My cupboard is bare

With my Shift going-away present (a book token - brilliant!) I bought Jamie Oliver's new book Jamie's Ministry of Food.

I'm useless at cooking. I just don't do it. My diet is utterly crap - I can go for well over a day without eating anything - and I'm quite capable of living on nothing but coffee and cigarettes. Most of the time I eat one meal a day - either by buying sushi for lunch, or making myself a chunky salad drowned in mayonnaise in the evening. But sometimes I have nothing at all.

I can't be bothered cooking for one, so most of the time I don't. Then there's the mission of having to go to the supermarket and buy stuff - and actually having a plan for what I want to cook (which I never have!).

Plus I have issues with food.

My earliest datable memory is when my sister was born. I was two and a half. She was born at home, so I was dispatched to the neighbour's house for the day. I remember they gave me stew to eat, which I totally didn't want at all. I guess they must have forced me to eat it because I remember being sick afterwards. Welcome to the world, baby sister!

I wouldn't eat meat. I hated the taste, the texture, the smell. At some point I realised that meat was actually DEAD ANIMALS, and that sealed the deal for me. No way was I going to eat that stuff! I couldn't even go into the butcher's shop with my mum because it smelled so bad.

Problem was, as far as I knew, I was the only vegetarian in the entire world, and no-one knew how to deal with my bizarre eating requirements.

Every single day at school for four years I was tortured by the dinner ladies because I wouldn't eat my dinner. Everyone sitting at my table would have to wait until I finished before they were allowed out to play. And as I couldn't finish it because I couldn't eat the meat, they missed their playtime - every single day. It was awful.

Finally when I was eight years old my mum acknowledged that I was indeed a vegetarian, and she had a chat with the headmaster. From that day onwards every dinnertime I was given a HUGE block of cheese wrapped in greaseproof paper to go with my veggies. I used to share it with everyone else at my table 'cos there was so much of it.

I was an extremely picky eater. I think I withheld food from myself because it was one of the few things in my life over which I had some level of control. I think I've continued that pattern of behaviour ever since. Which is a bit silly really, as I have control over all areas of my life these days :)

So - fast-forward to today, and my entirely unexpected purchase of a cookery book.

Not sure why I did it, except that I'd quite like to improve my diet, while at the same time trying to save money (or not spend much!). I know the years of under-eating must be taking their toll on me, and I think it's about time I sorted myself out.

Plus this whole contractor thing seems to have kick-started me in a whole bunch of different ways, and I'm stepping outside my comfort zone all over the place. Cool!

Jamie's book starts off by listing all the kitchen implements you need, and then there's another massive list of all the staple items you should have in your larder, most of which I didn't have. I'm a perfectionist, so I really wanted to do everything exactly right and have everything in place before I started. So I didn't start 'cos I didn't have everything.

A couple of weeks ago I stopped procrastinating because I didn't have all the right ingredients, and I decided to try out the simplest recipe in the book - spaghetti with tomato sauce.

Disaster!

No basil. No garlic. No chillies. An old tin of tomatoes and some old spaghetti. When I opened the tin it made a weird gas-escaping noise, but I had a quick taste and it seemed OK, so I carried on.

The recipe said chopped tomatoes, but chopping them up ended up releasing so much juice that it overflowed the chopping board and spread out across the bench. And then I spilled half the juice transferring it into the pot. Because I had no garlic, basil, or chillies I just heated up the olive oil and bunged the tomatoes in. Not a good plan.

Once the spaghetti was cooked I mixed in the oily cooked tomatoes, a bit of sweetcorn, and topped it with some old cheese. Yum yum. Not.

It was completely gross. Like, so bad I couldn't eat it. I'm pretty sure the tin of tomatoes was off for a start, and really, when there are so few ingredients it is rather imperative that you don't leave any out.

Back to the drawing board.

The root of my problems was a) using crappy old years-past-their-sell-by-date ingredients and b) not having all the ingredients I needed.

Time for a complete overhaul of the larder!

I threw out EVERYTHING.

My larder's always been pretty well-stocked - "I'll be OK if we have an earthquake", I used to think. Except of course I wouldn't, because it was all old and crappy and entirely inedible. The flour and cereal was absolutely infested with flour beetles and utterly unusable. If one tin of tomatoes was off, then all the others were probably off too, so they all had to go. As I cleared and cleaned I got more and more ruthless. This was quite difficult to do at first, because I hate waste, but really, none of the stuff was safe to eat anyway, so I ended up chucking it all out. What a feeling of relief and release!

Next was the issue of where do I put all the stuff I throw out. In the bin? But it's too heavy! Bags of old flour and everything else weighs so much I'd need heaps of bin bags. So I decide to get rid of as much as I can down the waste disposal. Great plan!

Only not. After the fifth packet of old crackers went down the waste disposal sink there was a gurgling, grinding noise - and suddenly there was liquid cracker goop coming up through the plughole of the other sink.

Disaster! Call Marcus the emergency plumber!

I do love Marcus. He's wonderful - and because he's an on-call-all-of-the-time kind of a dude, you can have a waste disposal emergency at 8.30 at night and he'll be there within half an hour.

He got me to pull out all the stuff from the cupboard under the sink (good excuse to give it a bit of a clean) and then he got down to work. It was pretty gross really - the cracker goop looked pretty much like vomit, and we had to use a couple of old (never to be used again) towels to mop up all of the goo that ended up on the cupboard floor. Poor Marcus!

Anyway, he fixed it - so after giving the whole cupboard another clean I put everything back and decided to put the rest of the old food in bin bags and get rid of them the traditional way. I think it took three or four bags in the end. And I still have a shelf full of old tins to get rid of gradually over the next few weeks. Ah well.

Since I started writing this blog post (hence the title) things have moved on apace, so...

On to the new food. I didn't feel like lugging a dozen heavy bags of staple items up the path to my house, so I did the supremely lazy thing and ordered all the food on the list from Woolworths online store. I love that website. It has the crappiest nav ever - but you can order a ton of stuff and they deliver it all to your door the next day. Awesome!

The next day I spent a happy few hours decanting every single thing into glass jars and labelling them all. No more flour beetles in my house! [And do you know, it seems to have worked? From being virtually infested with the damned things a few weeks ago when I started writing this post, my house is now pretty much bug-free. Hooray!]

My first attempt at actually properly following one of the recipes in Jamie's book was a second go at the spaghetti with tomato sauce. And it was LOVELY! Oh wow! I cooked something other than salad and baked potatoes! Go me!

I think it's all the fresh basil leaves he gets you to include - I now have a pot of basil growing on my window-sill - and the garlic and the olives and the parmesan and, and... yes I know, it was pretty dumb to try and cook it without 90% of the ingredients the first time, but there you go.

For my next trick I decided to go for something a little more adventurous, and settled on salmon and pesto with french beans, cooked in a foil parcel and served with organic new potatoes. Lordy lordy, aren't we posh?

And ohmygod it was absolutely awesome! Like, seriously good, and healthy, and filling, and just completely yummy! Hey this is cool! I could invite someone round to dinner now and actually have something really good I could cook for them! It's a revelation! I was so completely proud of myself I had to do a Snoopy Happy Dance round the kitchen in celebration.

Since then I've cooked both the spaghetti and the salmon recipes a few more times, and been really pleased with the results each time. I've also tried my hand at prawns and avocado with Marie Rose sauce (which is also yummy).

And I even did some baking. Crikey!

There is one thing I know how to bake, and that's melting moments with jam and butter cream filling. Delicious! So at 10 o'clock one night I settled in for a bit of baking therapy. I was through the cream-butter-and-icing-sugar stage, and had measured out the flour ready to add it to the mixture. Now for the cornflour.

