Day to day musings of a cat minder/ sitter in North Tyneside and Newcastle upon Tyne . For details of services go to http://www.catminders.biz

Welcome to CatMinders

Welcome to CatMinders


Thursday 6 September 2007

Sea Monkeys ?

But you do have to find humour in every situation . Mine came after I had apologised to D for being a grumpy old misery when I was trying to speed him up finding the pills and he couldnt go any faster through my cess pits of drawers full of junk and pills .
But the humour was a private moment later when I was lying there thinking my thoughts , pain temporarily ebbed and my mind doing a re run of the night before . Just seconds before the doctor arrived I had been lying on the bathroom floor . In a final burst of action I threw up all over myself , all over the towel I was carrying and down my PJ s and , well , there were blackberries everywhere and I was choking and coughing . It went on and on , and Nat came in and the doorbell rang and D went to get it and I asked Nat to get me some new pyjama bottoms to change into quickly as the original pair were all puked . She ran along to the drawers , they got me a new pair , she came in to help me change , D showed the docs to the bedroom , trying to clear out the four cats who were all in there trying to assist ( last time Pearl went into his medical bag, tired of waiting for him )
. D made the right noises to the docs , I tried to clean up as best I could ( minging hair , face , teeth . Yuk) .
I bunged all the dirty stuff into the bidet and dragged myself along to our room .
Here I am .
I lie on the bed , D asks Nat to keep all the cats out if she can ( no mean feat to eject them all and answer questions ) .

The doc is asking me stuff now to try to work out if Ive got meningitis , if I'm always this dozy ( or just plain dim ), meanwhile teaching his student at the same time .
Nat answers a question about my preventors and suddenly D shoots off and is missing for a few minutes .
Out of the corner of my brain I register that he has gone and wonder ..... where'd he go ? Is there a problem ?

Later , after I'm injected and a bit more reasonable , he tells me two things
a) the reason he was carrying the sea monkeys in his arms during the latter part of the consult was he caught Pearl trying to tip them off the sill and it was the only thing he could think to do with them , under pressure ( you all know what sea monkeys are , right?)
and
b) no need for me to worry about the puked on clothes, he managed to slip out during a lull in procedings and pop them in to soak in the big sink downstairs . And now they're properly washed and out to dry on the line .

When he told me , I think I just stared ....

Later , when quite alone , I texted my sister .
Like I said in my profile , she and D have a special understanding .

Apart from Nat , they're two of my favourite people in all the world .
What would I do without them ?

Blackberry Crumble ....


....and this my friends was my sorry downfall on Monday night , or was it Tuesday night ? The days all merge into one . All I know is its now Thursday and its the first day Ive been dressed much less out in days .
I got two more migraines one in am one pm, on Tuesday, complete with visual disturbances and later , whilst I lay moaning to myself and begging D not to leave me whilst he waited for the emergency doctor to come out ( again, there was one here about a week ago ), vomiting of the above blackberry crumble in various stages .
Two points here , if you are not feeling well , blackberries are much nicer to eject that the usual carrots , and point two , its truly wonderful to have a lovely clean shiny bidet for that purpose and well worth the two hundred quid I splashed out on it about ten years ago . It means you can safely lie on the cool tiles on a nice smelling towel until the last minute , then lean over that ( from the floor) at the appropriate moment .
Commenting on such matters is clearly a sad state of affairs , but when there isn't much else going on for two days besides excrutiating pain in the head and neck interspersed with nausea and vomit and the dreaded almost above all else of being unable to see properly and thus unable to read.
I usually manage to contain myself , stay as quiet as possible , and talk in my head to myself about the fact that migraine isnt going to kill me ( though I sometimes feel like doing it myself to escape the pain ) , that it can go on and on and probably will keep coming back , but that like all feelings , emotions , sensations , it passes , and the pain will pass.
But it was harder this time , for some reason . Sometimes it just gets too much , the recurrence so soon after the last one when I haven't even had the chance to get to the GP to ask for another referral on , to look at changing medication yet again .
After the problems last time when I tried a new medication for epilepsy and ended up having a reaction to that over several months which affected my chest so badly that I broke four ribs coughing . Almost losing my job through the amount of time off . Watching people who have to live with me , watching me repeatedly vomiting and crying with the pain . Having to cancel things Ive really looked forwards to . Having to miss work and let people down . Etc . It goes on .
N always knows what to do , sometimes she steers clear , sometimes she comes and involves herself . On Tuesday night , late , when I was choking in the hall outside her room stayed put till I was past and the choking was over . The previous emergency night I was bending over the bidet , covered in mess and she was behind me pulling my hair back into a hairband . How did she know to do that ?
It was harder this time and I almost lost it whilst waiting for the doctor to arrive , getting in a sudden panic and begging D to get me tablets . I just think I can't keep on in this pain for much longer . My bedside cabinets are full of medications tried and tested over the months , years, and though I know exactly and in detail what they all are and how they work and how to use them , part of the migraine is that my speech becomes confused so that I can't explain myself to other people . There are anti sickness drugs , painkillers of varying strengths , anti inflammatories , and once , given by a GP when I was very lucky , again on an emergency visit , some diazepam ( oh joy, the muscles just flop and the pain seems to ooze away) .
I try to get D to find me an anti emetic and a diclofenac to take as a last ditch attempt .. but he is struggling to work out which is which ( no surprise as there are piles of medications all in different sizes and strengths and in a variety of colours and with different names . I'm asking him please just give me them now I can't wait any more and in a flurry he finds me something to take but its too late , the sickness is taking me over and that's it I'm in the vomitarium .
The doctors , when they come two of them this time , ask their questions and N knows most of the answers . I notice how she stands on the edge but takes control where needed ( having known me longer than D ) . They don't hang about and in twenty minutes or so the end is in sight ......

Migraine Days

Migraine Days

Flower and Bee on a Sunday

Flower and Bee on a Sunday

art on a sunday

art on a sunday