Posts Tagged ‘bits of me’

dead or alive

Saturday, August 14th, 2010

You lie awake in bed in the early hours of the morning wondering if your husband is still alive.  You heard him make a noise (it woke you up, giving you the excuse you needed to have a wee and play with your pussy; it saves the house from being shredded by his young claws) and since then you haven’t heard a peep from him.

The complete lack of movement worries you too.  The noiselessness is okay as you wear earplugs (a habit from a long-ago time when he snored so loudly it was like kipping in an aeroplane engine) so any noise has to be fairly loud to make you notice it.  But he should be twitching or fidgeting, and he isn’t.  This starts to panic you, and the panic causes you to tense up making your head ache painfully.  You can’t physically move as you imagine that the noise that woke you was his dying breath.

Why aren’t you moving?

You know that you can easily prod him, but he’s only sleeping and you don’t want to wake him up just to tell him you thought he was dead.  What happens if you prod him and nothing happens?  Who is the house insured with?

Random thoughts.

You start to write a blog post in your head.  You do this a lot when you’re unable to sleep, and mostly these blog posts never meet the World Wide Web as they become forgotten amongst hazy dreams and the cold light of day.  In your ‘i wanna sleep’ state you ‘write’ sentences such as, you get up and write a semi-naked blog post and, you played with your pussy.

The latter probably lacks something … maturity?

Eventually you can lick your lips and move your legs.  Slightly later you feel a twitch.  A minute or so after that he starts to scratch. 

Phew!

You stop worrying about things like insurance, and instead you make a cup of tea, take a couple of painkillers (free from the NHS, just like the garden shed) and log onto the Internet to write a semi-naked blog post.  Later you will leave your husband at the hospital and have no idea when he’ll be back home.

Sucks to be you, eh?

I don’t think you’re selfish

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

Sometimes I get ever-so slightly irked. 

(… this statement is false; I often get very irked)

In this instance I get ever-so slightly irked by those who spout forth with self-righteous indignation about the selfishness of people who don’t want to donate their organs following their death. 

(… there was thread on ihd.com, but I can’t find it now)

Once upon a time I had a real issue with organ donation.  I was adamant that when I die I didn’t want any of my organs to be used, and I certainly didn’t carry an organ donor card. 

But if you ask me why I felt that way, I can’t give you a reasonable excuse response.  I don’t think I ever had a reason … not a good one anyway, and if I did have a reason I certainly can’t remember it now, or put it into a sentence that doesn’t sound pathetic.  However, I was not selfish - I am completely sure of that. 

Organ donation is an incredibly personal choice.  The one thing we exclsuively own (usually) is our body.  We can choose to treat our body like a temple, or we can choose to neglect/harm it.  It belongs to us, and we have the right to say what happens to all the bits that make us who we are, even (or especially) upon death.  Other people may not like that, or appreciate it, but to be so judegmental and rude (calling someone selfish is rude) doesn’t make them a better person.

So, I do get irked when folk start calling other folk selfish for choosing not to donate. 

How very dare you!

The main argument seems to be well, you can’t take them with you!, which I usually associate as being said with a smug grin. 

I won’t be able to take my money with me either, but it doesn’t mean I can’t choose what happens to it after I die.

*smug grin*

A few months ago I popped online and became a registered organ donor.  I now have a card, which I carry with me in my purse at all times, and the people who need to know, know.  I am content with my decision.  It doesn’t make me selfless.

As an aside, I didn’t tick the ‘eye’ box.  I have a ‘thing’ about eyes and it’s the one part of me that I can’t bear to imagine being used.  Yes, it is partly because I’m squeamish, but I think it runs deeper than that and until I psycho-analyse myself I won’t be able to say how deep or why.  This doesn’t make me selfish.

I have tentatively put the wheels in motion to be a living donor for Blokey.  This isn’t selfless, and it isn’t heroic. 

In fact, I’d probably say the opposite; my reasons for wanting to do it are incredibly selfish

In an ideal world we would live in a society where we had to opt-out of organ donation, but we don’t yet live in that society and I refuse to think of someone as selfish for not choosing to pop online and become a registered donor.  I don’t even have the right to question somebody on their reasons for not doing so. 

(I suppose I might try and educate them though …)

And it makes me mad that some pompous people think they do have the right.

Bah!

Prague and the NHS

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

My house is not pristine. Far from it; if you look closely enough you’ll find random cobwebs in the corners, and dust behind the settee. I’m not even that tidy. But my husband thinks I have a problem and that I’m always either cleaning, tidying or moaning about having to clean and tidy.

I imagine he was therefore quite shocked when I didn’t kick up a fuss at the state the house was in when I arrived home from Prague.

Prague was wonderful. It always is wonderful. This was my sixth trip to the Czech Republic and the first proper holiday I’ve had since our honeymoon. It was snowy and murky, but Mumsy and I walked lots, didn’t argue (I may have snapped at her once), and enjoyed seeing the sights through eyes that have seen the sights so many times already.

I first went to Czechoslovakia (as it was back then) in 1992, and I find it sad that it’s changed so much. There were little old ladies who demanded money in return for two sheets of loo paper and the opportunity of using their exceptionally clean toilets. McDonald’s was just fantasy. Tesco hadn’t yet taken over the world. Prague wasn’t cramped full of little tourist shops selling meaningless gimmicky trinkets. There weren’t copious amounts of non-Czech folk roaming the streets. Women screamed at you in a foreign language if you didn’t stand up for them on the tram (that was fun!).

But the buildings aren’t grey anymore; they’re now beautiful pastel shades. And if you look hard enough you can find hidden cafes and local shops which are real gems. And no matter how many times I go back I can still find something new to see. And I lovelovelove riding the trams/metro.

Plus, I got to meet my three year-old niece, Valerie. She is amazingly delightful and looks very much like her daddy – my brother – albeit with blonde locks and blue eyes. My other niece, Emily, is so grow’d up now! Seven years old and highly intelligent, with super artistic sense. I love them to pieces (even if they find it easy to understand me, but difficult to form English sentences!) …

I didn’t even cry on the plane. Nope, I didn’t. Not even a little bit. I did hold Mumsy’s hand very tightly and refused to stop whispering, We’re not going to fall, we’re not going to fall, we’re not going to fall … until the plane was level in the sky, but I loved being high above the clouds. I find that very magical. If there was some way of getting above the clouds which didn’t have the same sensation as taking-off does then I would probably love flying as much as the person who most loves flying in the whole wide world.

So, I came back home and the house was a tip. But I couldn’t be angry because my husband is ill and the house needs to be a mess in order to accomodate his dialysis supplies, which means he won’t have to be dependant on the nurses at dialysis anymore; instead of being hooked up to a blood-cleansing machine at the hospital for four hours three times a week, he can now be hooked up to a belly-dwelling machine for eight hours every single night in the privacy of our own home. That’s as long as he takes to Peritoneal Dialysis, obviously.

In good news, we now have a shed (thank you NHS) to store everything in. In less good news, I think it might be a tad too small for a whole months supplies.

Tsk.

Stagecoach are *rude words, and plenty of them*

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

Stagecoach have once again changed my local bus times/routes. And they’ve made a pigs ear of it. The following is a letter I wrote them, but with less detail and stronger wordage.

Dear Bus Company

You’ve changed the bus timetables/routes. This makes me very bluddy angry. Thanks a bunch.

Fooking Idiots.

*screams*

Yours sincerely,