Oh.

I have about a tablespoonful of cornflour left in the jar and it requires two cupfulls. Doh! How did I not get more cornflour during the Big Shop?

I leap into my car and go tearing off around the neighbourhood looking for a cornflour merchant at 10.15 at night, but sadly the local dairy is closed, so's the nearby supermarket, and the local petrol station has custard powder and baking powder but no cornflour. Darn it!

I decide I can't be arsed going to all the way into town on a Friday night just for cornflour, so I go back home and put what I've made so far into the fridge.

The following day having obtained the necessary packet of Edmonds cornflour from the dairy (well you have to use Edmonds, don't you? After all I was using the Edmonds cookbook for the melting moments recipe, so it's only right and proper, eh? Plus the packet design is just fab), and after leaving the butter-and-sugar mixture out on the bench all afternoon to let it soften, I was finally able to finish my little baking project and - oh my lord - are they good or what? I eat one a day and they've lasted me a couple of weeks so far - and they get better over time, too!

A couple of very interesting things I've noticed since I started this whole cooking lark:

Firstly, it's made me want to go to the big supermarket in town so I have a big choice of nice fresh ingredients - and it's made me want to go on a regular basis so I don't run out of stuff. I hate battling with the crowds in the supermarket - I like to wander around peacefully - and I have discovered that 7pm seems like a good time to go. You still get fresh bread and stuff without the millions of people glaring at you when you pause at a shelf to consider an item in more detail.

A result of this (and I'm thinking it's the combination of the bigger supermarket and the slightly altered shopping list) is the realisation that buying ingredients is MASSIVELY cheaper than getting ready-made or ready-mixed stuff.

Now I certainly wasn't ever a ready-meals kind of a girl (ugh!), but I have been known to buy a packet of dessicated pasta or rice mixed with other dessicated stuff which you add milk and butter to, stir in a pan for eight minutes and glop onto your plate and eat without tasting it...

Not any more. I just don't feel the need to, now I know I can cook much lovelier food from scratch. And the result, I have found, is that even when you buy yourself a nice bit of salmon and a whole big packet of frozen prawns as well as all your fresh ingredients - it's still a whole lot cheaper than if you included the dreaded dessicated packets and a jar of crappy pasta sauce.

And did you know that if you buy a piece of salmon with the bones still in, it costs over a dollar a kilo less than if they take the bones out for you? And that if you get a bit near the tail it doesn't have bones in anyway? And that you can easily remove the bones using a handy pair of pliers from your toolbox? Heh heh. Kewl!

The second thing I've noticed is that being able to cook stuff has given me an added incentive to eat a bit better all the time. Like, I'm actually thinking about having a snack during the day as well as an evening meal - and I'm having the evening meal as well! Amazing!

AND I've lost weight! In a good way. Even though I'm eating more. In my bid to save money I've stopped buying and therefore eating most of my treats like chocolate and heaps of biscuits, and it's made a real difference. I had to put a belt on my jeans the other day cos they kept on falling down when I ran for the bus.

So yeah. Go Jamie, and go the Ministry of Food. If it can get a completely non-cook like myself interested in cooking - and actually succeeding in my culinary endeavours (eventually!) then that's a really good thing. I'm not sure about the Pass It On aspect of the whole movement - only because I'm pretty sure all my friends can cook anyway - but I'm certainly thinking more positively about inviting people over for dinner once in a while. Hooray! Thanks, dude!

Technorati tags: Jamie's Ministry of Food, Ministry of Food, Jamie Oliver, cooking, cookery, anyone can learn to cook, book review, improving your diet, food, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.

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Two of the most moving campaign ads you're likely to see this year

I need add no words to these two amazingly powerful and moving campaign ads from this year's election. Just watch. Hankies at the ready.

I was raped. And then I got pregnant. Sarah Palin believes that the Government should be able to force me to carry the pregnancy to term.

Sarah Palin believes that the Government should make that choice, not me.

Governor Palin, I didn't have a choice about being raped. But I should have a choice about this.

This ad was made by WAMP - Women Against McCain Palin. On their website they say:

This November, female victims of rape and incest are in jeopardy of losing their rights. Join our movement and pay to have these ads run on TV in a swing state.

There is no better way to make a difference in this election than to choose the ads that run in swing states. Please select your ad, swing state, and package. SaysMe.tv will run your ad on TV and brand it with your name at the end with: PAID FOR BY {YOUR NAME}.

Endorse what you believe in and say what YOU want on TV.

If you're interested in paying for this ad to appear on TV in a swing state, go here. For more information on Sarah Palin's plans to outlaw abortion even for girls and women who are victims of rape and incest, go here.

ERIK SCHEI: My name is Eric Schei. Three years ago I was an Army Sergeant in Iraq and I was shot in the head by a sniper. The doctors said I wouldn't survive. But I am still here and I am getting better.

I want to thank Tom Udall for getting more funding for treatment of brain trauma for veterans. For me, that means everything.

Thank you.

TOM UDALL: I'm Tom Udall and I'm humbled to approve this message.

Press release from Tom Udall:

October 16, 2008

Albuquerque, N.M. - The Udall campaign today released a powerful new television ad, in which Army Sergeant Erik Schei testifies to Tom Udall's leadership in Washington in standing up for our troops and veterans.

In 2005, Specialist Erik Schei was shot in the head by a sniper in Iraq. The doctors put his chance of survival at zero. With the right treatment, Sergeant Schei was able to not only live, but can now communicate with others.

"HUMBLED" - Released October 16, 2008

SCRIPT and FACTS

ERIK SCHEI: My name is Erik Schei. Three years ago I was an Army Sergeant in Iraq and I was shot in the head by a sniper. The doctors said I wouldn’t survive. But I am still here and I am getting better.

FACT: From the Associated Press, January 22, 2008: In October 2005, Erik was a 21-year-old Army sergeant serving in Mosul, Iraq, as a machine-gunner with the Army's 94th Engineer Battalion. A sniper's bullet pierced the right side of his helmet and passed through both frontal lobes of his brain.

"They gave him zero chance of survival," Erik's father, Gordon Schei, said. "They said if he did survive, he would be a vegetable. They wanted us to pull the plug on him. But we dug deep.

"We're people of faith, and we brought him home, and today he communicates with people. He laughs, he's standing - not on his own, but with help. He's doing so many things."

Erik uses a wheelchair and lives with his parents and 7-year-old sister in the Rio Rancho home his parents helped him purchase in August. The family moved from Taos to be closer to the VA hospital.

He is constantly impressing his parents, friends and therapists with the improvements he is making. He now speaks one or two words at a time. Often, "annoying" is one of them, speaking of his sister, said Christine Schei, laughing. He has a computer attached to his wheelchair, which often speaks for him. He activates it with his head.

"We're also teaching him to feed himself, which takes a lot of effort," Christine Schei said. "His brain just seems to have forgotten which muscles to use."

There are some things, however, that his brain has not forgotten how to do. "He knows how to read, which was a shock to all of us," she said. "They held up cards and he mouthed the words. A lot of times, it's a whisper. It's not real loud. We have to push him sometimes, 'Erik louder, try harder.' He has been our miracle child. We have great expectations, and hopefully by the end of next year, he can walk in a walker even if it's just two or three steps."

Erik has occupational and physical therapists come to the house three times a week, and a speech therapist comes twice a week. His mother also drives him to speech therapy three times a week.

"My hope is for him to be able to live independently, to be able to take care of himself and not be dependent on anyone else," Gordon Schei said. "He's always going to need some kind of help. Right now, he needs 24-hour care, but nobody thought he would get as far as he is right now, so there's no sense in thinking he won't get further."

