Dances with DS

Yesterday - driving along to Nando’s we had a head on collision. Mercifully no one was hurt but it was very scary.

A car had stopped in the opposite lane and a young driver came hurtling towards it on a damp road. Knowing he could not stop in time he swung his car out into our lane and his car lost control and banged into us. It was quite a knock - I reached out to stop my dog from flying forwards. I still see the lads shocked face. Amazingly though his car was dinged ours is fine. Made me think though how unpredictable life is, howquickly things like this happen. Split seconds and this might have resulted in tradgedy. I believe it did not as Pete saw what was coming and had stopped our car already. If not …who knows…

Other things - my dexa is back & I am confused. It does not look good - there is significant decrease of bone mass in my left hip. This was upper limit normal 4 years ago (before my DS) and still looks to be upper limit normal despite this decrease so I just don’t know. Just how broad are the uln perameters I wonder? How much leeway till I cross the boundary and why am I being allowed to do this with no preventative measures? The rest of the bones seem normal or is this just my interpretation? Is this weak spot due to my genetic history and merely patterning on that or is it compounded by my DS?   - the GP was clearly unable to help me stating that she did not understand why the Dexa people had not recommended anything.

Oh God - I am a guinea pig. I know it. No treatment for a year - then they will rescan. Patient X took further significant decreases during the year in which she recieved no advice at all nor any placebo’s or real medicine! I have to laugh else I would be driven binny.

I am unimpressed as this was yet another area I had to argue with my GP. I had to justify my risks bigtime before getting this dexa. I am getting expert in justifications and self diagnosis. (says glumly). I could have told him the result. Add to that the hernia incident that resulted in my bowel obstruction and I wonder if I am in safe hands at all. I hate using the words ‘I told you so!’ more than any others but perhaps it is time. It’s scary. I am just very lucky to have Mr P helping me now that’s for sure.

I shall notify my surgeons of this and wait for advice from them and hopefully some clarification. Meantime I will as I have in the past self medicate by upping my D, calcium & magnesium. I shall move for 3500 mgs a day now. I shall also get frequent iron labs as I fear this increase might affect my iron levels which are currently normal.

I am slowly moving past my recent pity party and  restarting on that old slow road to self acceptance.  It will just take time.
My tickets to South Africa are booked and I am moving past my fears on the travel score too. Infact I am even rather excited that I will be there - wedged between mountain and sea and with my family. I can’t wait to see my mum and aunts, uncles, inlaws.  I can’t wait to wake up and look at a beautiful mountain. I long for the beaches even though I know I will be whipped by salty winds. My mum has a busy house with friends always dropping in and I love that. It is always a lovely place to be.
I have been behaving badly and bought some bondage trousers on e-bay. I have been oogling these on another site for quite some time - but they were too expensive. Who can resist a bargain on e-bay! My daughter Kate is appalled. I am delighted. I did however have to explain that actually I just like the look - this is not some bizarre fetish I have. I just like loads of buckles and flash. My daughter said - well that put’s paid to me bringing friends home then!

Had a nice day with the girls this afternoon. Relaxing and fun.   Then came home and made some jewellery and cooked a meal for my family with Kate supervising the cooking.  Simple stuff but enjoyable. Life goes on.

My bandage on the open scar bit was finally taken off for good last week. The good news is the scar is healed the not so groovy bit is that I have some vertical skin puckering on the scar. Mother nature was not too kind to me.  It’s not too pretty and I suddenly felt really freaked out by it over the weekend. I suddenly felt I was so ugly and that all my efforts at building positivity about my body came falling down as if I had built it out of chalk dust. Maybe I had. I had a good cry about it, am still weepy. For the first time since my DS I thought this was all just too much for me and that maybe I need therapy after all. I am not brave and I kind of hate myself for having such crap feelings about it. I have such conflicting emotions - part of me acknowledges that this scar is a testimony to my life being saved, that this is the main thing. That I should count my blessing which are many. But the other part of me mourns this body that is so scarred and so saggy like never before. I worked so darn hard on my self acceptance and now I see that it is monumentally frail when a few folds of skin can just blow me out of the water. Then I also know that this is nothing on the rank of human suffering and I find my churlishness and sadness annoying…but I still can’t seem to help it.

