feminoz

Courtesy of Noise and Pencils' combined efforts in downloading every computer virus known to man, I've not been posting much of late as by the time I get this computer working, I could have driven round to visit each one one of you in person and sat you down, and filled you in on all that's been going on.

It's okay. I said "I could have"...not "I'm going to". You can come out from behind the couch now.

In brief: (if you believe that, you're new. Hello! Welcome!)

I ended up in the hospital a week ago when the discs in my lower back all decided to bulge at once and compress the spinal nerves, which resulted in making living impossible. What a hoot that was! My 80-year old mother followed the ambulance there because she cares and wanted to help, but it was such a stinking hot day that I ended up more worried about her driving in the heat and becoming exhausted, standing around listening to me whining. Actually, the hyperventilation kept the whining to a minimum, I must say. Although it must also be said that my idea of "minimum" may not be anybody else's...

I'm on the mend again, thankfully. I certainly didn't want to stay in hospital - I hate hospitals - and being a back injury they didn't particularly want me there either. The very nice doctor gave me lots of strong pain relief drugs (which didn't do much that day) while the very patronising physiotherapist came in and annoyed me immensely. Given that my entire torso seemed to have gone into a spasm that gripped like a vice and made breathing extremely difficult I wasn't exactly in the mood for discussing the benefits of hydrotherapy right then and there. After repeat returns from the physiotherapist during the day, I acted like any mature mother of two would and pretended he was invisible.

Once I could move and breathe at the same time, some seven hours later, I had to swallow my pride and call Mr Grumpy to come and get me, as there was no way I could fold my spine enough to get down into Mother's little car. He did so - not graciously because these days Mr Grumpy alternates like a metronome between really disliking me a great deal and wanting to do nice things for me, which can be confusing. This particular day his less than loving feelings for me were pretty high on the scale and yet he still undertook to help out, even though it meant leaving his business in 40-plus degree heat. I'm not making him out to be the bad guy here , however seeing the anger in his face and the conflict that being around me seems to cause makes me feel guilty and sad, neither of which I want to feel any more. More on that later.

So there we were at home, Pencils, Noise, Mother and me. By this stage I was in less pain. Pencils went to the school disco that night - another mother kindly offered to drive her there and home again. It has been a long, tiring day for everyone and it was nice to be home in the cool house. Mr Grumpy made pasta for dinner and delivered it. I know, what a total bastard, right??? Then Pencil's school principal rang an hour later to inform us that Pencils had hurt her knee (there's been a spate of hurty knees going around our family of late) and was being driven home.

Even my sainted mother was rolling her eyes at this point and looking for the closest escape route. As was the dog. Pencils arrived home in tears, in pain and whilst I considered giving her some of the drugs the hospital had provided I didn't because I'm not a bad a mother as that......I told her that none of us was up to a return trip to the hospital so instead I administered nurofen, installed her in Grandpa's ugly old recliner and within a short while she had a packet of chips, an orange fizzy drink,an icepack on her knee and a little smile on her wan, tear-streaked face.

Pencils is 11. She looks 13, but she's 11 and she's still my baby. She's almost as tall as me, talks back, knows it all already and she's still my baby. She's all grown up and is still a little girl. What a time we're in! But if orange fizzy drink does the trick - and it does - then fizzy drink it is, no matter if it's after 9 o'clock at night. I wonder how long for though? She and her brother then sat and watched Scrubs on DVD, a current favourite. It's a fine line between goodmother/badmother you know.

Then I found out what the bloody stupid cat had done on my bed which was the final straw. Some shrieking was warranted and went some way to reassuring my family that I was on the way back to normal, for me.

Grandma put Pencils to bed and was sent then home with firm instructions to stay out of the heat and keep her aircon on and reassured that she would be called if needed. Noise was made responsible for the cat's behaviour as he's the one who let the cat in there in the first place. This dreadful behaviour of the cat's is apparently some way the cat has of letting the dog know who's boss. Stupid cat. I'm boss and my bed is a SACRED SPACE. Bloody cat will never see the inside of this house again. Ever.

I collapsed into the bed eventually and had a moment or two of savouring the fresh linen before passing out. I must have been so tired that I didn't even have time to fret about how to get Pencils to the doctor the next day.

The hospital had told me not to go to work for a week but given our fondness for eating and having amenities, and stuff at our house, I only took the next day off. The bitches at work were, well, bitches about it but that's because they are stupid, and don't know any other way to be. (I truly believe that if they had good sex more often they'd be a lot happier. Like me.)

The next day, a miracle took place. No, the Virgin Mary's face did not appear in the bottom of my coffee cup. It was something way more amazing than that.

The father took Pencils to the medical centre to have her knee looked at.

Of course, not without some initial resistance; he tried to wiggle out of it at first but it did happen.

As it was another 40-plus degree day of heat (today, incidentally is the first cooler day in two weeks) and Noise's school aircon had collapsed under the strain we were all at home when the father arrived, followed closely behind by Mr Grumpy who had very kindly picked up more drugs from the pharmacy for me. The father always puts on a good front when Grumpy is around, so off went the father, Noise and Pencils leaving me to my own devices.

For those of you who don't know, hurty backs are not meant to be rested in bed. Of course, weight lifting and tree-climbing are off the agenda but lying around is not good. Nor is sitting. So the day was spent with me wandering around the house doing some light cleaning. In other words, everything at waist-height was clear and clean, whilst the floor remained covered in the detritus that the kids leave everywhere and the dust bunnies sat smugly in the corners.

Whilst I have drugs to deal with the pain, I can't take them, because when I take them I feel woozy and I can't drive. Of course, we all know I'm a big fan of the woozy - particularly the alcohol- fuelled kind (naturally, I don't drive then either, which is why I limit my boozing to nights when the kids aren't with me or are prepared to accept they won't be driven anywhere. See "good mother") .

I'm not complaining (much) and I'm not looking for sympathy, unless it's in the form of large donations of cash and bottles of fine wine delivered to my front door by someone who looks like this:

I'm just figuring out a new way to live.

To which end, I'm off down the beach to walk the dog. I want to be around to shriek at the people I love for as long as possible and being overweight and taking pain killers isn't going to cut it. This week I went swimming in the sea, for the first time since Pencil's brush with the shark back in 2007.

So now I'm going to be walking, swimming, attempting gentle yoga and, sadly, cutting back on the booze - I said cutting back, not giving up... and ...oh god...cheese. It's going to be difficult. I've had a love affair with brie that's lasted longer than any other relationship in my life.

Quick, run away now. It's evolving from a mommyblog to a .....ugh....weightloss blog.

Enjoy your weekend, possums.