Some Improvements At Last in Scottish Meanderings

I remember when on a holiday in Yorkshire a long time ago with Nikki and her cousin, Caroline, in a desperate attempt to get privacy to write my diary, I ended up in the private sauna room which was part of our holiday cottage. The girls would have been about 13 at the time and they thought it fun to seek me out and bug me, knowing I was desperate for 5 minutes peace. Once Caroline realised what I was doing she incredulously asked, genuinely puzzled, “But what on earth do you write about?”.

It’s a strange thing this diary writing business - what makes someone want to keep a diary and be compelled to write about the minutiae of life? It totally fascinates me and one of the things I’m going to do when I’m better is check out the Mass Observation Project which originally started during the war as a sort of social experiment. People were selected to write diaries about their experiences during the war and were given directives about once a month from the Mass Observation office but all writing was kept anonymous so that they would not be identified. Some very prolific writers emerged which otherwise would never have seen the light of day. I think this project still exists actually - I seem to remember seeing a website a few years ago and discovering people are still writing for them - I must check it out properly sometime.


I’m now in the fourth month of withdrawal and at last starting to see some overall improvements. It’s been a long time coming as it was this time last year that I started to go into interdose withdrawal which I mistook for a relapse of the chronic fatigue and by July I was unable to go out anywhere at all without becoming ill. By August I was getting one hour’s sleep a night, experiencing anxiety which was off the charts, totally unable to nap during the day and was in the grip of an all-encompassing fear and severe agoraphobia which rendered me completely dysfunctional for several months.

It’s a long time to be ill and so totally disconnected from the world and the whole experience has left me really shattered and actually quite blindsided. I don’t think you can come through something like that and not be marked in some way. I’ve also been completely shocked by the way some members of my family have handled it (or rather not handled it) but I think that’s fodder for a different entry. Let’s concentrate on the good stuff for this one!

In the past few weeks I’ve finally been able to poke a hole in the dreadful agoraphobia which is part of this thing and take the car out for short journeys. I’d been able to go to TESCO (a supermarket within the housing estate) once or twice as long as I parked in the staff car park round the back as I couldn’t yet cope with getting stuck in traffic queues or at lights. I could also only (with a lot of self-talk and deep breathing) manage to get inside the shop, grab a couple of sandwiches then get the hell out of there as soon as possible but not long into the New Year I began to get slightly better days so decided to try again and this time I was in there for about the length of time for a normal shop. I kept buying a few things, shoving them through the checkout, assessing body and brain, realising I was okay and trying again. I ended up doing that 5 times in total and kept expecting a heavy hand on my shoulder as the Store Detective grew increasingly suspicious!

So that was good.

The following week I had some medication to pick up. Normally the local Pharmacy delivers it but I’d been out when they’d come so instead of getting it re-delivered, I tried doing a dry run on the Sunday for the real thing on the Monday. That was quite a big deal because it was the first time I’d driven outside of the housing estate I live in and was further than I’d been before, not to mention tackling main roads. But I managed and bought the cats some tins of tuna chunks from a local shop to celebrate! Unfortunately the Monday wasn’t a good day so the real thing didn’t happen but, encouraged by the outing, I attempted getting to a Post Office roughly the same distance away in the opposite direction the following week and made that as well. Which meant that my nephew and his wife in New York finally got the present I’d bought for their new baby born in September last year!

That same week I decided to attempt something else I’ve been waiting 8 months to do and asked Nikki if she could pick me up to go and watch Lily at her swimming lesson. She goes on a Tuesday at 5.30 p.m. and I used to pop down in my car and watch her while helping Nikki look after Lilah at the same time. It’s been really horrible not being able to go all these months but finally, that week, I got there. I could hardly believe the difference in her confidence and ability since last I’d seen her - it was great to see how much she’d lost her fear of the water and was quite happy to tackle anything thrown at her.

The ‘getting there’ bit was slightly hilarious. It had been so long since I'd been that I’d mistakenly thought the class started at 5 so I was all ready for Nikki around 4.30. At 10 to 5 and terrified she’d forgotten she was picking me up, I texted her to ask if I should walk down to the main road to save time and was relieved when she said she was stuck on the busy main road not far from my place. So a few minutes later I started walking down the road and this black car came up my street and started slowing down then stopped at the side of the road. Because it's so dark at that time of night you can’t see who’s inside any of the cars - all you see are their lights - so thinking this was her, I ran across to get in the passenger side - whereupon the car sped up and turned into my cul de sac to park in a drive a few doors down from me!

Laughing to myself I nonchalantly continued walking down the street (as though I hadn't just made a fool of myself) until I reached the main road where I crossed to wait for Nikki. About five minutes later a black car slowed down again, did a U-turn at the bottom of my road so that they were facing the other way and stopped at my side of the road right beside me. Still unable to see inside, I ran round to the passenger side and got in. I heard the driver’s door open as I did so but thought Nikki was just sorting something out with the girls. Except there were no girls. As realisation dawned, the driver’s door opened again and a voice said quite calmly “Em - I think you’ve got the wrong car.” Mortified and unable to believe it had happened AGAIN, I scrambled out full of apologies and explanations. She wasn’t the slightest bit phased and incredulously, left her car open as she carried on her way to the local community centre where she was obviously picking someone up. The community centre is down a path and round the corner so there was no way she could see the car once she was round that corner. I was gobsmacked that she didn’t bother to lock it despite the fact all manner of strange women were gaily plonking themselves in her passenger seat without so much as a by your leave!!