To get my mind off it I have been making jewellery. Rather nice to be dabbling in the creative waters once more. I want to get back to business but my strength is not yet here.

Pete booked my ticket to CT. End of June. I need my family more than ever right now - something healing about being just loved for who one is. It will be raining no doubt but still a walk on the promanade with the wind and salt in my face might blow away all that I have gone through this year. My mums house is warm safe & welcoming and I find it clears my head to be there. So I am looking forward to going.

Today a check up with Saint Ameet. Nice to see my surgeon again. We chatted about my health which is good all things considered. My bloodlabs touchwood look very good for a 4 year outer :-)…I am pleased. Vit A always a concern, looks good & normal. Brilliant stuff as I once had the fear of god put into me over the high dose V4L provides by a medical pro - but I elected to continue and see what the labs did longerterm. I think it is good news for all us longerterm DSers on this high dose. The only one a bit naff is B12 - too high but not toxic so I can live with it. Still no return of my Dexa though - thats the one I want…that’s the one I am nervous about with a history of osteoporosis in my family. But I also can see that my stance on good nutrition and daily V4L has paid off and is proof that longerterm we can cut it with a malabsorptive surgery as powerful as the DS. I feel positive. Still - I would say to other DSers don’t muck with it - do your protein take your vits and things will hold up. Don’t do it consistently - and know you are at risk. Simple stuff mentally not always easy to implement but I think we must be hard nosed about it. DS is not for those who are not happy to pay the price of daily vits/protein. Lecture over!

Had to get weighed - oh flipping glory! I hate scales even weighing on mine of late I still baulk. 57 kilos fully dressed with a BMI of 21,2. I am okay with this now since my epiphany that low weight does not equal poor health. I think it is fine provided my health continues to stand up.There is still every chance that this will continue to rise a little as I am able to eat more. I am still not at optimal eating capacity., but am managing a healthy diet nonetheless. I am pleased I can focus on this now rather than spiralling into panic. Looks like my weight is maintaining itself for now - impressively. I won’t weep if I gain some more but if not that’s cool too. I rather like the buzz of getting into size 8 pants who would have thought it! I have come a long way from originally being BMI46/7. Dress size 26-28. Those were hard days and days I shall never forget - they are indelibly etched into my consciousness.
I still love this DS lark. I still feel it has given me a great sense of normality and that without it I would be in the great sky yonder or so obese it bears not thinking about. I still believe in it as a pukka state of the art WLS…yes it has its potential drawbacks but it has huge positives too. So we go in and take the biggest risk initially, we appear to have the hardest time initially too from what I observe, but at one year out most DSers are sailing away & doing very well. I talk of Hess based DS here. I think we need to study Hess more and get the knowledge out that not all DSes are performed to Hesses exacting standards. This is the DS surgery I talk of when I say DS. It does not give a one for all measurement of CC…it takes the individual biology into account. It does not give a thumbsuck stomach capacity - everything is measured to fit the individual as closely as possible. Of course it is still no guarentee of great success - Hess himself had to do some revisions…but I just feel the closer one works to his standards the better potential outcome for our DSers. We need to judge our DS by the DS gold standard and that is Daddy Hesses configurations which he is most clear about in his papers.
One hybrid DS I would like to see is RNY rerouted to intestinal DS - particularly for people who are regaining. Regain sounds like a small word but don’t lets underestimate how chilling it is for people to go through this. It’s not fair - after we struggled so long to get a respite of a couple of years and then be trying to cut it all over again. I despair. I just despair when I see mates of mine battling on with the same old bogeyman after major surgery. Sure not all do, and there are good outcomes for many but for those who are struggling , we need to thinktank. So I hope this will become an option…particularly if the RNY patients pouch has stretched it would be an excellent option as nothing needs to be done on the pouch then, they should be able to consume enough protein(reckon this would need careful evaluation tho).

