Dances with DS

I think I might have finally self diagnosed a strange affliction I have had for a long time. If I press my skin too hard it gets very blotchy with big red marks on it. It looks poo. When I am itchy and give a little scratch a huge wheal will develop on my skin - it looks appalling - red, raised like a welt. After a while it dies down. Pete has often said he won’t scratch my back least I go to report him for abuse. It can look dramatic. When I did a photo shoot for a mag some time ago the beauticians kept on having to cover up my red blotches - it was quite funny really between shoots they would run in and dab foundation on me. Luckily it does not cause other symptoms so not serious. Sad really how if you live with something for a long time you just kind of adapt. I knew I was a bit different this way but I accepted the condition & just lived with it & never really questioned it.

A while ago at the Gp’s I was fingering my neck slightly nervously and of course the good old marks were happening - he was very amused - highly overactive mast cells you have there he said. Ok - cryptic clue number one. Something to go on. I read up on them & learned anti histamine’s might help me & they seem to. Anyway it was a nameless wonder until today. Doing a search trying to understand more today I came across a condition called ‘dermographia’ - yup that’s me! Luckily it is not dangerous but it is disfiguring sometimes so I am pleased to be able to effect a more in depth study. I hasten to add this is not DS related I have had it since I was young. It’s my bizarre party trick!

Well I learn something new everyday & I am hopeful I might be able to get this sorted with the correct drugs at least when I go out- would be nice not to have to worry bout going all blotchy.
A wee blog from another dermographist

Mmmmm…quite like my new word ‘Dermographist’. Perhaps this shall be a new vocation for me! Skin writer just does not have the same ring about it. Anyway much to ponder.
I can only hope the alien abduction stuff is not real. Yikes!
Apparently in the days of yore if you had dermographia it was a sign you were a witch to be burned at the stake…mmmmm. Poor poor women.

Me- well perhaps I need to determine the symbolic - emotional content of this for myself. Typical. I can’t just say - oh it’s mast cells leaking histamines - lol - nooooo there is always a psycho-component for me.

That aside I forgot to report that again the hairdresser had commented on my thick hair the other day - Vainly I do like that. I feel pleased because I believe my health is reflected in my hair and nails. And the days of fear when I had very thin hair are mercifully over.

Not much to write about today - must get on with some tidying up & Pete should be home soon.

Appended:

Caught a snippet of a documentary on Vitamins - interesting but inconclusive Vitamin A stuff. (what’s new it is all heresay it seems.) I am not delighted by the 45 000 ius I take daily - always have felt wary. Greg’s done his best to reassure me but I am a born skeptic. Perhaps I should join the skeptics society in London - yep it really does exist. I know the V4L drawbacks well but I also see the highly positive aspects of it so it has been for me a careful weigh up.

However I have now had high daily dosages for 3 years so perhaps I should offer my liver to science. Thinking about getting a biopsy - lets *really* see shall we. I am so sick & tired of guesswork. I am also not deeply convinced by blood tests I must say. (As you may know my Vit A levels tested normal range last year.) I DO feel if the V4L is possibly causing probs we need to know early on so that the other younger DSers than myself can be alerted in very good time. Or - if not - then at least we don’t need to live with the damn irritating niggle I live with. Will see what I am able to set up. I now have in my sweaty little palm the name of one of the UK’s top liver guys who knows the clinical signs of liver damage by Vit A - is it possible in a world where I cannot even get my basic ADEK bloods without a fight deluxe? - we can but hope. I see the gastrofellow in July and will see if anything bold can be done. Wish me luck.

Head full of stuff what is new. Blame it on Andrew - we met on Sat night for an indepth DS natter and it was good to talk with someone who ‘gets it’ everytime & then some.
It’s suprising how hard it can be to get some of the DS subtler points over. With some of the other surgeries you go into hosp and get a set kind of setup. Sure the pouches will stretch marginally and there is compensation with the distal RNY - but the DS is like having a process that is beyond ones own control in many respects. The DS I had at 3 months out is a very different one from the one I had at 6months, 9months,16months & now! Even this year there have been some suprises such as my little banana milk episode. And then to explain that actually we do have restriction - and the entire mechanics of that restriction - it’s not easy. So great to see sparks of recognition and know that people do research, do quest. The DS is much more than research it really is a quest. What I mean is that it’s the least simple surgery to understand really…and it can be offputting. My first read of the DS I saw a pic of the transected stomach. I closed my screen and went right back to looking at the rny -lol.
It requires some mental breakthroughs does our ole DS. But once one has seen the logic of it, the possibility of it - few go back.

Actually speaking restriction I think some people are under the impression with the DS ultimately it magically goes away. It does not - not at all. I cannot do myself quarter the damage I could pre DS. And I am not for restricting the DS from a psychological veiwpoint alone either. I think a well balanced DS takes into account that we need to be able to eat a healthy portion of food. I am not talking the portion an obese person such as myself used to eat - but rather an ordinary portion of food. There are cases where biologically tums were made too big to start with - fair enough in these cases I too would do something - but I fear a trend towards re-secting in the future on psychological grounds..fear of eating.
If this is the case & we can’t unlearn the ravages of a skewed relationship with food - well long live the Restrictive surgeries. Mind you, this does take time - one cannot undo years of onslaught in a couple of years.

