't really get better from something like a stroke if you can't sleep. The place he's in now is really nice - he has his own room, with a little terrace so he can be wheeled out there to sit in the sun if he feels like it, and a little sofa and chair and a writing desk for when he's well enough to write again. I went there the other day, and was very happy with his change in surroundings.
I forgot how much I like St. John's Wood, too. I briefly dated a guy - Michael the Physio (why do I always think of guys by their profession, instead of by their surnames? I don't think I even know the surnames of half the guys I've gone out with, and if I've dated more than one guy by that name I always think of them in terms of job, for some reason) - who had his apartment and offices just off the main road there, but I hadn't been there since maybe 2004, and somehow I forgot what a really, really nice place it is. A little oasis of calm in the middle of London, but without the suburban feel of much of North London.
It was a really nice day, actually. I stayed a few hours with my Dad and Jackie, and then met a friend for dinner in Leicester Square, and hung around the Trocadero for awhile afterwards. I don't go out for the evening all that much these days; when I'm not feeling well I tend towards reclusiveness, and I don't feel well most of the time. So when I do have an evening out, it's really nice, especially when it's a relaxed one where you don't feel pressured into doing things, and you can just walk and talk and enjoy the ambiance.
But anyway, my Dad...yeah. He's doing well, although it'll be a long haul. He has some movement in his right side now, and he's managing to eat things like soup and yoghurts, but he still has his feeding tube in (or did on Monday, hopefully he's had it removed by now) and can't talk, although he manages to make a couple of syllables, sort of on his breath without using his vocal chords.
Jackie is wonderful, though. She teaches phonics to her kids at school (she teaches 3-4 year olds) so she's in good standing to help him with his speech problems, and she never gives up on things. I don't know what we'd all do if she weren't around.
As for me, I've been struggling with these fevers since February, although I haven't been feeling well at all since last August. It got worse in February, though, and I was given the tentative diagnosis of glandular fever. But it doesn't seem to have gotten better. I'm tired all the time, even more tired than I usually am from the ME alone, and every couple of days a new set of lymph nodes comes up and gives me agonizing pains for a few days before disappearing again. And I have really strange fevers: they come and go, and when I'm having one you can feel the heat radiating from me from three feet away, and if you use a forehead thermometer the indicator shoots up, yet when I try to take my temperature using a thermometer in my mouth - any thermometer; I've tried four or five in case one was broken - it's always pretty much normal, maybe a degree or a degree and a half high.
I have an appointment with the doctor on Monday, but I'm not overly hopeful that they'll find anything. Maybe that's cynical, but I'm so tired of doctors who never manage to tell me what's wrong with me. And I'm tired of putting on weight, because I can't go to the gym, because every time I start using the crosstrainer or treadmill, my temperature and heart rate shoot up so high that the machine start beeping loudly. And I'm tired of not being able to buy anything that isn't strictly necessary, not even books or foods, because I can't go back to work - they won't let me back until I get a doctor's note that says my fever is gone, and I don't have any infectious diseases, and all I can do for now is paperwork at home - and my already meager savings are totally depleted now.
So that's my life. I have plenty of hope and optimism about my Dad's condition. Not so much about my own. But most days I manage to get through with a smile, so that's something.
Don't pity me too much, though. There are some moments - and some people - who make it all worthwhile.
It's the accent. I could listen to those accents all day. Even fake ones do it for me, if they're reasonably good; Leonardo DiCaprio did it pretty well (in my uneducated opinion) in Blood Diamond, and I found myself drooling over him in a way I haven't since Romeo and Juliet came out when I was about 12.
I always knew I had a thing for South African guys, but if it's affecting me even with middle-aged women now, I may start to worry.
Things are okay right now. Anyone who's been keeping up to date with my statuses knows about my Dad's stroke, but he's over the crisis period now, and what's left is a lot of hard work. Luckily he has private health insurance with work (even though he retired awhile ago, he's done some occasional consulting work for them, so they kept the insurance up, which is a gift from God) so he's been moved out of the Whittington to a private room at the Wellington Hospital, in St. John's Wood. Which is great - while the Whittington gives really good patient care (or as good as any overworked staff can give), it was impossible to rest there, and you can't really get better from something like a stroke if you can't sleep. The place he's in now is really nice - he has his own room, with a little terrace so he can be wheeled out there to sit in the sun if he feels like it, and a little sofa and chair and a writing desk for when he's well enough to write again. I went there the other day, and was very happy with his change in surroundings.
I forgot how much I like St. John's Wood, too. I briefly dated a guy - Michael the Physio (why do I always think of guys by their profession, instead of by their surnames? I don't think I even know the surnames of half the guys I've gone out with, and if I've dated more than one guy by that name I always think of them in terms of job, for some reason) - who had his apartment and offices just off the main road there, but I hadn't been there since maybe 2004, and somehow I forgot what a really, really nice place it is. A little oasis of calm in the middle of London, but without the suburban feel of much of North London.
It was a really nice day, actually. I stayed a few hours with my Dad and Jackie, and then met a friend for dinner in Leicester Square, and hung around the Trocadero for awhile afterwards. I don't go out for the evening all that much these days; when I'm not feeling well I tend towards reclusiveness, and I don't feel well most of the time. So when I do have an evening out, it's really nice, especially when it's a relaxed one where you don't feel pressured into doing things, and you can just walk and talk and enjoy the ambiance.
But anyway, my Dad...yeah. He's doing well, although it'll be a long haul. He has some movement in his right side now, and he's managing to eat things like soup and yoghurts, but he still has his feeding tube in (or did on Monday, hopefully he's had it removed by now) and can't talk, although he manages to make a couple of syllables, sort of on his breath without using his vocal chords.
Jackie is wonderful, though. She teaches phonics to her kids at school (she teaches 3-4 year olds) so she's in good standing to help him with his speech problems, and she never gives up on things. I don't know what we'd all do if she weren't around.
As for me, I've been struggling with these fevers since February, although I haven't been feeling well at all since last August. It got worse in February, though, and I was given the tentative diagnosis of glandular fever. But it doesn't seem to have gotten better. I'm tired all the time, even more tired than I usually am from the ME alone, and every couple of days a new set of lymph nodes comes up and gives me agonizing pains for a few days before disappearing again. And I have really strange fevers: they come and go, and when I'm having one you can feel the heat radiating from me from three feet away, and if you use a forehead thermometer the indicator shoots up, yet when I try to take my temperature using a thermometer in my mouth - any thermometer; I've tried four or five in case one was broken - it's always pretty much normal, maybe a degree or a degree and a half high.
I have an appointment with the doctor on Monday, but I'm not overly hopeful that they'll find anything. Maybe that's cynical, but I'm so tired of doctors who never manage to tell me what's wrong with me. And I'm tired of putting on weight, because I can't go to the gym, because every time I start using the crosstrainer or treadmill, my temperature and heart rate shoot up so high that the machine start beeping loudly. And I'm tired of not being able to buy anything that isn't strictly necessary, not even books or foods, because I can't go back to work - they won't let me back until I get a doctor's note that says my fever is gone, and I don't have any infectious diseases, and all I can do for now is paperwork at home - and my already meager savings are totally depleted now.
So that's my life. I have plenty of hope and optimism about my Dad's condition. Not so much about my own. But most days I manage to get through with a smile, so that's something.
Don't pity me too much, though. There are some moments - and some people - who make it all worthwhile.
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