ERIK SCHEI: I want to thank Tom Udall for getting more funding for treatment of brain trauma for veterans. For me that means everything.

FACT: As a member of the Appropriations Committee, Congressman Tom Udall pushed for and voted in support of the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act of 2007 which became Public Law 110-28. It included $600 million in funding for post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries. Additionally, Congressman Udall has consistently voted in support of increasing funding for veteran's health care and served for eight years as a member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee.

TOM UDALL: I'm Tom Udall and I am humbled to approve this message.

FACT: It is a moral imperative to provide our veterans with the care they need and opportunities they deserve when they get home. Tom Udall's father, Stewart, served as a waist gunner in the Army Air Corps during World War II. This instilled in him the moral responsibility we have to the honorable men and women who serve our nation in uniform. During to his time in Congress, including eight years serving on the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Tom Udall has worked hard on behalf of our veterans. He is humbled to have the support of Erik Schei and honored to have been endorsed by the VFW-PAC which represents 2.2 million veterans.


Technorati tags: campaign ad, choice about this, women's right to choose, pro-choice, anti-abortion, pro-life, abortion, WAMP, Women Against McCain Palin, rape, incest, Sarah Palin, Palin, humbled, humbled ad, Erik Schei, Iraq, brain trauma, veterans, Tom Udall, New Mexico, Democrat, Senate, US politics, Presidential election, video, YouTube, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.

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John McCain will overturn Roe vs Wade

Arianna Huffington wrote an article in the Huffington Post the other day about common misconceptions of McCain's stance on reproductive rights.

She begins by noting that there are a number of Clinton supporters who have said they would rather vote for McCain than Obama in November (or not vote at all), should Obama win the nomination.

She then points out that the policy differences between Clinton and Obama are minor compared with those between both Democrats and McCain - and that nowhere is this more profound than in the area of reproductive rights:

I was in Seattle last week giving a speech at a fundraising lunch for Votes! Washington, the political arm of Planned Parenthood in Washington State. At the event, the group's CEO Elaine Rose told me about a poll that Planned Parenthood had commissioned of women in 16 battleground states [pdf]. The results are startling:

Over half of all women in these states have no idea what McCain's positions are on reproductive health. Forty-nine percent of women in battleground states who currently favor McCain are pro-choice. Twenty-three percent of them believe McCain agrees with them on choice.

The good news is, 36 percent of pro-choice McCain supporters are less likely to vote for him after learning that McCain opposes Roe v. Wade and favors making most abortions illegal. That number hits 38 percent when those voters learn that McCain has also consistently voted against expanding access to programs that reduce pregnancy and the need for abortion, consistently voted in favor of abstinence-only programs, and against legislation requiring insurance companies to cover birth control.

She then goes on to say:

Since 1983, in votes in the House and the Senate (where he has served since 1987), McCain has cast 130 votes on abortion and other reproductive-rights issues. 125 of those votes were anti-choice [pdf]. Among his voting lowlights:

• He has repeatedly voted to deny low-income women access to abortion care except in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother's life (although McCain is now wavering on trying to put these exceptions into the party platform).


• He voted to shut down the Title X family-planning program, which provides millions of women with health care services ranging from birth control to breast cancer screenings.


• He voted against legislation that established criminal and civil penalties for those who use threats and violence to keep women from gaining access to reproductive health clinics.


• He voted to uphold the policy that bans overseas health clinics from receiving aid from America if they use their own funds to provide legal abortion services or even adopt a pro-choice position.


• Of his anti-choice voting record, McCain has said, "I have many, many votes and it's been consistent," proudly adding: "And I've got a consistent zero from NARAL" through the years. And last month he told Chris Matthews: "The rights of the unborn is one of my most important values."

What's more, McCain has made it very clear that if he becomes president he will appoint judges in the Scalia, Roberts, Alito mold. His big judicial speech earlier this month was filled with coded buzz words that make it clear that, if given the chance, he'd replace 88-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens with an anti-choice Justice who would tip the scales against Roe v Wade. Throw in an additional anti-choice replacement for the 75-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and you can kiss the right to choose good-bye for a long, long time.

The full article is here - Unmasking McCain: His Reactionary Record on Reproductive Rights - with lots of useful links for more info.

I think it's an important consideration for anyone who's pro-choice - whether they're a Democrat or a Republican. If John McCain wins in November, there's a very real risk that Roe vs Wade will be overturned - and women across the country would be looking at a return to the bad old days of backstreet abortions, with all the health risks that that implies.

On his website, John McCain says:

John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench.

Constitutional balance would be restored by the reversal of Roe v. Wade, returning the abortion question to the individual states. The difficult issue of abortion should not be decided by judicial fiat.

You can read McCain's whole statement here - John McCain: Overturning Roe v. Wade


Technorati tags: John McCain, McCain, Republican, reproductive rights, abortion, pro-choice, pro-life, backstreet abortion, voting record, Roe vs Wade, Roe v Wade, termination, reproductive health, right to choose, Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post, Democrat, Clinton, Obama, Primaries, presidential primaries, general election, American politics, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.

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Bugger the drugs, I'm changing my attitude!

Being in constant pain is not fun. I've started to feel like a victim. The pain battered away at my defences until it broke through and beat me down. I had begun to feel so fragile I was afraid to sneeze in case I put my neck out of alignment again.

The cocktail of drugs I blogged about a week ago has been my doctor's answer to pretty much everything. As I said last week, I decided to take myself off the codeine because of the nightmares and the hallucinations (not to mention the constipation!), so on Sunday night I chucked them out and went cold turkey.

There are some pretty unpleasant stories out there in Google-land about taking oneself off morphine-derivatives - but they're generally from people who've been self-medicating for years, taking up to 100 tabs a day. Crikey! My six a day for a month didn't come close... Even for the worst cases the come-down only lasts a week or so, so I suppose all-told it wasn't too bad, but psychologically it wasn't that great.

This week I hit rock bottom. I had my second osteopathic treatment on Monday, and on Tuesday I felt pretty bloody awful. The osteo had changed the pains, from the incredibly aggravating zizzy pain in my arm, to sharp shooting pains in my neck, shoulder blade, shoulder, elbow, arm and hand. I was happy that the zizzy stuff had gone, but I wasn't too keen on what had replaced it! And because I'd taken myself off the codeine, I was pretty much on my own for the first day or so.

On Wednesday I asked my doctor for a different pain-killer that wasn't morphine-based, and she suggested Acupan (2 x 30mg of Nefopam hydrochloride, three times a day). Off the codeine, onto the Acupan. Problem is, one of the side-effects of Acupan is feelings of nervousness or anxiety, which are quite rare, just as the nightmares and hallucinations are a rare side-effect of codeine - but guess what, I got them.

They'd start with a feeling of fear in my tummy, that swiftly rose up my body towards my throat, and which I'd have to push away by breathing deeply to calm myself down. It was horrible - like the feeling you get when you've drunk waaay too much coffee, only much worse. It was strongest at night when I was trying to get to sleep, and for the past few nights I've tossed and turned in my bed, desperate to fall asleep, but being unable to because of the waves of anxiety continually flowing through me.

It felt as though the Acupan was fighting with the sleeping pills I've been taking, particularly because another side-effect of the Acupan is insomnia. Doh!

So I've decided I'm getting off Acupan too, seeing as it doesn't actually help much with the pain (this weekend I got up latelatelate, missed a dose of painkillers and didn't really notice any difference in pain levels), and I really don't like the anxiety thing. So I've given up the Acupan. Today was my first day without it.

