I have so many posts in drafts it’s beyond a joke. I start and then don’t get around to finishing and I then I just decide to start again because I am not in that space any more and it feels false or something. Glad of the glimpse into my inner workings? I thought you would be.

On the weekend, Beefcake and my brother-in-law helped my Mum move into her new house. She is still guided by the habits of the last few decades. Sometimes she’ll say something or rather that she’s planning to do something and we all have to explain to her why that’s not a good idea and it would be just as easy to take option b, which will break these patterns and spare her all sorts of stress. She’s made a lot of progress though and having her in her own house is such a big step, we are all very relieved.

I’m not really comfortable calling my father by name or calling him my father, really, so from now on I will refer to him as B.

B has been re-detained in hospital under another 21 day order. He will be in hospital now until the middle of March and he may well be detained again. I suspect that they will have trouble getting any medication to work for him now, he has been heading in that direction for many years (in my opinion). Despite being very heavily medicated he was becoming more and more unstable, with each passing month.

The restraining order becomes final on Wednesday. My mother told me with a heartbreaking smile that it is their 37th wedding anniversary. There is no correct way to respond to that.

My nightmares and insomnia have worsened but I have recently read that this may be a side-effect of the arthritis medication I am taking. I see the Rheum on Wednesday and unfortunately, after three months, I have seen no improvement. In fact, my arthritis is worsening, with new joints now affected.

I’m very disappointed. I have decided that if the Rheum says the other drug options are not compatible with breastfeeding then I will wean Grub. She is 20 months old and I wanted to get to 2 years but my pain is so bad that I feel a little bit trapped. I am sad but I’m sure she’d rather have a functional Mummy than boob…….Ummmm, maybe not, but that’s what she’s getting.

I had an excellent GP visit last week. Not my usual GP, but one I’ve taken the kids to before and he was so sympathetic to my need to keep getting pain med prescriptions that he gave me the mother of all authorities (means I can get large amounts of pain med very cheaply on the pharmaceutical benefits scheme). The size of the script is almost comical but we discussed the next step up for pain management and let’s just say I hope I don’t ever have to go there. It is a relief I won’t have to worry about it running out. Usually when it does I tell Beefcake that I am going to try and go without for a while. I get more and more grumpy and eventually give in and go to the GP.

This time he rang and made an appointment for me before that could happen.

He’s learning.

I’m struggling to find blogging inspiration lately. Actually, no that’s not true. I have things that I could blog about, things that I probably should get out of my system – and have, in a few not really publishable posts, in my drafts folder. I want to be able to blog about the kids and about things we are doing, about nice happy things, but I just can’t muster up the emotional energy to do that. It feels as though that effort might just break me. And I can’t post about the other things. I guess I think that I have exceeded my quota of grim and whiny posts lately. I can’t subject anyone to more of my whinging.

So, I can’t write anything nice, I can’t write what’s on my mind, therefore I can’t write anything at all.

This is my blog, though, isn’t it?

Consider yourselves warned.

It is exhausting having to put on the cheerful, functional act for people in the real world. I can’t say to most people – Yes, I am in pain. Yes, still. No, I’m not any better. No, those 43 helpful suggestions of things I might like to try to make-myself-better-and-why-aren’t-I-doing-them-already are not any more helpful or useful than the last time you made them to me. There is no simple thing that just hadn’t occurred to me before that will suddenly make it all better.

It’s just so very much easier to say, “I am fine, pelvis is fine thanks”.

So, in case you were wondering, pelvis is not fine. I am not fine. But what do you do? You can’t get a replacement body.

I had pelvis x-rays the other day. I am convinced that they will show a normal, happy pelvis. Pelvis knows how to turn it on for the doctors. The rheum will tell me that my pain is in my head and I will be back in the land of no-one gives a shit.

Gee, I’m an upbeat little thing, aren’t I?

*****************

He gets out on Monday. His detention is coming to an end, our piece of mind with it. He appealed his detention, subjecting us all to more stress but thank goodness it was upheld. He has been on his best behaviour though (we think, no way of knowing for sure) because he has been transferred back to local, not so secure public hospital ward.

The police screwed up the restraining order. A typo means it started and ended on the exact same date. It went back through the magistrates court to correct that today but the paperwork Mum received still shows the typo. The police can’t serve him with the typo in place. Did I mention he gets out on Monday?

We are hoping that the court mistakenly faxed her the old, unaltered one and he will be served tomorrow. I am not that hopeful.

If it doesn’t happen before he gets out then we will have to convince her to hide somewhere.