Just thoughts that flit about in my head. All of us are in process no matter our surgeries and all of us may find ourselves up against the wall at times on account of our surgeries. It’s got sweet fanny adams to do with ‘failure’ and everything to do with us being largely a bunch of modern day experiments. We have to keep thinking on ways to better our own lot as a WLS community.

These are quiet days - the kind I like best. Slow & paced and still no pain :-D. I spend time in the garden just enjoying spring. Yesterday on the deck sat two wee speckled robin fledglings. Cutest things I have ever seen, smaller than golf balls and just as round and full of baby down. The sun was going down & they were chirping. In the tree the mother robin was sounding alarm warbles. Just then Zenni my dog went crazy and flushed a large fox out of a nearby bush chasing it around the garden. I scooped up one baby robin - the other fled for cover. Now I had a dilemma - the mother robin was frantic. What to do? I put the baby bird back and risk the fox? I decided to keep it overnight. We worried about the other little robin and searched but could not find it. I thought that at least one would be safe. I made up a ‘nest’ in a box. At 5am I was awakened by much fledgling chirping. It ate a little catfood - but outside I heard the mother so thought it best to try to reunite them. Happily no sooner had I put the little thing on the ground than there was an echo chirp from nearby sibling - seems it survived the night and the fox did not get it after all. Very soon the mother came down to reclaim the litle thing. I was so pleased. Robins one - fox nil. Watched it all day today being fed. Will buy them some mealworms tomorrow to help the rearing process.

Other than that it is great to have Pete home. I am doing nothing much but my head is full of want-to-do’s. I hope in a week or so to try to get back on track with ebay. My house is a chaos as I have just not been up to tidying so will give that some energy too. My wardrobe is crazy land right now…full of thick winter stuff. I need to sort things out. I keep buying clothes - it is madness. I have wayyyy too much stuff now & much of it too big. I fit into size 8 trousers now….sometimes 10, depends on the cut. Upper body is 10 to 12. I am amused by this….and still exploring and adjusting to this new size. Suddenly size 14 to16 looks large to me even though it’s a perfectly rational good size for any woman to be and the size I wanted to be for so long. It was my goal size but the DS does it’s own thing. Just goes to show how relative everything is.

I’m contemplating going home to CT…but still nervous about travelling. Will see. Maybe if I can set up a surgeon in the wings just in case.

I’m still focussed on building up my health again…trying to eat an array of proteins and stay with good food. I have had carb craving days too and wonder if my body did not need the carb for some reason. Portions are def smaller than before - I just don’t feel the need to eat much right now. I just cover the protein sometimes which is fine. I think to myself that it is good to eat to a fuzzy warm comfort zone …no need to do a huge plate if a small one satisfys and covers the requirements. Have introduced the Vits full on but find they do make my bm’s stiff and slightly uncomfy. Might drop to 8 for a while and compliment with Calcium Citrate. I am trying to listen to the old bod but the signals are not loud and clear just yet. Interestingly it is always like this for me with every change in my body. I am learning that the body is not static - it changes continuosly in my case anyway…and I have to stay with it - find my point of balance in the changes. Practise acceptance & not judge it for it’s appearance too much. Easier said than done. Find I am very critical lately about the wrinkles, droops and folds that have got worse with this current weight…but working on it mentally best I can. Bodystuff - it’s a biggun!

I AM recovering! I really am. It feels that I have been pulverised from top to bottom so long I have forgotten how it is to be painfree! And for two whole days now no painkillers…this is bliss indeed. With it I feel a sense of tremendous euphoria but that might just be my mental instability. In any event I won’t analyse it I shall just go with it. I feel glad of this life and a further chance to be lliving it to the max.