After a month of taking the "sleeping pills" I decided belatedly to Google those too, which I did last night. To my surprise, the Amitrip I've been taking isn't actually a sleeping pill, it's an anti-depressant. Fuck me! Apparently doctors often prescribe anti-depressants as a first-step sleeping pill, because they're not as strong as the real thing.

Anyway, I've decided I'm not really into taking anti-depressants, particularly as they haven't been working particularly effectively as sleeping pills since I came off the codeine and onto the Acupan. Googling has also opened my eyes to the fact that many people lose the ability to go to sleep naturally once they start using sleeping pills, and I really really don't want to go there, so... tossing out the Amitrip!

And while I'm at it, I've decided to give up the anti-inflammatories too. Well I figure after a month my body must be un-inflamed, surely... Which means I also get to give up the drugs to protect my tummy from the anti-inflammatories. Excellent!

I can also chuck out the laxatives I was prescribed to combat the constipation caused by the codeine... and voila!

From what feels like a dozen different drugs to just one - good old Neurofen. I know it works (it always fixes my headaches, even though it couldn't cope with the severe pain I was in at the start of this whole mess), and it doesn't feel like it's fighting with my body like every single pill I've been prescribed so far.

But what's really important is that at the same time as giving up (almost) all the drugs, I've also decided to change my attitude to what's been happening to me for the last month.

By the end of this week I'd really had enough of being beaten down by the pain, and for a couple of days, I just gave up and let it win. I didn't go to work on Thursday or Friday, I just stayed in bed half the day, and slept, and dozed, and did nothing much, and felt sorry for myself, and focused on every little twinge, every pain, every ache, every sense of someone's-sticking-a-knife-in-my-back. Too.much.pain. It was no fun at all.

And then, for no apparent reason, I decided yesterday I was absolutely sick of feeling like a victim. I was fed up with feeling so fragile that I was afraid to sneeze. I had had enough of holding myself so carefully that I was tensing up all the time. And I was over feeling sorry for myself.

So now I've decided that I'm absolutely fine, and that my body is healthy and whole - with the occasional (or even constant) sharp ache in my neck, shoulder and arm. That's how I'm looking at it now, instead of seeing myself as a big mass of pain with a person hidden somewhere inside.

Over the past couple of weeks I've had three osteopathic treatments, and I think the focus on natural healing that you get with osteo is important too. It goes well with the acupuncture I've been having, and goes very well with the whole getting off the drugs thing.

Last Sunday I went to Batucada practice for the first time in about 6 weeks. I didn't go to play - there's no way I was ready for drumming, but I went to listen and to hang out with the gang. Thing is, the vibrations from the 50-odd drums in the room set my arm off something horrible, and I was in mad pain for the whole of the rest of the day and into the night.

This week I went again, with my new attitude, and without that hideous zizzy pain in my arm that had got so badly set off last week. We had a caixa sectional practice before the full rehearsal, but we couldn't get into the rehearsal room because we didn't have a key. Instead of hanging around waiting for a key to turn up we decided to practise the rhythms by singing them, and tapping them out on our legs and bodies with our hands. Hey! I can do this! I thought. So I did. My right arm is very weak, and it got pretty tired, but I did OK, and the pain really wasn't so bad.

Once the key turned up and we started our full rehearsal, I planned to sit it out and just listen like I did last week - but the rhythm was so infectious, and I felt so good, I got up and joined the caixa line and practiced stepping and drumming with my hands on my legs like we'd done in the sectional. Wow! Really not much pain at all!

Went to the pub afterwards, felt fine, came home, felt even better, and now I'm sitting here on the sofa typing this with BOTH HANDS for the first time in a month - ands there's virtually no pain at all, just a little bit of discomfort now and again.

OK this is so weird. How did I go from being at rock bottom less than a week ago, to feeling like I'm almost recovered today?

I have noticed that over the last few days the numbness in my fingers and hand has been diminishing. (I think it's the osteo doing its thing). This is the primary symptom that showed the specialist I'd trapped a nerve around C6 (not C2 and C3 as I thought when I blogged last week). So I guess that the stretching of my spine by my osteopath is freeing up the nerve again...

I think the reason why I feel so great today is due to a perfect storm of good things all coming together at once.

Osteo beginning to work. Come off all those nasty drugs that have been fighting with my body and with each other. Change my attitude to the pain. Change my attitude to the way I cope with the pain. Go do something I really enjoy with people I really like. Stop feeling sorry for myself.

How cool.

One thing I have learned over this past month, which I will try very hard to keep in the forefront of my mind, is that you should never ever take your good health and fitness for granted. It can be gone in an instant, and illness or hurt can take over your life and change it drasically - and for the worse.

The other thing that I have learned is that if the bad stuff does happen, there's a huge amount you can do to make it as bad as it can be - and there's a huge amount you can do to make it as good as it can be. It all depends upon your attitude, your point of view, and your inner strength.

I know that there were many times over the past four or five weeks where I definitely did not have the inner strength to combat how bad I was feeling, and where I was pretty much powerless to help myself. That's what happens when you're being attacked by never-ending pain, and there's not always anything you can do about that.

But I also know that somehow, once the pain was at a low enough level for me to deal with it better, some part of me came bouncing back up and said "Bugger the drugs, I'm changing my attitude!"

And by golly - it works!


Technorati tags: pain, pain-killers, medication, drugs, drug dependency, osteopathy, attitude, self-medication, codeine, Acupan, Amitrip, anti-depressants, sleeping pills, side-effects, nightmares, hallucinations, anxiety, positive thinking, health, natural healing, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.

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A cocktail of drugs

It's been nearly a month since I fucked up my arm, and although the excruciating pain is gone, I'm still not back to normal by any means. I'm in constant mid-level pain - sometimes more, sometimes less, but always there.

It appears that I have a combination of OOS in my arm and shoulder, together with a nerve trapped in my neck between C2 and C3.

The neurosurgeon I went to see a week or so ago gave me three options. Go on as I am, with osteopathic treatment, acupuncture, acupressure, and loads of drugs; or have cortisone injections into my spine; or have surgery to remove the knackered disk between C2 and C3 and replace it with a plastic one. Um... I think I'll take option number one, thanks!

My right arm, elbow, shoulder and neck hurt in so many places, and in so many different ways...

There's the burning pain, the deep in-the-bone ache, the waves of pulsing pain, the "eeeeee" unbearably irritating zizzy pain... it goes on and on. If I keep completely still, with my right arm bent up across my chest, right hand gently resting on my left shoulder, I can make the majority of the pain subside, but the moment I move, or do anything (like stand up, move around, reach out, pick something up - basically do anything), the pain flares up again, just as bad as ever.

I'm now taking a cocktail of drugs.

I'm on the anti-inflammatory Sonaflam, (Naproxen sodium - 275mg, three times a day) to reduce the inflammation in my neck, back and arm. Because it does nasty things to your stomach (like make it bleed), I have to take 20mg of Omeprazole every morning to protect my tummy.

Because I'm having trouble sleeping (due to the pain, and the fact that I have to sleep on my left side with my arm resting on top of my head), I'm on Amitrip sleeping pills (10mg of Amitriptyline). I can take up to five a night, but I only take two. I'm scared of becoming dependent on them.

I was initially prescribed paracetamol for the pain, but it didn't have any effect at all. After a few days of agony I went back to my doctor and got a prescription for codeine (codeine phosphate). I'm now on my second bottle of 100 x 30mg tablets. I take two pills, three times a day.

The codeine gives me horrible constipation, so to combat that I have Lactulose syrup (6 teaspoons a day with a large glass of water) and three Senokot tablets at night (7.5mg sennosides per tablet).