I hope somehow surgeons will begin to make pragmatic assessments of the sort of mentallity the DS requires in this respect too. I work with DSers daily to combat what I can only call food-fear and the ubiquitous conditioning of a lifetime of deprivation versus binge. It’s incredible how self depriving some can be - the idea of the odd treat turns them cold. Or eating fats - this one is often interesting too. I see surgeries being chosen on this fear of food/appetite alone sometimes which does make me wonder if people do not have difficulty with the idea that ‘normal’ is far from excess. I think as we have never known normal or even what that is this in itself can be tricky.
This is a big work but it can be undone - we can be wonderfully at peace with food and the DS is a surgery that can be a backbone to this sort of headstuff.
I was happy today to read a thread in the US that was mostly comprised of the longertermers food attitudes - oh - HEALTHY stuff…so it’s not just me!

Sunday: Well, needless to say the head is in overload. Thinking on such diverse topics such as what exactly is the calcium in milk (Andrews thought)…to arrogance and where one draws the line. I am ashamed really I think I am probably one of those ‘bloody arrogant South Africans!’ I hang my head. I suppose all nations get a shadow to follow them - perhaps it is a teaching - a warning flag of some kind - that rests in the collective consciousness.

I do struggle with the feeling that the arguments for the DS are so very much stronger than the arguments against it. As the DS thing gets continuosly easier for me I am more and more prone to falling into my own mire. Sometimes I have difficulty with this on a multi pronged moral level. Still I do well to remind myself of the folks I know who struggle through it but I do wonder might they then not have struggled through any surgery? Who knows. I also sometimes play with my idea of the ‘ideal’ DS candidate which is immensly arrogant probably. But I see an immergent personality type that does well with this surgery.

This WLS road is peppered with interesting mythologies.
I have to be careful not to overly transmit my ‘piece of pie’ inclinations, because there’s 6 years to go before I even touch on being a grown up DSer. My piece of pie is relative to me. I must stay patient…remember how crap it sometimes was in the first year. And who knows what sideways whack I might take on the ear…or worse in years to come.

A pottering day at home - I am extremely excellent at pottering. The roses are in full bloom it invites one to stand staring and sniffing the fragrant air. My garden at long last is becoming restored - I remember in 2001 when I could garden no more. I remember the sudden physical pain when I tried to dig a hole and then the wash of emotional pain.
Now it is like my fairyland. I think in here I might grow wings.
Today a black dragonfly with an electric blue body flew past me. Magic.

Afternoon - a good old natter & tea with a mate. Girls stuff. I like it. She is a person with an obscene and wicked sense of humour and wit is her second name. I have the sense of humour but I am too intense - wit needs a fast synapses in the brain. I am slow, mulling, pondering, rewriting & mind changing. Still I love the fire of wit.

Pete and decide to get a steak in Staines. I laugh at Matt when we tell him we are going out alone. Okay says he wryly twinkle in eye - ’so clearly you guy’s don’t love me anymore!’ Matt. My quantum leap child. My 18 year old baby. I hug him. I tell him, ‘I love you Matt till my guts spills over. I love you more than anyone could say’. He is beaming. He is shining. ‘Jeez Ma, I was only joking!’….
We laugh.

I don’t talk of my kids often. I have this instinct to protect them & to not put them into the public eye. But they are a delicious bunch of people all three of them & we are immensly close.
I am often amazed. How did someone as fucked up as me end up with three of the greatest humans on this earth? Kind, loving, funny & much much more. (Proud mummy syndrome perhaps but it’s true.)
Somewhere the gods decided to give me one hell of a blessing in the form of my children.

At the ‘Outback’ I am having a deep fillet craving and I like their ‘blooming onions’ . Mind you I do peel off the batter which kind of defeats the object of the onion. Still - I am not fond of batter anymore. I flash on my many DS related quirks.
It’s nice to be alone with Pete chilling out. Nice to sit lazily watching the swans on the river. There was a mum with 7 cygnets. I think there was an accident & she adopted a few by mistake. A boat goes straight at them. I flinch, I close my eyes. Stupid man! No respect - no care for nature.
He misses them. Just.

Besides that incident it is lovely. People around us are friendly - the sunshine makes everyone relaxed.
Fillet tastes good - topped with mushrooms and cheese. Enough chips on the side to feed several people. I eat my usual handful & feel replete.