Thankfully the third car which stopped contained my family😊

This week's been a rough one and I didn't make it to see Lily which was heartbreaking. However I didn't think she would really miss me as her world has expanded somewhat now with starting school and going to all sorts of classes. And then Nikki told me when she was watching her on Tuesday night, she suddenly stared at someone, lifted her swimming goggles to get a better look then her face fell and she put them back in place. When Nikki looked, it was a woman with white hair she was looking at so, guessing what had happened, she checked with her afterwards and sure enough, she'd thought it was me and got all excited thinking I'd made it down to see her! 😍

I’ve been setting myself little goals, not to be done in any timeframe but just ‘the next thing to tackle’ so to speak. On Saturday I decided to have a go at getting to the local library, about 20 minutes drive away. I was quite uncomfortable when I got there but I made myself stick it out for half an hour which resulted in this:


So nice to see a big pile of books by the bedside again and have that delight of choosing which one to delve into first!

And I made it to our other nearby supermarket - Asda - a couple of weeks ago. It's a bit further away and the route crosses a very busy main road so it was a pretty scary prospect. I got there and filled the car up with petrol plus checked the tyres pressure so was pleased to get those done as there was no point in tootling around in a car which wasn't fit to take me anywhere! It seems to have fared okay despite not being used for months - there's a funny noise coming from the back somewhere and the heater seems to have stopped working but apart from that, it's getting me from A to B so I can't complain. Once I'm better I'll put it in to the garage to get checked over just to ensure everything's okay.

On Wednesday it was the turn of going to Tesco ‘the proper way’ which meant waiting at the traffic lights (always busy) both ways and parking in the normal car park. I managed that okay so pushed a little further and tackled a very busy bridge and roundabout and had the reward of some different scenery for my walk. That's always nice. Next thing will be a roundabout adjoining a dual carriageway - it's an extremely busy roundabout and one you really need to keep your wits about you to navigate so I'll leave that for a 'good' day. Getting that under my belt will make me feel a bit more confident and after that I'll aim for getting into town (about 30 minutes drive) and back.

On Monday I'm hoping to see my friend, Andrea, whom I haven't seen since June last year. I wasn't able to deal with having anyone round to the house even for a short time - the effort was just too much and there was no enjoyment in it - plus it was really difficult to explain because naturally, folk think as you're so isolated, you'd be desperate to see people. And you are but you just can't cope with them. It's so cruel. So up to now, it's just been family and my best friend Janice. Andrea was supposed to come round last Monday afternoon but I had a horrible day and wasn't fit for it so we cancelled and rearranged for this coming week instead. Fingers crossed it'll be a better day.

This week's been brutal and it's been hard to stay positive. However I know that this is perfectly normal and I just have to realise it's a long process and be patient. Easier said than done though! I'm desperate to be able to drive out to Nikki's to see the girls but I know I'm going to have to wait until I can be sure I'll make it out there, be able to stay for an hour or so then manage to drive back again. Janice stays in a small town about 10 miles further on than Nikki so we've decided if there's a day some weekend (she works full time) where she's staying in and I'm having a good day I might try driving out to see her as a sort of trial run.

Nikki still comes in after Lilah's swimming lesson on Thursday mornings (I still have to stay in bed in the mornings so can't go and watch her) so I get some time with her then but I don't see Lily apart from Tuesdays at her swimming.

I love it when kids play with stuff that's just lying around instead of all the expensive up-to-the-minute toys or electronic devices that fly around these days. When Lilah was here on Thursday she came up to my bedroom as I was still getting dressed etc when they arrived. Nikki had bought her a Kinder egg and she was absolutely delighted with the toy in it and played with it for ages. When I was at the stage of being in bed all the time the poor girls had to find things to play with in my bedroom and they used to love playing with all the little dishes or trinkets on my bookcase shelves. We found a tiny pink My Little Pony in one of them which must have been secreted away on one of those days months ago and she played 'housies' with both of them for ages quite happily!


And Willow's still hanging in there.


Looking pretty exhausted and 'throughother' these days but he's eating, drinking and going out to poo so I figure he's still got life in him yet. He gave me a scare last week when he seemed to have hurt one of his back legs and couldn't quite get up on anything properly - and getting down again was a crash-to-the-ground affair. Despite me taking his bed upstairs and laying a huge blanket on my bedroom floor by the side of my bed (because it's laminate flooring), he ignored them all and crashed off the end of it instead!! We took him to the vet's and I was able to go with Nikki this time which was great - it's been purgatory not even being able to take your own cat to the vet when he's so ill! The vet we saw couldn't find anything wrong with his leg but thought it might be a blood clot which is moving around or just his heart getting worse and causing him to be shaky on his feet. He seemed to improve in the next couple of days so I took heart but he's definitely a bit shakier overall now so she might be right.

I wish I knew how much distress he was in. Going to the vet's always causes his heartrate to soar (even when he was healthy it did that) so it's difficult for them to assess him. On our recent visit it was something like 240 when the norm is 140 or thereabouts - or was that respiration? I'm not sure. It was off the charts anyway I know that. He seems unable to settle in any one place for long - in the morning when I'm in bed he's on and off the bed every 10 minutes or so - which can't be doing him any good - although might help him not to stiffen up. I've discovered he seems to like to lie down on the floor of my wardrobe and be 'hidden' and he stays there for a while so I try and remember to partially open the door of it when I get up in the morning to feed them all.

Poor Snarf gets his nose put out of joint when Willow jumps up to lie beside me. If Snarf is there already, he unceremoniously gets shoved down to the foot of the bed as my body shifts over to make room for Willow. I keep telling him Willow's at death's door and his time will come but he doesn't believe me - perhaps because I've been telling him that for the last 4 months now!

So he looks like this for a while then spreads himself out on my feet and has a nap while he ponders life.