The worst thing about the codeine, though, is that it's giving me auditory hallucinations and very bad nightmares. Bloody, murderous, terrifying nightmares. This only happens to about 1% of patients, but I appear to be one of them.

The auditory hallucinations happen as I'm falling asleep, when I'm in what appears to be an extended state of half-asleep-half-awake-ness, which seems to last far longer than normal. When I'm in this state, I hear strange noises that I know aren't there. Bangs, crunches, squawks, grinding noises, things that go bump in the night... I'm not sure how I know they're not real - I think I'm awake enough to logically understand that they are hallucinations, and yet I'm too close to sleep to be able to stop them.

They're quite frightening, but the nightmares are far, far worse. They're the kind that are so bad you're terrified to go back to sleep again, and yet you are so sleepy you can't stop yourself drifting off. The other night I got the auditory hallucinations at the same time as the nightmare - as I tore myself out of the dream I could hear all those strange sounds again.

I think it's time to get off the codeine. Hallucinations, nightmares, constipation (which I can tell you is no joke...), plus the fear of becoming addicted to the drug - seeing as it's a morphine derivative... right now the painkilling benefits are vastly outweighed by the negatives.

My osteopath was also not happy with the fact that I'm taking codeine ("much too strong!" he muttered to himself) - and seeing as no-one has been able to tell me how long the recovery is going to take - weeks, months, who knows? - I really don't think it's a good idea to be ingesting a member of the morphine family indefinitely.

So I've decided that tonight for the first time I'll take my sleeping pills and the anti-inflammatory, and leave out the codeine. I'll take a couple of paracetamol instead, and hope that's sufficient. Tomorrow I'll ask my doctor if she can prescribe me something slightly less freaky than codeine. We shall see...

Technorati tags: drugs, pain, trapped nerve, C2, C3, spine, neck, pain-killer, codeine, morphine, nightmare, auditory hallucination, constipation, Lactulose, Senokot, sennosides, sleeping pills, Amitrip, Amitriptyline, Omeprazole, anti-inflammatory, Sonaflam, Naproxen sodium, osteopath, acupuncture, acupressure, health, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.

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Excruciating pain-ting

For the past week I have been in agony. The most excruciating pain I have ever experienced, in fact.

You know how in my last post I said my back hurt, my arm hurt, everything was hurting? Well - maybe I should have listened to my body way back then, because I've really gone and done it now. I have given myself a very very bad case of RSI/OOS, and now I'm pretty much incapable of doing anything.

Last weekend Alice came round to help me with finishing off the painting of the downstairs flat, and we were really up against it time-wise, because the new carpet and lino were due to be fitted on Monday. I'd taken Friday off work and painted all day - and by the end of the day I had finally finished all the walls - three coats in some rooms because the original colours were so dark. I painted for 12 hours that day.

Over the weekend we continued with the woodwork - and oh my god you have no idea how long woodwork takes to paint! Three coats again in some places, all fiddly, time-consuming stuff - skirting boards, door frames, cupboard doors, window frames... it was never-ending.

We absolutely had to get the skirting boards and door frames done as quickly as possible so that the paint had a chance to harden before the carpets went in. I pulled up the old carpet round the edges of the rooms so I could paint right down to the floorboards, and for the whole weekend we seemed to be going round in circles, going over and over each piece until the old dark paint was completely covered.

By Sunday evening we still hadn't finished, but at least the areas at floor level were nearly done. And I noticed that whenever I reached forward to paint yet another piece of skirting board, I was getting some quite major pains all up my right arm and into my shoulder. After painting through the pain for a few more hours I finally called a halt and we tidied up in readiness for the carpet and lino dudes the next day.

I didn't sleep well at all. I just couldn't find a position where my arm wasn't agonisingly painful. Neurofen didn't seem to help - it didn't even really dull the pain, even though I took a couple more than I should have...

Monday morning - showering was agony, I couldn't brush my teeth properly, and there was no way I could wash my hair. The lino guy turned up and I took him down to the flat to show him the floor. Having pulled up the lino in the hallway, he saw we had quite a major problem. Wonky floor. More than wonky, in fact - the floorboards are bowed upwards, creating a very uneven surface.

He wasn't happy about it, cos he has to lay hardboard sheets down first, with the lino on top. He suggested I get a builder in to fix the floor first. But I don't have a builder! And we have no time! Peti and Tane move in on Friday! Just do it! I don't care if it's not completely perfect...

Ten minutes later the lino guy is back up to talk to me. I've just finished my shower, and I'm in so much pain I can't think straight - I can't even stand still, it hurts so much. He tells me there's no way he can lay the lino with the floor as bad as it is, and that I will definitely have to get the floorboards fixed first. I burst into tears on my doorstep. Poor lino guy! He didn't know what to do at all, and all I could think of was that I wanted him to go away so I could collapse in an agonised heap on the floor.

I head off to work, and call my acupuncturist, John Xu. He's the only guy who can fix me when I have a bad back, and I'm hoping he might be able to help. I'm in tears on the phone to him - "I'm just trying to hold it together until I can come and see you," I whisper into the phone. He tells me to come over right away.

An hour later, John has done what he can. Half an hour of needles (longer than normal), and half an hour of pretty painful acupressure. A herbal Chinese plaster stuck onto my shoulder blade, and instructions to call him in the morning.

I spend the day at work with my arm stuck up in the air, or resting it on my head. It's about the only position I can find that's even slightly bearable, and the pain is still extremely intense. Building websites with only one hand is slow going. Thank goodness I'm a left-handed mouser (a consequence of a bout of OOS about 10 years ago).

Another very bad night. I wake up at 4am and just lie there in agony for the next 4 hours, telling myself to breathe through the pain, breathe through the pain. This is crazy. As soon as the doctor's surgery is open I call up and get an appointment for later that morning. I go to work, and spend a couple more hours working with my arm up in the air. Back to see John Xu, and this time my arm is so painful I actually can't lay it down by my side. He sticks needles in my arm as well as my shoulder and back. The acupressure session afterwards is incredibly painful - I'm not sure how I got through it actually.

Next stop, my doctor. She poked and prodded at my arm a bit, and I burst into tears again. Too much pain! I ended up with prescriptions for an anti-inflammatory, a pill to protect my stomach from the nasty side-effects of the anti-inflammatory (!), and paracetamol for the pain. Paracetamol? Is that it? Are you sure this is going to work? Neurofen (and Neurofen Plus) didn't do a thing... she assured me that, once the anti-inflammatories started working, it should settle down and the pain would subside - probably by the evening.

Except it didn't. Back at work that afternoon, and I was getting slower and slower. The anti-inflammatory pills made me really dopey, so I had a little lie-down on the sofa. Peti woke me after an hour, gave me a taxi chit, and told me to go home. No, no, I can't! I have to finish the website! I carried on for a couple more hours, and then gave in and went home.

Pain, pain, pain and more pain.

Stress, stress, stress and more stress. I can't lift a paintbrush, and there's still tons of painting left to do. The lino's not laid and I don't have a builder I can call, and I have no idea if I can get one at such short notice even if I can get one recommended. Peti and Tane have booked the movers, given notice at their old house, and they move in on Friday. And there is no way I can get any of this finished, because I can't do anything!

Enter my knight in shining armour and the Lady who rescued this damsel in distress in her hour of need.

Let's back-track for a moment. Remember how I needed to Get A Man In to fix the ceiling? And the first guy turned up 23 hours late so I fired him?

The second Man was much better...

Mike is a painter, decorator, handyman, builder, gardener, plasterer, and everything else-r. He was able to replace the jib board in the ceiling, plaster it, seal it, skim it and then paint the whole ceiling so you'd never know there'd been any work done at all. Brilliant.