The only not so nice moment was that I had some silver nitrate on the wound when the nurses dressed it and it frikking stung! It is not suppossed to sting but it did.  I am still holding out for that bath - need it badly - oh to soak once more!!!
Everything looks so pretty today - the blossom everywhere, the sunlight and I am carried along by the scent of sweet lilac in the air in my garden right now. My superb Wisteria has not disapointed me this year - the blooms are profuse and the color divine. It stands in a huge pot and looks like something straight out of a Japanese garden…just gorgeous. I only wish I could garden, but that will come too. Patience Jane Patience!
Better still my energy is okay - my vision is restoring itself I want to GO GO GO - lol! God help me - I am hyper enough without euphoria.

I’m counting my blessings today. I have come through a deep valley, but it is nothing on the landscape of human suffering in our world. Nada. Zip. If there is such a thing as taking on a collective karma for others it is my prayer that this bowel obstruction could be for all WLSers so no one ever gets one ever again. Would’nt that be wonderful.

I am eating carbs today - my body demands them. I am a bit dubious of wind later tonight but I will take the risk. Today for the first time I am back on the V4L full tilt.

Yesterday there was a parcel in the post for me - Christmastime come early! A dear friend in the US sent me the most awesome Rose Otto Perfume , stuff made of heaven and itis wonderful to wear. It just uplifts me so much. She says little but I know it is to help me heal and it really is helping. Along with this was a lovely ball for Zenni from her poodie Lana - he has not left it - it has a planet on it and is purple and blue and he is obsessing as if his very life depends on it. It is placed on my knee and at my feet consistantly. As bending is difficult he has figured putting it at my feet is not working so he nudges it into my hand or goes for my knee. Makes me laugh so much - he is a funny little chap!
Tomorrow my Pete is home I can’t wait!

Off now to seize the glorious sunshine day - think I will go for a drive.

It’s not my best day. I have had pain, I have had the trots in the am. I think I am being neurotic because today Pete was off to New Zealand. I did’nt want him to go but needs must. I have not been nice and brave - I have whinged shamelessly. I remind myself of a two year old clinging like anything to a perception of safety. Bless Pete he knows me - he does not object - he is flipping well balanced unlike his other half! Just as well.

It is late - I cannot sleep - I do not want to go to bed alone. I’m unfocused and restless, I am too used to Pete being there . I think we are extraordinarily close - we are in each others space all day what with him working  from home & have been for iro 20 years now. So when his presence is not here it is hard. I miss him. I wish I could have gone with him but right now I just could not do it.

Okay - that’s off my chest so now I shall try to go to bed.

I weighed myself this morning - coming in at 55 kilo’s. I think I will see my weight going up and down as is normal. I just needed to get my head around it as at my size drops and gains of 2 kilo’s plus do have a great effect on the body. Funny - when I was large 2 kilo’s just was lost on me.

I feel that my DS is trying to effect a balancing act here. I had a lightbulb moment when it occurred to me this morning that the focus I make now must remain on my health and sod the weight - it will do what it must (as it always has!). If I am going to be 55 or 65 kilo’s - is not up to me, whether I want it or not.  I think I must accept what is going down - accept that my body is not a static phenomena.  Accept that fat or thin others will opine about my body.  There will always be jealousy, competition and disappointment out there & I can’t make it good. So I will just make the best of things no matter my weight. Get off the weight obsession…because tbh I am fed up with it - it’s as bad on the lower rung as it was when I was obese & I must be free of it and I know this freedom has nowt to do with anyone else. It has only got to do with me - with my own perceptions. And as my perceptions have been skewed in the past - time to get them straight now!   So new resolution - ACCEPT.  As I am not in the danger zone there is no need for creon etc.  I do so fight for control when I know - or should know- that the DS does it’s own thing. The only control I have has to do with eating well  and ensuring my supplements are taken. Mmmmm…something I just can’t swing back into - I must get it together very soon now else I will be playing with fire. It’s odd how a break from the Vits has disrupted things - it’ll take some effort now to build it back into a habit, but hopefully it won’t take too long.