Monday: Go to Toni & Guy in Guildford. Time to touch up the old grey hairs. How exciting. This time I think London can get a rest. Nice lady at Toni & Guy understands all my dread fears about going grey prematurely. I like her so give her artistic license. Dangerous. LOL.
I think it was the chairs in there that massage one as the hair gets washed - it put me in laidback island mode. I have studiously avoided the blonde phenomena most woman go through when they lose weight and become sex goddesses. Me - nope I went dark. Not that I’m not a sex goddess you know just that I studiously have to do the opposite to most people. God knows my flaws.
But slowly - surely with deft hand the hairdressers I have so brazenly licensed to full creative freedom are blonding me up. I have a fear I will look like Dolly Parton without the tits at the end of all of this.
Pete likes it so it must be okay. I get the mens vote in my household…mmmmmmmm.

Tuesday: am having cravings. The week has had a lot of these. It’s not unusual for me and I try to comply with the bod. Broccolli. (god but that is sad.) Bombay curry. Chicken. And one night late Pete and I went to Tescos for the sole purpose of a watermelon. I ate with a feeling of near bliss. A HUGE slice -lol.

Playing now: Stevie Nicks - Thunder only happens when it’s raining

Currently reading:
The Anatomy of mental illness - Janov
Awakening the Buddha within - Lama Surya Das

Archetypes at play & work:
Samaritan. Dilettante.Prince.Midas.Magical Child.Networker.Student.
Don’t know bout half of them tbh. But looking at the energies I can see some of the good old work cut out. Pleased nothing is too dark - too shadow considering where I have been of late.
The bad news: I got an awesome pimple on my nose over the weekend - a shocking reminder of adolescent hormones - oh lawd and this at forty. Very upsetting. Customary fear of deficiencies playing havoc in my mind.
The good news: It was just a pimple for goodness sakes! Healed up beautifully - no deficiencies!

Playing now: Stevie Nicks - Landslide. My current favourite and no 1 hit on the private hitparade of jane
Shoot - playing now also current favourite - again it’s Nicks - Crystal.
I sing loudly until my tum reverberates. Oh it’s good and it’s clear. This one is sheer poetry. I think of Pete and I driving on our blue Cape Mountains below the azure sea sparkling in the sun - the wind is warm and we are at such peace. I think too very much of my first night post DS when I hear this song.

Katey, my daughter says Nicks sounds like a goat. Unfair I say. She sounds husky & soulful. Later I admit Kate has a point. LOL. I still like her music. I am stuck in the past.

Pete is in Edinburgh - I was too slow off the mark - would have gone with him but it was a sudden call. Next time for sure. We write each other silly e-mails that make me laugh.

Today I am feeling very mentally clear. Answered a few private e-mails and still want to spend a little time bantering with Matty. I have devoured a bar of toasted almond nougat my friend brought back from her hols for me. It is delicious stuff. I wonder if the egg white used boosts the protein even more. Let’s not think bout the sugars.
I threw convention to the wind and had calves liver in sage butter for brekky. Just as well Petes away after that he would not even spare me a wee kiss-lol. I have tried to convert the family but no one else eats the stuff.
Lunch - a piss poor curry from Tescos…not great but plenty of chicken. 2 amazing beautiful fresh apricots and a handful of home picked raspberries that have all the flavour of something unsprayed and straight off the bush. I’m aware again of how debauched a great deal of our supermarket food is.
Dinner - A juicy Salmon steak with Mediteranean veggies - a reasonable helping of peppers, aubergine, courgette, red onion smothered in melted cheese.

I read Kens menshealthblog yesterday - it cracked me up to think of him in tweeds now that he is a rabbits grandad. (Please understand this is not just any old red eyed field bunny we are talking about here - he is very literate & his name is Shakespeare.) Sometimes I laugh so hard I cry - well my imagination was going overtime. I thought I could not hoot with laughter more but better still today was the kaftan account - omg the man is entering into an avant garde phase. Scary! I am nervous an alter ego is being projected from afar - YIKES! This is a hot blog go on give it a read. Kensmenshealthblog

Well there we go - I write reams but I don’t publish. The truth is I am too tired right now to go on sticking my old neck out onto the chopping block! I am controversial at times but we need that even if I say so myself. Call me what you like - I am damn honest. I can stand here and say that with pride. Sometimes it displaces myths and opens up the tracts of silence…but I have to look also at the personal price I pay for being well, erm - a loudmouth. And right now my energy is low and I have to think in terms of conserving it. I guess we all have times like this.

I am dealing with my quantum lack of energy quietly & slowly in my own way. I am holding onto bigger pictures, I am taking time out to look at something beautiful everyday. The interesting thing is sometimes these things are suprises like yesterday Claire a friend brought her grandson who is still an infant and he is so minisculely complete and I think grand. Today my neighbours cats afforded me some amusement - I am feeding them while she is on hols and they are very distinctive little personalities - the one is a great big furry ginger bear who lopes up to me everyday literally begging for his dose of love - the other is so aloof and the latest is I must now carry madame to the food bowl - eeee she drives a hard bargain -lol!