We were working alongside each other for a few days, as he was fixing the ceiling while I was painting (this was before my arm fell off). In his down-time while he was waiting for things to dry he helped me sand down and prepare the window frame and door in the living room. He fixed a hole in the flashing outside the window so it wouldn't leak when it rains. He had a look at the saggy kitchen ceiling and gave me some idea of what he would need to do in order to fix it. He had a look at the damp cupboard in the bedroom and advised me what to do in the short-term so that he can come back and deal to it later.

And when my arm fell off and I couldn't paint any more he juggled his very busy schedule so that he and his workmate Chris could come back and help to finish off all the woodwork before Friday. Absolutely fantastic. I could not have finished the job without their help. I am so completely grateful for all the extra work they did!

And the other person without whom this project would never have been completed is my best friend Alice. She has been amazing. She spent hours painting with me last Sunday when we were racing to get stuff done before the carpets arrived. Then pretty much every night this week she's been at my house doing more painting while I sat upstairs trying to keep my arm still and going ow ow whenever I moved. And when all the painting was finally done on Thursday evening she came over and cleaned up the flat for me.

She took me to the doctor on Friday when I decided that enough was enough and that the pain was just too much to bear without some stronger pain-killers. I'm now on codeine which works for a couple of hours and then stops working, and sleeping pills which aren't really helping me sleep. She picked me up after my appointment with the X-ray machine. (I cried during my X-rays as well - having to put my arm down by my side at one point was just too much to bear!)

Last night she dispatched Iain to come and pick me up, he vacuumed the house for me (because I can't even vacuum and the dust bunnies were beginning to multiply), then he took me back to their place and they cooked dinner for me, which was the first decent meal I've had in a week. And today she took me to Mitre10 to get a few more things for the flat, and then to the supermarket to pick up some food - and insisted on carrying everything for me and not letting me do anything.

It's been very hard for me ask for help this past week, or accept it when it's been offered. I'm such an independent person, so self-sufficient and self-reliant, that the concept of needing help, or asking for help, or accepting it gracefully when it's offered is really quite alien to me.

I've felt frustrated with myself because I can't do anything. I've felt guilty asking for help, and I've worried that I'm asking too much of people. I've felt beaten down by the pain, and by the endless problems with the flat (the toilet blocked up the day after Peti and Tane moved in and there were COCKROACHES in the kitchen, which made me feel very ashamed and embarrassed).

I've felt stressed and guilty that I haven't been able to do much work this week. I took Wednesday off work, tried working from home on Thursday and decided it was too painful even doing that, so didn't work on Friday. My doctor has now said I have to be off work all next week too, which stressed me out even more (didn't want to let the team down, didn't want to put more pressure on my workmates having to finish off my work).

It's been a tough week.

I have realised two things.

The first is that the old cliché is true. Your health really is one of your most precious possessions, and one which we all tend to take for granted until something goes wrong. People who have to cope with endless acute pain are completely heroic, IMHO. I've been in pain for a week and I am SO over it. I don't know how people in long-term pain manage to keep going. I think I'd want to shoot myself.

My arm is nowhere near better, and it still hurts pretty much all the time. I'm being really naughty writing this blog post (even with one hand), because doing pretty much anything hurts like hell right now. I think I've trapped a nerve or something because all week my fingers have gradually been going numb. Now half my hand, my thumb and two-and-a-half fingers are completely dead - and I think my arm above my elbow has gone numb too. I'm gonna have to go back to the doctor tomorrow and figure out what we do next.

The second thing I've realised is that, if you give them a chance, and/or if you ask for help, all sorts of people will come rushing to your aid, in the kindest, most unselfish ways. Mike didn't have to help me finish off the painting. He barely knows me! And yet he made time to come and help, in his spare time, and in his down-time, and whenever he could scrounge a few hours from the job he's currently working on. And he brought another pair of hands in Chris as well!

Alice didn't have to come and paint my flat every evening. She didn't need to come and clean up afterwards, she didn't have to be my taxi service, or cook me dinner, or call me every day to see how I'm feeling - she has a family of her own to take care of - but yet she did all these things for me, and more, because she's my friend and she cares about me.

Graeme the carpet guy didn't need to find a builder to fix the floor for me - but he did. He didn't need to come round in his spare time to bring a bit of carpet for the hallway while we're waiting for the lino to go down. But he did those things for me anyway, because he's a nice guy who goes the extra mile for his clients.

Peti and Tane didn't need to be as understanding about the somewhat unfinished nature of the flat as they have been, and they didn't need to try as hard as they did to minimise the stress I was under - but they did it anyway, because they are Good People, and that's what good people do.

From excruciating pain has come the realisation that some people are just pretty bloody awesome, and that all kinds of people will come to your aid when you need them. I've found out that it's not really so hard to ask for help, and I'm learning to accept it gracefully. It's been very touching to realise just what people are prepared to do for you when they see you really need them. And that's a very cool silver lining to this dark and cloudy tale.

Now if someone could just wave a magic wand and fix my arm up, everything would be just perfect...

Technorati tags: pain, pain management, OOS, occupational overuse syndrome, RSI, repetitive strain injury, tendonitis, painting, decorating, DIY, friendship, asking for help, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.

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Fearing the worst, hoping for the best

Sometime in December I noticed that Winnie (my little back and white cat) had developed dark spots on the iris of her left eye. I did a bit of googling on "cat health black specks iris" and didn't find any worrying info, so I didn't take her to the vet. Last week I decided to do a bit more googling, this time using the search word "spots" instead of "specks" in my search phrases. What a difference a single word makes!

All of a sudden my screen was filed with the words "pre-cancer", "melanoma", "malignant", and "cancer". Shit shit shit.

I took her to the vet straight away, but because it's a fairly rare occurrence, he wasn't really confident about doing a diagnosis. He booked Winnie in to see the eye specialist who, luckily enough, was visiting my vet clinic the following day.

By the time we saw him I was pretty sure what he would tell me. I'd spent time researching iris melanomas in cats, and looking at dozens of photos of cats' eyes, many of which resembled what I was seeing in Winnie's eye. I was right.

Winnie has pre-cancer in her left eye, caused by pigmented cells called melanocytes that have overgrown. The eye specialist used a slit-lamp biomicroscope to look at her eye to see if the lesions were flat (pre-cancer) or raised (cancer). At the moment they are flat, which is good, but if they change in shape or size, or start to affect the pupil, it may mean they have become cancerous.

75% of eye cancers in cats are malignant, so if the spots do become cancerous, the best option would be to remove Winnie's eye to stop the cancer spreading.

Deep breath.

OK - I guess that's not too bad. I mean, it is bad - it's awful - but if it became a question of having her eye removed or seeing her die of cancer, of course I'd choose the former option.

I was just about coming to terms with that possibility when another, much worse scenario occurred to me. What if she develops cancer in both of her eyes? Then I'd have a blind cat, and she wouldn't know why!

Oh God Oh God Oh God.

Winnie is my favourite cat. I know you're not supposed to have favourites, but I do, so there we go. She's my baby. She's family. I love her SO much, it hurts like hell just to have to think about this stuff.

I have to take photos of both her eyes, and the eye specialist will review them over time, to make sure that the spots aren't growing or changing. He told me they do this on a 6-monthly basis, but to me that doesn't seem often enough. What's worrying me is that I think I'm pretty observant, and the spots in her eye seemed to me to appear overnight. By that I mean I noticed them one day and I hadn't ever noticed them before. I looked at older photos of her and she definitely didn't have them a couple of years ago.