Not much else to write about. Photi is still not home, I know I know but I keep hoping even when my gut feel knows it won’t happen. I am progressing with the recovery - I still have an odd stingy pain internally particularly when I am tired, but most of the time I am really much better now.

Feel like french toast now - cream, syrup, cinnamon. And a mango sliced over the ensemble. Pete bought a box full of the sweetest Indian yellow mangos from a local Indian deli - they are sublime! 

Last night my darling little cat - Photon Colman disappeared. She was 23 years old. Suddenly the house is empty without her. Her basket is empty, her bowl is empty and me too - I feel empty and so sad. We knew this time would come. We had her presence for a long long time - so long that both my son and daughter have never known life without her. She pre dates them both!

23 years ago - in April on my then Birthday, Pete decided that I would have a cat. For weeks I had dreamed of my perfect cat - it was to be marked like a tiger - have long fur and a persian type of broad face. It would have long whiskers. It would have eyes like green jewels and be a well built large animal. In the morning we began the long round of every pet shop in Johannesburg. We searched and searched but alas nothing, not a kitten in sight. Just as the shops were about to close we walked into yet another pet shop and there was a cage with a litter of kittens. Except these were scrawny, short furred, skinny and ugly. I was not enamoured but Pete zoned in on one - ‘this is it!’ he exclaimed. He fished this motly skinny runt of a kitten out of the wire cage. I was not so sure. But he was adamant. I think we paid Ten Rands for her - around a pound. It was a shithouse of money for us - several days bread and milk. A very extravagant Birthday pressie - we were so skint in those days.

I remember I had a little sulk in the car with scrawny cat in the towel on my lap. It was not instant love & I was ticked that my dream cat looked more like a nightmare - shallow git that I was!. But the more I held the ugly little thing the more I felt the thin little ribs and saw how alert and responsive she was the more I fell for her. And she did have jewel like green eyes - and the most luxurious whiskers, at least that was there! At home I fleapowdered her, dewormed her and gave her some real mince meat and warm milk. That night she slept near us in a little box that we made into a bed. Pete called her Photon…I liked the meaning - ‘little spark of light’ And so began our time with Photon.

When I brought my tiny babies home - she came to look and then horror of horrors would curl up at the babies feet. People warned us cats could suffocate infants - it worried me and I tried to shoo her away - but Photi would snuck into their cots - always sleeping at their feet never at their heads. Later when they were toddlers they would carry her upside down clenched tight to their sweet little bodies … until I managed to teach then how to handle a cat properly and gently. The amazing thing was Photi’s tolerance of the childrens man handling - she never scratched or bit. There was a phase of several years where wild toddler Luke Ross would regularly deplenish one set of her whiskers with a pair of round nosed kiddies scissors he owned. I would come home to a lopsided cat. One set of whiskers in tact. Again she tolerated his brutish act - he was never scratched or harmed by her in any way.

We have searched everywhere and we go on searching today. My head is thick with memories. I long to hear her meowl - and what a meowl it was! English cats have sweet demure meows - little quaint sounds pleasing to the ear. You kind of want to get out the tidbits for them. Photi was Africa…brash , loud and to the point. Her meowl was just that - scarily loud. It stopped visitors in our house dead - they would look at me and say ‘omg - did you hear that!’ - eyes wide. They could not believe such a small cat to make such a giant noise.
She was the grand dame of our homes for so long - bratty (in her lofty opinion) dogs came and went and she singlehandedly put each in their place. Alpha cat. When Zen was a pup she whacked him so hard for daring to sniff her nethers that he rolled across the floor - but his lesson was learnt. Respect the Goddess cat. ALWAYS.

Oh she made us laugh. In her youth she was a bold sassy cat - highly protective of her home and garden she would regularly attack huge dogs who dared try for a quick squat on her lawn. She reduced them to running whimpering wrecks, tail between the legs - usually this spectacle was witnessed by several people in the street. It had to be seen to be believed…a wee black & white cat in full chase swiping furiously at the back end of a boxer, labrador or whatever breed dared sully her turf.