The other day Margaret my friend sent me some lovely piccies of her doggle playing with water and it brightened up a glumish day for me. Another friend who just felt things from afar were not too right and sent me a lovely e-mail. Thanks Julie I am still touched by that you know. x
My cousin who sent me pictures of his brothers little ones playing in the garden. They are SO beautiful - they remind me of my own babies. My husband who never judges me - just holds me close. My kids that give me joy. Things that light up the day and shine positive energy to me in a near tangible beam.
I do feel watched over by higher forces.
I will be okay.

I am slowing way way down. What is not so great is I feel I want to withdraw and remove myself from everything and it’s my signal that I am not in top form. This is an effort . To keep my nose out there in public life. I know I must make it - withdrawing is not a good thing for me - works for some but for me I know if I do , I will kind of spiral.

Odd that in all of this stuff - I look at my stuff with food and finally can stand back and say I have licked it! (jumping up and down excitedly)
I am afraid to get smug - dead afraid really - but it is sort of moving into my consciousness now that I have a very normal relationship to food & also it’s interesting to me where my factors of importance lie. I still eat for function first! I eat a cherry revelling in its taste but also in its ellagic acid -lol! Any old milk won’t do - make it omega 3 or Cravendale please. I am picky.
My portions are not about overstuffing myself - but I do get great eye value and a sense that I am actually having a very good meal…even when it is purely functional…ie with protein only in mind.
I like the plate to look good - some colour on it and not just a greyish brown smudge of ingestible stuff.

Yesterday after a longish functional run I had a grand day of taste indulgences - M&S lemon meringue roulade is seriously to die for. I had mine with whipped cream & ice cream. Just a generous slice and it struck me there was a time no less than quarter of the roll would have served me. I had a curry cos the taste buds needed a bit of a kick - delicious chicken in pineapple & almond curry - whopping great 40 gms worth of protein…full of flavanoids, turmeric & flavour. I marvel at how my tastes have changed. Nothing as nice to me as a good piece of protein soaked in a creamy nutrient rich sauce of some kind. Once it might have been Kentucky chicken. Don’t get me wrong I will have KFC it’s fair enough DS fare… but why, oh why when I can have chicken cooked in a green pepper, onion, tomato mild chili sauce with a generous blob of sour cream? What could beat the taste of that?
What beats the taste of slow cooked marinaded lamb chunks cooked with rosemary, baby onions, garlic & sweet potato? Steak diced with red pepper, mushrooms in wine sauce? Quality. I just don’t ever get tired with this. Not only is it extremely nutrient rich but I discover the many layers of nourishment and what this means.

I think back to a time when I was hungry all of the time. No more - I am fine eating just enough. It no longer needs to extend into huge ongoing eatings…my body has a point where it smiles and I know I am done. I can throw food away without flinching or thinking of all the kids starving in Africa.
Yes, with the DS most people can eat generously (compared with other WLS) and I think many of us will go through a perfectly natural testing the waters phase, but later on this loses it’s importance and we just eat - well - normally. (I still pinch myself - is it me saying this!???).

*Food, once this girls sworn enemy factor number one is no more.*

It has taken me a very long time on my DS road…I had loads of fall off the wagon episodes and I have had real fears surface relating to food. I have at times completely extended my boundaries and eaten crap and felt foul for it. But my jiggles are less and less & with the chocolate demon at last firmly relegated to it’s right place I am very pleased with everything on this level.

On the other hand before I start wholeheartedly patting myself on the back, I still battle with my body image - on and off like a badly played tune. And I am very prone to finding myself taking a long uninvited walks in the valleys of my psyche as often as I get the more enlightening opportunities to be flying over the mountaintops of my psyche like a well trained yogic.
Needless to say for those interested I am on my arse right now inching my way through a part of my psyche I would rather not be touching in any way shape or form. Well what can I say? God is humbling me.

From here on the ground I sort of see that I move in grandly sweeping circles much like Sufi dancers and that if I drew them - well my life would be an interesting drawing of spirals and overlaps. I’m not an A to B person - I can’t function linearly. Occasionally I have the good fortune to entirely move out of such perimeters and at times like this I draw great strength from this. I also see extremely clearly at times like this - perhaps too clearly. On the plus side it moves me back to a center - to a groundedness and a knowing that I must never compromise my integrity too much even if this means sometimes I am a lone voice.

Enough now ~ the week looks busy but it’s mostly mundane boring things - I am doing huge room clearings and packing’s so that we can take measurements and start moving ahead with our plans for Hopfield Ave. It’s not easy I am trying to work out functional minimals that we can live on without great discomfort. I reckon if we don’t get pp then at the least I am nearly packed enough to move out.

The week seems to have evaporated really - where does time go? And this next one looks set to do much the same so my blogs will be taking a backseat most likely. Some small highlights - my daughter getting to gether a very nice barbie all by her own last night the kid is going to be a mean cook some day :-). We had a lovely evening together out in the still evening air old fire going. A couple of nice days entertaining old friends. Sunshine today down here in the South and a blue sky as blue as Africa’s. I was up dead early in the morning and the light was superb. Roses in my garden in full bloom.