***********

As my more astute readers will have surmised, Beefcake is, um, beefy. He’s been that way since shortly after we met. I like to joke that once he’s snagged me he just let it all go. It’s kind of true. So. I was whining to him about it tonight. I’m not annoyed about his huskyness so much as the vast sums of money we’ve sunk into his weight loss in recent times only to have him turn around, sit down and gain it all back again.

He takes my annoyance (mostly) good naturedly as he knows it’s just the general background drone of whining I like to produce to accompany our lives. Tonight though, he came up with a phrase that I felt was so genius, I had to share.

Apparently all of this losing and gaining has been of benifit to him after all as he is working towards “adjusting his fat paradigm”. His father subjected him to many a self-help tape as a child and it has obviously had an effect. Imagine trying to have a serious whinge to someone who is adjusting their fat paradigm. Ain’t gonna happen.

At least he makes me laugh.

Update: The magistrate’s court did indeed put it through complete with typo AGAIN! Seriously.

So, um, it occurs to me that with the Christmas/New year business I forgot to tell everyone about my appointment with the Rheumatologist, I’m sure that you’re all hanging on the edge of your seat to hear about it. No? Tough luck.

Originally I couldn’t get an appointment with the specialist until March. March, I thought in November when it was becoming clear that my hands and other joints were only getting worse (don’t even mention the pelvis, just don’t), was not good. Straight away I asked to be placed on the waiting list for cancellations and miracle of  miracles on about the 18th of December I got a call to say that they could fit me in on the 23rd if I could make it. Um, hell yes!

The rhematologist was actually really sweet. She listened to what I had to say about my falling apart body. She took what I had to say seriously. She examined me thoroughly. She wasn’t surprised or indeed horrified when I said that I was still breastfeeding my toddler (as doctors seem to love being). All in all, it went well.

Numerous outcomes of that appointment were:

• I am very, very flexible. Not quite as freakishly flexible as some people but apparently the resting position of my feet when I am lying down is not right. They flop down or something, who knew.
• Multiple other joints and bits and bobs do things that they are not meant for. Things I didn’t realise they did, or at  least that what they did was wrong, until she asked me to show her.
• That flexibility is kind of on a continuum, my level is not quite at the extreme end where connective tissue disorders reside but not really okay either and certainly contributing to some problems.
• I have some sort of non-specific inflammatory arthritis in my hands. When she first saw them she inhaled sharply and said “oooooo”, which I took to mean that it wasn’t just me who thought they look a little strange.
• She’s not sure about my pelvis. She thinks that, although she’d like to unify my problems under one diagnosis, there may be several things wrong with me that are not really related. Awesome.
• She took my pain seriously and has placed me on two new medications to be taken every day, to reduce inflammation and pain etc.
• She wants fresh pelvis x-rays and blood tests. No other doctor has ever wanted pelvis x-rays, I only had some done because a friend of mine is a doctor and she wanted to make sure I wasn’t dying of bone cancer while we were visiting her in Spain. This is a pretty big deal. She actually gives a crap about investigating my pelvis.
• The original blood test results weren’t normal. Something or other was elevated, which it would be in arthritis, hence the new blood tests to see if it is worse.

I left feeling really optimistic. She’s not 100% sure that she can do anything for my pelvis but she feels she can do something for my hands and, you know, she is trying to help me, she listened, she heard.

So, for the moment I am holding my breath and managing my pelvis pain and taking my pills until I next see her in March and even though the state of play is pretty much the same. I feel better. I do.

Oh gawd. How embarrassing. I mean initially, it certainly looked as though I had the pox.

The thing is, I’m really quite doctor-phobic. I mean, I have to be really suffering to head to the doctor. I was content to convince myself that it was chicken pox. Until yesterday.

Yesterday the sores began to kind of grow and look weird. They were weepy beyond the length of time that Dr Google said they would be. They no longer looked as though they were healing and it just felt wrong. I told Beefcake that I no longer thought it was chicken pox. He didn’t agree. Dr google couldn’t tell us.

The only other candidate seemed to be impetigo. Very similar symptoms initially, similar description but the images that Dr Google provided didn’t match. AT ALL. Really.

This morning the symptoms were worse. Instead of healing the sores seemed to be growing. Consistent with the dreaded impetigo. I got up in a panic. I yelled at Beefy and told him that I was convinced bacteria was eating my face off even if it didn’t look like anything on google images. He wasn’t convinced but took me off to the doctor anyway.

As an aside, have you ever tried to hide ugly face sores with your hair in a room full of strangers without looking like a complete loon? I tried a magazine for a while but it wasn’t exactly natural to be holding it high in front of my face and turning it with me each time I turned to speak with Beefy.