Sadly I hadn't taken any pictures of her for a while, so I can't pinpoint when the spots started to appear. Now I'm photographing her every day, trying to get a decent close-up shot of each eye. It isn't easy. Like any cat worth her salt, Winnie is an expert at avoiding whatever it is you want her to do (or want to do to her!). She turns her head away every time I approach her with the camera, or looks down, or shuts her eyes, or simply gets up and wanders off somewhere else. It's so frustrating!

As I'm the only person she allows to get anywhere near her, I can't ask anyone else to hold her while I take pictures, either. So I'm just going to have to persevere and get those photos - and keep on taking them, and monitoring them, and praying to the Great Beagle or the Giant Pumpkin or St Frances or something.


I was watching her in the garden the other day. She's so fascinated by everything. She's constantly looking at stuff, and sniffing around, and exploring, and checking out the world around her. I can't imagine how she'd manage if she had no eyes. What if she went on the road by mistake? Or wandered to the edge of my garden and fell down the steep cliff onto the road below? Or what if Teddy Cat next door decided to beat her up? She'd have no defenses!

She'd have to become an indoor cat, and I don't think that would make her very happy. Maybe I could take her out into the garden on a cat lead when I was around, and let her explore safely that way...

I know it's not exactly productive to let my mind race away into the worst "what if" scenarios like this. I try not to - it upsets me far too much, and as the outcome is not something I can control, I don't think it's a particularly good thing to dwell on it right now.

I suppose thinking through the possibilities might allow me to make some attempt to "prepare" myself for the worst. Except I don't think there's any way I can prepare myself for this. My cats are my best friends. They are the ones who live with me and share my life every day. I know that non-pet people probably think that's a little over the top, and a wee bit sad, but those of you with beloved pets will understand completely.

My cats are my fur children. I'm not going to have "real" children, but those of us who lack the maternal gene still have masses of love and affection to give. Many of us choose to give that love to our pets, and those pets become as important to us as any person. To think about the possibility of illness, pain or death in relation to my cats is as hard to do as if they were people. And what makes it somehow worse is of course that I can't explain any of this to Winnie. She will never understand what's happening to her.

Winnie and I are spending lots of quality time together. She sleeps on my bed every night, and unlike Bailey who generally goes off to his own bed at some point, she's still asleep on (or even in) my bed every morning. Quite often when I'm having my morning shower she'll come into the bathroom and wait for me to finish before demanding to be picked up for a good long cuddle.

She thinks I'm another cat, and rubs her face enthusiastically against mine in greeting. She curls up next to me on the sofa if I'm watching TV, or jumps up onto my lap if I'm working on my computer. If she wants attention, or wants to play with me, or wants her tummy rubbed, she isn't shy about letting me know.

And right now, whatever Winnie wants, Winnie gets. I don't know how much longer we've got together, and I want to make every moment count. I want to savour every second I have with her, and I want to show her just how much I love her.

So for now, I'm fearing the worst, and hoping for the best. Sometimes cats with iris pre-cancers can continue for years and years without their condition deteriorating in any way, and without the pre-cancer becoming cancer. I'm praying that this will be the case with Winnie.

Iris Melanoma in Cats

Technorati tags: cat, health, pre-cancer, cancer, eye, iris, melanoma, melanocyte, slit-lamp biomicroscope, opthalmologist, benign, malignant, enucleation, metastasis, spots, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.

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Stitches come out, results are back, is it cancer?

Nope. Hooray! Thank goodness for that!

The whatever-it-was on my face was a weird-looking form of pre-cancer called lichenoid solar keratosis. If you look at the three pictures at the top of this page, mine looked exactly like the one in the middle. Same place on my face, too. Sometimes they can become cancerous, but it hadn't reached that stage yet. Glad it's gone though.

They took my stitches out (which really didn't hurt at all, it just prickled a bit) and Chris Adams (my plastic surgeon) said that the cut has healed really well, and that I don't need to see him again. Yaay! Thank you Chris!

I got him to take a couple of pictures of the cut with the stitches in, and another after the stitches were gone. I've just taken a closer look at them (in preparation for putting them online - and I have to say I totally didn't realise how long the cut was. Yikes! Hope the scar won't be too bad!

Now I just have to put "paper tape" on the cut for the next 6-8 weeks to help reduce scarring, and I'll be all set.

He also said to me "You should wear a sunhat and sunblock for the rest of your life", which I think is good advice for anyone who lives here. I almost always do anyway, but (as I confessed in my first blog post about this subject) not always when I'm gardening. So that'll have to change. You can get moisturiser that contains sunblock so maybe I should switch to using that every day instead of my current moisturiser.

I asked the lovely nurse how Chris had done the cut, as I couldn't figure out how they had ended up with such a long neat scar when they had had to remove a round patch of skin about the size of my thumbnail, and she said it was "eye-shaped", which accounts for the length of the scar. So there you go. Now I know.

And yaay for me not having skin cancer!

Technorati tags: skin cancer, lichenoid solar keratosis, age spot, plastic surgery, New Zealand, health.

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Out, damned spot!

So today I went to see my lovely plastic surgeon to find out what he thought of the groovy little age-spot-turned-nasty-angry-red-thing on my cheek.

He poked and prodded, got out his large magnifying glass and had a good look, poked and prodded some more, and finally gave me his verdict.

He said it looked most like a type of pre-cancer associated with sun damage called Actinic Keratosis - which can sometimes manifest as a slightly raised red bump like mine... but... because it literally appeared overnight, that gave him more cause for concern.

He told me there were two things he could do. Either take a sample of the whatever-it-is, send it off to be analysed and then go from there or... cut the whole thing out right now. "It would only take about 20 minutes," he said, "I could do it now for you if you like..." Gulp!

It was quite a surreal experience. I suddenly realised I have never in my life had any sort of treatment which involved cutting or stitches. Never broken a bone, never cut myself badly, never needed any sort of surgery for anything. It was quite a scary experience climbing up onto the big couch thingy, waiting to have some guy you've only just met slice open your face!

He started off by drawing around the whatever-it-is with a felt tip pen, and then (I think) drawing the much longer cutting line across my cheek. He got me to "smile - hard!" so that he could figure out where to do the cut so that the scar would disappear into my smile-lines, and then he drew a few more lines with his pen.

Next he got out this massive syringe (which I only saw out of the corner of my eye - I wasn't about to actually look at it!) and prepared to numb a considerable part of my face. Ow! I hate injections! It's silly really isn't it? Because they don't really hurt that much, not in the grand scheme of things - I think it's more the "ick" factor of knowing someone's sticking some great sharp needle into your flesh, rather than the level of the actual pain itself.

Once my face was freakily numb, he and his very nice nurse set to work. I had my eyes firmly shut by this point, because there was no way I wanted to see any of the "tools" he was about to use on me. They put a pad over my eyes and a bib around my neck, and he swabbed my face with salt water before he began. I could feel him pressing on my face, and I think I could sortof feel him making little cuts around the whatever-it-is as he worked his way around it. There was one point when I felt a tiny sharp pain, so he stopped and injected that bit again, and then I guess he started working around the other side to give that area time to go numb.

Then he told me I would feel some pressure as he removed the whatever-it-is - which I did - and then he started to cauterise the blood vessels with a little bzzzt-bzzzt tool which passes an electrical current between two points and stops the bleeding. It was not an entirely pleasant sound, but at least I couldn't feel (or see) anything.

After that I felt quite a bit of vague tugging and could hear little snipping sounds as he stitched up the wound - apparently I have 14 stitches! They must be very tiny! And then he stuck pieces of light-brown medical tape across the wound and told me it was all done. Yaay!

I took a look in the mirror and although my face looked a little puffy as a result of the injections, the tape was so neat and tidy, and blended so well with my skin, you would have been hard-pressed to even notice it!