I’m run off my feet and I am tired at night - very tired. I manage a couple of posts on WLSinfo but my output is marginal right now. I’m not sure that I am not coming down with something. I’m afraid of an ME type of flare up - an old ghost of mine I thought I had beat but it is that kind of extreme fatigue. I also have a mental listlessness I can’t place - I just feel I don’t have the energy to care - new one on me. My appetite is disgusting - it’s still a real effort to eat. I feel projected back into the first months of my DS effort effort & more effort. Eat Jane eat! I know I must so I try the best I can. I hold onto the idea that this is only temporary and most days I love my food & eat well. It’ll pass - it always does.

Today managed a piece of salmon with lemon-mayo and some steak stewed with aubergine & onions tonight in a schezuan tomato sauce. It was so tasty but I still could not eat very much. Not near a decent protein intake tomorrow I will do a lot of marvel enhanced milk sipping and eat in small bursts - every 3 hours or so a snack - I think that might work better right now. This is not funny but sick as I am mentally I was looking at my hollow cheeks this morning thinking I looked GREAT! God - will my head ever ever move around to being healthy - I have to laugh really else I would cry. I’m not well but I think I look great…charming. It swings with me - then I feel I would be a very nice size 16 if I ever got bigger then I think bones that project outwards are the biz…I don’t know I just know in my head there are very definative mentally ill spots & I am helpless to do much about them. Perhaps just knowing is okay.
I’m staying with the vitamins 12 Vita4Life. The heat today probably did not do much to help - but I am NOT complaining. Bring on the summer.

Pete and I thinking of doing a run to New York soon - perhaps a 3 day break - but not sure if it is not too hot there right now - I ‘ll research the weather when I have a moment. In any event I am starting with itchy feet syndrome again so I will have to go somewhere godswilling. Just hoping this appetite -tired thing starts to pass soon else I will be travelling in my head only!

It’s been a very busy day - stocking up on food as friends come by this week, plus the usual frenetic cleaning and tidying.

An e-mail from my ma today - she fell off a ladder and my whole being goes into a wildly delayed shock as I read of the crash & the pain. Mercifully nothing was broken but she sounded shaken by it. It is just vile to be so faraway at times like this - I can’t help thinking in the aftermath - what if?
I know it’s useless to think these thoughts and torture myself but my fears surface at such news.

Mark is hard at work sorting the deck & it is looking great…we painted it ebony and now all the plants look so green & beautiful next to it. Half my garden is decking so it’s not an unsubstantial job. Pete will be pleased to see it when he gets back. Mark & I had a laugh - he was very proud of the good job congratulating himself heartily on the improvements! And there I was patting myself on the back for achieving a stunning pair of earrings on the jewellery front!

Inbetween I have had a little quality time with my oldest son, Luke. I seldom see him he is always on the go nowadays…so it was nice.

I made a couple hours for myself to work on the most elaborate earrings I have ever designed & made in my life! A lot of wirework and wire wrapping on a fine scale was involved. I am so dead pleased with them, I feel like a kid!

They are to match the bracelet. I began with a gorgeous angel (well perhaps it’s more of a cupid) finding and this is suspended on a gold chain to the earring - it terminates there in a topaz cut glass bead and a small garnet. The idea being that it hangs and has movement which in turn makes the beads sparkle. From the bottom of the angel I hung a pink lucite flower which is topped with diamante bead and two ruby & swarowski drops on either side - again these have movement. It’s interesting - a substantial work but fine and it still holds onto being delicate. What is great too is that they are not heavy at all despite being generously sized. Masterpiece! I can see these being worn with an extremely elegant evening gown and hair swept back to reveal them fully or equally they would look lovely with jeans & T-shirt. Looking at them I am thinking how marvellous that in the whole world only one pair like this exists (so far!)…quite a thought.
I am going to cry when I give these away - it really is something very beautiful even if I say so myself with great unhumble immodesty!

I am looking at this thinking in this case as it is potentially not for the theatrical at heart - so I shall do a matching pair of earrings, but next week if I have time I will embark on an asymmetrical ‘pair’ of earrings, something very different and very creative…I have got the mental piccie in my head already.

Wish I could do this all day but the cleaning up must continue unfortunately. Something about five people in this house that literally unravels it - and when the kids friends come it’s even more chaotic!

Some thoughts flying through my head - no hunger today at all - I have eaten badly. Forced a double sized latte & had some few chicken livers. That’s all. on the other hand I am kind of thinking that it would be interesting to see what would happen if I stop doing in the 2000-3000cal range daily and went say into the 1000-2000 cal range instead. Would I lose more weight? (Do I want too?)…Would it compromise my health? Could it disturb my metabolic setpoint levels? Mmmmmm - god only knows. I don’t ever want to muck with my metabolism as I did presurgery as I fear that might trigger regains gods forbid. I was very stuffed up then, mostly through doing starvation periods then collapsing and eating extensively. It has taken me a lot of effort and thinking to work out a setpoint and stay in the range - though I wonder if it should not drop slightly as time goes by to kind of balance out the compensation process? Is my body telling me something here (and I am not getting it?).
Well, I simply don’t know, I am like the blind in this respect & there is no one to guide me. As usual I must be my own path beater. As usual I must be existential. Story of my life.
I’ll be thinking on this more.