The doctor confirmed what I had already guessed. Impetigo it is. Go on Google it, and give yourself a treat

I earned myself both antibiotic ointment and a course of oral antibiotics.

I don’t think it helped that I seem to have been fighting off Pudding’s chesty lurgy as well as a bout of gastro and one or the other of these have caused breathing problems, extreme dizzyness and a temperature.

It still doesn’t look like any of the pictures on the internet.

It looks pretty bloody awful though.

This is the most embarrassing blog post I have ever had to write.

Instead of some viral illness I am covered in festy bacteria. I disgust myself.

So, there you have it. This is me, admitting that I am a moron, again.

The end.

So obviously pageant went well. Given that my lovely, reasonforliving iphone and the family digital camera were killed in the pursuit of Christmas slappers and bagpipe marching bands.

Obviously there are no photos, well actually, Beefy did take some on his phone for me but I have not gotten around to uploading them and quite frankly they are much the same as last year’s.

It was almost unbearably hot. We were very lucky really. We began by hovering at the back of the crowd right at the parade kick-off point. We made it just in time to witness the blowing of the whistle and there must be something a little wrong with me as I was overcome with nostalgic emotion, I still remember taking the big kids to Pageant when they were quite small and they are so big now it seems almost unbelievable. Anyway, we sweltered in the full glare of the headingto39degrees sun for a few minutes by which time we all needed to take a break. We retreated to the shade provided by the portico of a large office building and … There we stayed.

Once we were there we realised that it afforded us a pretty good view and there was no risk of sun stroke. A no-brainer really. We lifted the kids up when the Big Guy came past and Pudding was so thrilled when Father Christmas waved in our direction. I felt crushingly guilty that we were filling his little mind full of Father Christmas propganda, something I am ideologically opposed to. In practice I get caught up in the “magic” of it all and can’t resist spinning the tale for them. Terrible.

All in all Pageant was worth it, despite the heat. The walk wasn’t too bad and I feel like it’s such a special thing to give to my kids. I spent most of my childhood in Melbourne, although my extended family were all in SA. I always felt not quite Victorian and not quite South Australian and I guess I feel that sharing these intrinsically South Australian things with our kids will provide them with a more solid sense of identity. Maybe, or something.

It was not worth losing my iphone though. The camera has recovered from it’s dunking, probably because it was in it’s nice padded case and my poor wee phone was nude.

*Sob*

There is hope, however. Apparently Apple will replace a water damaged iphone under warranty for about $260 including postage and all. So, we can’t quite do that for a couple of weeks due to the state of our finances but fingers crossed in a couple of weeks I will be able to hold the that gorgeous piece of electronics in my hand once again. Seriously, I feel like I have lost a limb!

When your eldest daughter puts your youngest daughter’s water bottle in a bag OPEN and that bag happens to contain your iphone, the result will not be pleasing.

If your insurance will not cover said iphone because you recently switched polices in order to save money, it will not be pleasing.

If the good digital camera was also in the bag and is similarly defunct, you may lose your mind for a minute and tell everybody  that Christmas is cancelled.

This will be a mistake and will produce strong feelings of guilt. You will be forced to apologise to those involved.

Apologising will not fix your phone.

Nothing.

Some minor things like my vitamin D levels are quite low (spend much time inside immobilised by pain do you?) and my cholesterol levels are marginally high but not actually high apparently.

So nothing.

Nothing at all.

Doctor is convinced there is something the matter with me. As she put it “There’s just too many joints and things that are problematic”. I agree. There must be something.

I have a referral to a rheumatologist. The doctor assures me that there are many more in-depth tests that the rheumatologist will do.

I am not surprised really. I had a feeling that nothing would turn up. I also feel that there is a good chance that the specialist will not find anything and I will be back to square one, in pain and told to “just deal with it”.

I know these are useless, rubbish thoughts. I must pick myself up and go forth to be prodded and drained of my vital fluids with great enthusiasm and an optimistic twinkle in my eye.

Truthfully I am hoping that in the months that it will take to get a specialist appointment I will improve greatly. Beefcake has now decided that I should wean Grub. He is convinced her continued feeding is taking an unreasonable toll on my body. I won’t even consider it until she gets to eighteen, no twenty, months. I would prefer weaning to occur more naturally but if we get to twenty months I will consider it if I am no better. Of course I expect I will all better by then.

I have the flu. I have had a fever for three days. I feel leaden and snot-filled, My throat feels as though I have swallowed a cheese grater. It is making me feel decidedly up-beat. Can you tell?

Beefcake has a job interview tomorrow. Wish him luck.