He's told me that the cut he made is quite long because a long cut will scar much less and heal much better than a short cut. I guess it's because he must have removed a piece of skin (and however much flesh underneath) at least the size of my thumbnail, so he has to somehow stitch that back together without having the skin to do it. Goodness knows how he did it, but I guess a long cut would make sense. I don't think I'll look for a while...

In fact I realise I didn't even think about asking to look at the whatever-it-is, once it was no longer part of my face, so I will never know how large it was, and I don't think I really want to know actually :)

I can't let it get wet for at least 48 hours, I have to watch out for "weeping" (it, not me!), and if I have any problems I have to call them straight away, any time day or night. Great service!

So there you go. My first experience under the knife! Heh. I have to go back in a week's time to get the stitches taken out, and maybe by then the results of the analysis of the whatever-it-is will have come back and we'll know whether or not it was THE BIG C, or if it was just a funny old age spot. We shall see...

Part 3 - Stitches come out, results are back, is it cancer?

Technorati tags: skin cancer, Actinic Keratosis, age spot, plastic surgery, New Zealand, health.

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Basal, squamous or melanoma?

I was a grumpy old shitbag at work today. To those of my workmates who read my blog, can I just apologise for being so bad-tempered and snappy? I'm truly sorry. None of you remotely deserved it and I feel rotten for bringing down the happy vibe in the studio today.

I think I'm slightly freaking out without letting myself actually realise that deep down, I'm freaking out. A couple of weeks ago the innocent little age spot which has been quietly sitting on my right cheek for a couple of years, turned a dark and angry red overnight, and has become slightly raised and a wee bit itchy. At first I thought it was maybe a flea bite, so I left it for a week to see if it went away, but it hasn't.

I went to see my doctor yesterday and she thinks it may be either a basal or squamous cell carcinoma (but probably not a melanoma. Phew!). She's concerned enough about it to refer me to a plastic surgeon who will do a "punch biopsy" where they punch out a bit of the -whatever-it-is- and have it analysed - and from there they will decide what treatment it needs.

At first when I called the plastic surgeon, they told me I would have to wait three weeks to see him, so I freaked out a bit and told them that my whatever-it-is had appeared from nothing overnight and that I really really didn't want to have to wait such a long time before getting it checked out. I'm now seeing him on Monday in his lunch hour. Heh. Thanks, Mr PS!

I've done my research on the internets with "The Google" and I now know that basal cell carcinoma is the most common form of skin cancer, with over 800,000 new cases in the US alone each year. It's also fairly easily treated, as long as you deal with it quickly and don't mess around pretending it's not really there (or that it's a flea bite!).

A small percentage of BCCs are more aggressive and don't respond so well to treatment, but again, if dealt with early, they can generally be sorted. BCC has a very low rate of metastasis, which is when a cancer spreads from one part of the body to another.

Squamous cell carcinoma is the second most common form of skin cancer with over 200,000 new cases per year estimated in the United States. Most are not serious, and again can be treated very successfully if you catch them early enough. A very small percentage (2-3%) are more aggressive and can spread to other parts of the body, often with fatal results. Gulp. Hope I'm in the 97% if it is an SCC!

New Zealand has one of the highest rates of skin cancer incidence and mortality in the world, and it's the most common form of cancer here. We have nearly 50,000 new cases a year (out of a population of only 4 million people!) and over 300 deaths per year.

Skin cancer is caused by over-exposure to ultra-violet (UV) radiation from the sun, especially UVB.

CFCs (mainly from spraycans and refigerators) have damaged the ozone layer, and it's the ozone layer that protects us from UVB rays, so we're all more at risk now than we were 50 years ago. Here in NZ we've also got very clear skies (not much pollution) and because we are situated so far south, in the summer as our part of the planet turns to face the sun we are closer to it than those countries nearer the equator (and further away during the winter). [Click on this or any of the other pics to see more detail.]

I remember as a kid going on holidays to France and literally cooking myself on the beach, slathered in suntan oil (not sunblock!) and, well, frying. I've had one really bad sunburn experience in my life, in my early 20s when I got so badly burned my friends had to stay up all night laying wet towels across my back and legs to stop the skin blistering off. I could hardly sit down for a week, my skin was so tight and damaged. Ow! I've never done it since.

When I first came here to live, I was amazed at the contrast between the New Zealand sky and the hazy, polluted skies of Europe. Here the sky is so blue it almost hurts to look at it (in a good way!), but the sun is also fierce compared with most other places. You can literally feel it burning you after only about 10 minutes in the sun. Being a bit of an English Rose, skin-wise, I've always been really careful here. I'm the one with the wide-brimmed hat on, a decent pair of sunglasses, long sleeves, factor 30 sunblock at the ready, and probably sitting in the shade.

On a New Zealand beach it's quite rare to see people lying in the sun getting a suntan for hours on end. Most people wear hats, t-shirts, sit under umbrellas or in the shade, and almost all Kiwi kids wear those little full-body swimsuits that make them look like something out of the 1920s. The weather forecast always includes a UVI reading and an indication of burn time in the summer. Burn time is how long you could stay out in the sun without sunblock before you would start to burn. It's often well under 10 minutes.

Still, because we're such an active outdoorsy nation, it's hard to always stay out of the sun. I'm a bit of a gardener, so I do get my share of sun on my face, arms and shoulders in the summer, and I confess I don't always wear the hat, shades and sunblock when I'm just pottering around in the garden. Maybe I should have done.

On the face of it (haha bad pun!) my online research has shown me that I should be feeling pretty optimistic, and even if it does turn out to be a carcinoma, the prognosis is very good. We're certainly a million miles away from the drama of oh-my-god-I'm-going-to-die territory - we don't even know what it is yet - but I have to admit that this is bothering me quite a bit more than I would have expected it to. I think there are a couple of reasons why part of me is a bit freaked out, even though the rest of me is doing pretty well.

I suppose the first reason is that I feel guilty because I smoke and because I don't do nearly enough exercise and my diet is awful. It's easy to take your continuing good health (against all odds!) for granted until suddenly it isn't there any more. I know I'm not remotely at that stage yet (if ever), but I suppose even the suggestion of something like this can make you stop and think about what you're doing and what you'd like to be doing in 5 or 10 years time (or 20 or 30 or 50!). Still being alive would be an excellent start I think :) as would being a darned sight healthier and fitter than I am now.

So there's guilt and there's also motivation to change my lifestyle a bit. Don't know if I can give up the fags, but we shall see.

I think the other thing - and it's the one that is making me the most grumpy - is that it's at moments like this when you get a bit of a reminder of your own mortality, that it would be really nice to be able to share it with someone. I think this is a moment where I could really do with a great big hug (or 20), and someone who'd let me curl up next to them on the sofa for the evening and who would put their arm around me and stroke my hair or something and let me blather on about whatever I wanted to blather on about.

I know that any and all of my friends would do that for me in an instant if I asked - because they are all totally awesome people, but just this once it would be really really nice if there was someone in my life who knew without being told, or did without being asked - if for no other reason than I feel a bit of a twit calling up any of my grownup friends to ask them for an evening on the sofa having my hair stroked and my hopes and fears listened to. :)

*Sigh* it really really sucks being single sometimes.

Useful Links

• Basal Cell Carcinoma
• Squamous Cell Carcinoma
• Skin Cancer Prevention and Early Detection
• Sun Exposure and Skin Cancer
• SunSmart New Zealand

Part 2 - Out, damned spot!
Part 3 - Stitches come out, results are back, is it cancer?

Technorati tags: skin cancer, basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, ultraviolet radiation, ozone layer, ozone hole, sun, SunSmart, New Zealand, health.

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