Yesterday caught up in my little worries, I forgot to mention that thankfullyit had only taken up a wee portion of the day. On the whole I had a fine day. Up early I put my cars hoodie back and drove in the sunshine to our local Antiques fair to do some bead searching. It was packed and I saw loads of lovely things - Beautiful glass and also a superb 19th Century Anglo-Indian mirror ornately carved in Mahogany. I negotiated the seller down & was the proud owner of it in no time at all! Now where on earth to to hang it?

I found various charms and beads - some where very good deals like the lovely little engraved locket I fished out of a box full of odds and ends - but could I find anything in deep reddish pink tones - not a thing. Clearly not the day for pink! Still I think I did rather well on the charm front. I found a really sweet silver bear and a gold leaf - the woman told me it has a diamond on it but for all I know it could be a crystal! A lovely miniture sterling locket also and some filigree flowers. These will all be worked into the bracelet I am making.

Today has been quiet before the storm - the week is set to get hectic. Had a nice chat to a young DSer she is doing so marvellously - sounds well and happy. Sometimes I really feel ‘why continue trying to help - why continue to share the few things I know, why - when I know I am judged and shot down and sometimes over no less than the truth. The names that get back to me - you could pin every label in the book on me -lol! Sometimes I don’t actually care but other times I battle to understand. Sometimes I think I am just too small for all of this responsibility - I am just too human & fallible & god knows there are times I deal with my own stuff too. And then there are these truly good moments that make me feel I can do this! I can hold out & be stronger and bigger than my own feelings. Someone tells me they are so happy - or a surgeon asks me to help out or someone who was really fading out listens patiently to some dietary suggestions and things swing around for them when they take action. It’s pukka!
So to hear she is doing so optimally - in fact better than well because she has taken stuff in - adapted & best of all she has become her own ‘expert’ and found her own path - well I was made up. Lovely stuff Made my day actually :-).

I took ZaZen to the groomers today - he is soft and clean & smells of a wildflower meadow. He looks very close to a small bear after being bathed and blowdried & detangled. He hates being groomed - shivers and shakes all the way to his groomer and cries loudly as I leave in an unashamed outburst of mother fixation.

Once we get home he seems to have forgotton the trauma and he runs around showing off his new hairdo to everyone! Makes me laugh. Right now he is curled on my lap fast asleep, my dear little boysie.

On the way home I noticed how the wild purple rhododendrons grow splendidly at the side of the roadway flowering profusely. Everything is so marvellously green. It was nippy but Zenni & I drove hood down wind in the hair anyway. I don’t want to waste even a day of weak sunshine.

Plans tonight to sort out the books - the bookshelves look great! Pete is in Edinburgh probably exhausted after a very early start to the day.

I am off my food - just don’t feel like eating much currently - it’s no problem actually - probably a good thing. Today stayed with protein basics - Brekkie was a cafe latte, yogurt and pear. Lunch was chicken livers in port and onions plus a slice of budgens. Later on there is Quiche - I’ll melt extra cheese on it and will eat a little avocado pear alongside it. I had half a packet of soy nuts - not sure I like them but hey it’s protein. My portions are definately a bit measly when I am this way inclined but it also reminds me that I really am fine with less when it’s appropriate to eat less. I think my body is wonderful in many ways nowadays and one of the nice things about it is how it is so clear about it’s needs. I just listen - it tells me what to do.
Got to love that!

Brief notes from experimentus DS. I feel that way of late - a trawl around the internet often makes me wonder if we actually know what we are in for longerterm. Last night I read an abstract about what happens to rats when the gastrin & grehlin portions of the stomach is removed - interesting postulations about the potential role that grehlin might play in calcium metabolism. Mmmmm….

Recently I feel chilled about some developments out there in Bariatric planet. I wonder if we really have very much knowledge at all and my little joke of being experimentus humanus might just not be so far from the truth? First Chill and one that has shawoded me a long long time.

Second chill - bariatric surgery keeps on getting more & more lucrative. I am afraid of the possibilities of ‘ low risk fast fixes ‘ with no real regard for the patients best longerterm interests.

You know when JIB patients had the JIB how could they have known the consequences? I understand how they dreamed of a bright new future and how awful it must have been when the guiding star faded.

When the ‘Gastroplasty’ patients had their stomach stapling they dreamed the weightloss would be forever and ever.

I know many peeps at 3/4 years out and we know with a solid surety our obesity is ever knocking at our door. If my surgery was taken down I know I would be in deep waters.

Some things I have learnt:

it’s a lifelong process
don’t say it’s gone forever
never say ‘I won’t revise’
5 years is not a long time in the overall lifetime picture
In short - never say never….

One day I will close the books. The more I read the less I know.

Maybe, all things considered, that is a good thing.

