"Dear Dr. Google,
I hate you. You are a scaremongering bastard and a rubbish doctor and you should be stricken off and did I mention that I hate you?
Also, I hate you. You suck.
Shut up.
Love (hate,)
Lou"
I'd like to apologise in advance for this post, as it may come across that I am on some sort of an insanity bender. I'm not (very much). After relapsing into a fit of abject terror that I'm about to drop dead at any given minute, I figured that dumping (not like that, sicko) a bunch of text onto a pretend piece of paper floating around in the wisdom-fuelled cosmos that is "THE INTERNET" might be a good way for me to bleach my brain.
2009 was not, I repeat, NOT a good year for my family. My mama and I seemed to suffer the most because, as women, we're inherently mental anyway. Sorry, feminists, but it's true. My grandfather on my mum's side passed away in early 2009 and it hit the family like a tonne of bricks.
To mama and I, he was our "man." He was her daddy, and he was my 'Grampyabadoo.' While I'm sure that many women think that the most treasured men in their lives are the best, we KNEW that he was. He was strong, hard-working, fiercely loving and could dazzle a lady 20 years his junior at 100 feet with a cheeky grin and flash of his teeth. He can't take much credit for the teeth, as they weren't actually his... in this he took great pleasure in proving to me on a regular basis. He would take them out and gurn just to get a laugh out of me. Sometimes the laugh would be tinged with "I'm not hungry anymore," but for the most part, it was just a hearty, unadulterated belly laugh.
He spent his life in the fields, and as such, looked somewhat mixed race. His tan was incredible, and my lucky mama inherited the same genes. I inherited my father's tanning skills, and he and I spent many summers peeling our own skin off to find white, freckly skin underneath... all the while, Grampy and mama were outside worshipping the sun and turning a healthy shade of golden brown.
It was because he was so strong that his passing away winded us all to such a shocking degree. At his funeral I cried for the entirety of the service. From start to finish my then-boyfriend could do absolutely nothing to console me. I'm still inconsolable about it now. As the rest of the family sniffled and choked their way through Jerusalem, I stood with tears streaming down my face at a rate I've never known (and haven't known since,) and my heart shattered into a million tiny pieces. Last year, at a friends wedding, one of their chosen hymns was Jerusalem, and being totally caught off guard by it I burst into tears, mid-ceremony.
As the year went on, I found myself recovering, little by little, with the odd fit of insane bawling thrown in for good measure. My mama was the same. By September, I was in the throes of a legit mental breakdown. Everything I knew to be "me" was pissed into the wind and I ended up with a beautiful, emotional clinger-onner called "Generalised Anxiety Disorder." I spent every waking moment of my life feeling like my body was shutting down on me, and it felt terrible. I wrestled with my brain constantly, trying to understand why I felt so physically busted up, and then I opened Google... and for the first time, I Googled my symptoms.
According to Dr. Google, I was simultaneously dying of HIV, cancer of every organ, Multiple Sclerosis, heart failure, DVT and various types of aneurysms/embolisms in parts of my body I didn't even know existed. As this went on, my body simply felt worse and worse. I'd wake up every morning with a racing, skipping, skedaddling, ski-dap-diddly-doo-wopping heart beat, and I'd feel dizzy and absolutely sick to my stomach.
I dropped out of uni and then ended a three year relationship that, bizarrely, I was quite happy with at the time, but my fear of hurting him quickly transpired into... you guessed it... me actually hurting him by ending things. He and I lived together with my best friend at the time, and I ended up sleeping on a blow up bed under the dining room table for six months before moving out and finally starting to get myself back on track. My 'wife' and I fell out of contact, which broke my heart. I was sadly too proud to contact her, worrying that I'd ruined it for good... and yet, a matter of minutes into speaking to each other again the following year and we were closer than ever. I got a job working six days a week at the seafront aquarium and it helped, somewhat. I thought less about my broken body and more about how exhausted I was from such long hours. I was also quite focused on the murderer living next door.
The two years that followed have included moving five times, bringing a beautiful baby girl into the world, separating from her daddy and finally getting myself back into education so that I can build a happy life for us together. We are happy in Scotland. Life is good. I'm still suffering with this, but now surrounded by people I love and who love me in turn. My family, although they don't understand how I feel, or why I'm as neurotic as I am, give me time and a willingness to try and understand that most people don't care to do. My wife is my rock. She tells me what's what and keeps me grounded, but also completely understands me in a way that very few people do. I'm also incredibly lucky in that I have found somebody to call my own, who seemingly has the patience of 10 men with regards to my neuroses. Not only is he patient, but he is one of the kindest and most thoughtful people I've ever had the pleasure to know. His healthy dose of geeky-weirdo (*his* words, not mine!) is also much loved and much appreciated.
At the moment it's my leg. My leg and a suspicious node in my groin on that side. According to Dr. Google, I either have Lymphoma, or I should have dropped dead of a blood clot travelling up to my lungs months ago. While I cope better with the feeling of impending doom nowadays, my brain still doesn't work the same way that others do. Last night my right ("good") leg had an irritating cramp, and this morning it is no better. My brain has decided that I have Peripheral Artery Disease and that I'm not far off a stroke. For most people, this would be a "ow, my leg... what's for dinner?" moment. For me it's a game changer. It can ruin hours, days, weeks or even months of my life when something like this pops up. The fact that my leg has felt a little better the last few days is enough to tell me that I'm not dying, and I'm recovering slowly, little by little, with help from a few very important people. At the moment I try to keep myself grounded partly for my daughter, and partly because Grampyabadoo would be shouting at me from the heavens if he knew how badly losing him affected me. He would be throwing cheese sandwiches at me from the clouds and shouting and reminding me that you have to "eat a lot of dirt before you die." - that everyone has to go through a certain amount of hardship in their lives and that this is part of mine. I see him in my dreams at least once a month, even now. Whether he is just a part of the background, or teaching M her times-tables on a warm Summer Sunday as he did with me... he is always there, and he always will be.
As the years go by I have my moments where I wonder if I will ever feel normal, but for the most part, I am blessed. And Grampy, if you can read this, I still don't know off by heart what 12 x 12 is. Sorry.
"The only way out, is through." - Robert Frost.
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