My feeling is I definitely have a paranoid streak & it’s mostly rejection orientated. People make oversights and forget to tell me things and I start to shake in my own small world. I start to feel a thousand things that terrify - perhaps a grown up legacy of my father trashing us in abandonment when I was young. Of course he never perceived it that way. That’s the receptors sort of stuff. Anyway in my adult life sometimes I am in that mire of *floating aimlessly* .

That’s what Tata once said to me - I remember it well his laughter - his huge deep laugh rolling timelessly out of his timeless being - and ‘you Jane are like a cork bobbing on the ocean… all around you there is water….’

So true so apt. A statement of my drifting psyche. I think on it often in different lights I read it differently. It appalls me and comforts me at the same time. When I am particularly walking in the valley floor of my being I remember it , I give over. I bob.

Other times in my oversensitive pschyeland I run to that water - I hurl myself there to the elements - the wind, the comfort of being away - being untouchable - just me and my glowering festering hurt. I internalise things. My eyes sting with tears I don’t shed. Pete gets mad - I ‘ll bloody tell them! he says - how dare they do that to you - he’s so healthy - I have to explain it’s really about me & my insecurities. He is the healthy part of me manifested in flesh. He found a word ‘Syzygy’ - it means joined so you can’t see the join. I said, ‘like us.’

There are people in the world that are virtuous and blessed by that gift from the gods. Me, I make no pretences to virtue - I rant & death roll internally ( I have a crocodile archetype it’s my angry beast as dim and prehistoric too right there in my reptilian brain stem ) and what for? Who is hurt by this the most? I always come to that. Then oddly I touch the calm spaces and I can let it go. Why let my energy be pulled down by those that cannot understand me and even less truly care for me. Life is too short, too sweet, precious.
Part of my lesson is to learn not to withdraw. To express it and then move on but not to stay so internal.
I see in this too my own illness - my own twisted psyche - it’s not the most beautiful sight in the world and as they say ignorance is bliss you know! I wish sometimes I never came in here so deeply…but sometimes that’s the only hope one has of healing. I know psycheworld awfully well.

Funny how reality has a way of intercepting ones headstuff. My son’s best friend had a motorbike collision with a deer last night- luckily aside from breaking all the fingers on one hand he is alive. I have known the kid forever.
It sends a chill down my spine as I once briefly knew a dentist (who helped me from afar) and he got killed riding his motorbike in Mexico. A bird flew into his neck. It was an instant death but the shock of hearing that is still with me.
Today we give thanks that our Sam is with us still. And I set aside in this spirit of things, my stupid teeny mental nonsenses.

I spent the morning listening to music - I put together a mix and there is some passionate Spanish guitar that I love. Incendio. Espiritu - it raises me up.
I’m stringing a bracelet - it’s lucid pinks and ambers, each bead is a mini masterpiece. It’s celestial. I can taste it. My flow is flowing. Perhaps stopping to unleash my demons does this - opens me and makes me hugely receptive and functioning in an high octave way. No doubt our venerable psychologists would want me muted to a pale acceptable shade of pastel. No doubt I fall into a marvellous clinical category. I laugh now to myself in my great dysfunction I am so functional - so sharp - so full of sensory perception. Deluded they would say - ah, if they but knew! -lol. I shall always be a flame and that is how it shall be. And a cork too. I shall know my pain & I will claim it fully as a mark of my humanity and because I am so humanly fallible and vulnerable. But also I shall know ecstasy and I don’t mean the drug. And I shall claim it and know it as the divine aspect in me.

I am contented now - my tum is full of bacon and egg, my ears are full of Incendio and the day outside is so beautiful and light. I was enjoying all my roses that have opened - oh the fragrance. I stand with my nose buried in the flowers always!

Tonight we join dear friends for a vegan meal *GROAN*. I always feel like a beblooded carnivorous traitor and I know later on after the conscientious meal I will be farting no end. Lentils, beans, carbs and fake meat are not good for the DS guts. My poor family! Do those vegans have no compassion ;-)-lol!

I suppose if I am truthful it is also that distinct perfume of holier than thou that the vegans seem to emanate though they know it not. Hold your tongue you disgusting flesheater I tell myself! - perhaps in some measure this is also offset by my own guilt.

I do smile though - it is so silly how beliefs negate things - enclose things, suffocate things. I probably drive people mad - I am forever changing my mind and long may it last. May my mind always be changeable. Nothing so upsetting to me as a mind gone rigid with belief. Nothing as desperately sad. Those minds don’t know about beginners mind. How can a burdened mind know such things?
I am blessed to be loved by people who can accommodate my changing mind. Bir my neighbour used to struggle awfully with it - we once discussed it. It could seem that I lie but the thing is my perspective moves and with it my thoughts. So what I say today might be different in three weeks time. Depends. People like me often need medicating because - well you go try living with this wee factor -lol!

Back to the bracelet…I am so enjoying creating it. I should do this more often.

Update - back from the barbie and they had real meat A great evening spent in good company but I am knackered now. Goodnight all. xxx

Yesterday was a beautiful day. Summer was in the air - Peter had business in London and I wanted to visit the Bead shop and meet up with my mate Nell for a cuppa.

I arrived in Covent early and enjoyed all the fabulous shops - there are really gorgeous things to buy there, it’s a paradise if one has dough! After lot’s of browsing and an earful of superb opera from a street singer I found a little caf which served a variety of tea and delicious hot cookies. I had an Assam tea and a peanut butter cookie. Delicious.

Then Nell & I met and we wound our way around the Neals Yard area which is the more offbeat side of things and spent some happy hours browsing in the bead shop. I am dangerous to the wallet in places like that - I kept spotting lovely charms and the like!
It’s not a good spot to buy really - e-bay is much much cheaper but for handpicked eye on bead pieces it’s good. They do a rip roaring trade in there. Nell & I oooohed and ahhhed.

Later we found a little street caf and ordered some croissants and coffee. It’s good to be with Nell. The two of us can chat the hind legs off a donkey! And we did!

Later Pete managed to find me. He had a great day himself. He was doing a computer installation for the company that manages such names as Roger Waters from Pink Floyd. He returned with tickets to an interesting private musical evening and looks like we will be going to Rod Stewarts concert later in the year - premium seats I hope!

We drove home through the streets of London hoodie back and inhaling enough toxic fumes to kill a small mouse. Pete complained about the traffic and I said I was delighted about it ..all the more window shopping opportunity for me! I did spot a place where they sell gorgeous garden pots - just the sort I have been looking for…we’ll be going there in the future.

We got home & too tired to cook ordered pizzas. I ate around a third of mine then scraped off the chicken & cheese topping. It was a highly carb rich day & at two in the am my tum had enough and I was not in a great space - bloating and feeling pain. I lay there groaning Pete as usual concerned for me. I told him at times like this I found myself cursing my DS but that it was misplaced I should curse carbs instead. I certainly have a carb threshhold and if I go beyond it trouble ensues. The trouble is when I go out - the world is made for carb junkies and several times yesterday I was hungry (probably because of the carbs!)
Quite a good thing really as today I am very focussed on proteins only.
Today - I am still trying to make goddesshood & failing badly. I have parked a huge load of washing in the machine - exciting stuff I say wryly. The weather is not too great & I feel quite tired so I think I shall catch a snooze. There is much playing on my mind, I am over thinking and potentially overreacting - so I think it will be a slow day in paradise today.

A boring boring boring day. I am NOT a domestic goddess. I hate housework but it creeps up on me and before I know it I am knee deep in washing - the kitchen sink looks like it will never recover from all the dirty plates, the bathroom is dishevelled. I ignore it then comes a moment I can no more. Today I can no more - mess is one thing but I am not a great fan of filth.

I have scrubbed, sorted. Cleared two loads of washing and made the kitchen sparkle. There is fresh food in the freshly cleaned fridge. Because all of this made me feel glum when I was in M&S I thought I could do with a foodie treat and there it was - a magnificent Australian Rock Lobster - oh my lawdy. I could not believe my eyes - it is the same of course as a crayfish back in SA. The price is cringeworthy I won’t say how much my mum would kill me! (In South Africa we could buy around 3 for the same price but it does not bear thinking about- I could not resist it. It was covered in salmon mouse. I thought that a bit strange but it is absolutely delicious with it. It tasted like sheer heaven. I miss our Southern hemisphere lobsters these Northern lobsters are not a patch on the firm sweet flesh of their southern cousins. I ate and I dreamed of a time when we would all go diving off the rocks and on the beach we would barbecue these fruits of the ocean. I suddenly have a god awful homesick pang. I hate those they always take one by surprise.

Souks is much better - thank goodness. Now we must keep Fi in our thoughts hopefully she will soon be home.

It has been a glorious day and I wanted not to be doing housework but out in my garden - but alas - nothing doing…the house must progress.

The problem is I know when I start these things the list uncannily grows into ‘to-do’s’. No exception today. I decide this week will have to go to the dogs - I was hoping we could embark on chatting to the architects…but other things are more pressing. We won’t be building if we can’t get the space to a level where it is decluttered. Pete will put up shelves to house the books I have currently uselessly stashed in boxes. I have filled a black bag with old tins and food from the cupboard and was somehow horrified to find there was stuff from 2003 in them!

I look at this thing I do of storing food - it really is stupid & I don’t know why I do it? Why keep stuff the shop is less than 5 mins away for heavens sake I don’t live in the outback. I tossed out enough stuff to feed a small village in central Africa. The new plan is that the cupboard can be made defunct or house other things. We do not need 3 year old olives. I will make a very basic list and that is that. Eat within the month or chuck out. If I dare to be so honest it hurts I have to say that this is a habit I have leftover from a time when I could not actually get enough food into my poor body. I am not in some great famine that is causing me to ironically be obese anylonger - thank my DS and the Gods for that.
I feel all the lighter for doing that on the inside.

Okay back to it now!