She had two sets of kittens - gorgeous little things. The first litter she proudly had on Pete’s lap - I was just in time with the towel! He stroked her through each contraction until we had 5 little fur balls all in perfect health. The second litter she had, Pete was away & Photi would not settle. She searched high and low for Peter holding back her labour. It was dire - eventually she was exhausted from resisting and I had to pull the first kitten out…mercifully it was alive. Three more followed. But it was scary thing for me at the time. I thought I might lose her and her kittens.

We moved every few years in South Africa and Photi would travel with us rehoming with ease. When we relocated to the UK she was ten years old. Friends said it was cruel to take such an old cat overseas for a stint in quarantine kennels of 6 long endless months. We agonised and decided to put her down. We felt she was too old to be rehomed comfortably. Pete put her in the pet carrier, we all said goodbye to her. He left for the vets to do the darstadley deed and the kids and I wept. Not 15 mins later Pete comes home - I heard a familiar slightly pissed off meowl from the wicker carrier. There she was! ‘I could not do it’ Pete said ’she is coming with us to the UK’. Oh jubilation and joy in my house that day! The children were besides themselves with happiness…me too! We were overjoyed to have our kitty back!

And so - several hundred pounds later - innoculated and ready to go in a specially made transit box our Photon winged her way to England in a large plane. The quarantine was cruel & gruelling. I can see some necessity as animals might have rabies but the vetinary tests - innoculations etc create the slimmest chance of it. Only animal lovers who are responsible pay thousands to bring their pets over to other countries. We are exploited too - the quarantine kennels cost twice as much as ordinary kennels at that time. Something we could ill afford. Each weekend we visited Photi & Tao (our bullterrer). We brought them treats - Photon loved crisps so we made sure she had some each weekend. We would cuddle our pets and then it would be time to go home. It was a sad and difficult day for us each Sunday. But the two of them survived the ordeal and we went on to have 13 more wonderful years of Photi’s presence.

Photi was a hunter in South Africa - forever catching mice, lizards and birds on which she fed. In the UK this stopped and she began a diet of bought pet foods. The vets here were always amazed at her good condition…and concurred with me that this was due to 10 years worth of wild food.

From about the age that she turned 10 I started to try to prep my kids for her inevitable death each year at least once. I’d start : ‘You know we won’t have her’ ….’forever’ - the three of them would chorus ‘we know mum you don’t need to tell us. But I still did tell them every year and it became a bit of a family joke. At about age 16 , Luke said - ‘mum don’t you know by now that Photi is an immortal!’.
How I wish she could have been an everlasting earthly immortal. Of course because I have faith all spirits are indeed immortal I know in my heart Luke was actually 100% right. But I want her here - bodily & touchable.  I shall miss my Photon. My heart is heavy today - 23years is a very long time. I want to bawl my eyes out but I am scared if I start I might just go on for too long. She was such a special girl. I know we all think this about our pets and it is right -but Photi was not cat. Photi was much more part human.

I keep hoping I might just find her. Or she will come ambling into the house and make her trademark hello meowl. I wanted to bury her body and plant a flowering tree over her but it seems this is not to be. Death is unpredictable. I go on searching for her under every bush in my garden. Perhaps the foxes took her. I don’t know. If she has really gone for good, I hope her transit to the great beyond was easy and that her spirit flies to it’s source. In my heart there will always be a spark of light that burns for my little Photi girl.

I am a bit shaken. Stood on the dreaded scales for the now rekindled weekly weigh in - 52 kilo’s. It is not smart. I also don’t understand last week I was 56??? So 4 kilo loss in a week?
Maybe my scales are on the blink.

I just don’t know. And worst is it has been a very good weeks eating. So much so even Pete who never comments said he was worried I was eating so much! So I dunno. Yet again - I just don’t know. My brain clocks in… could it be that I am just not getting enough nutrients ??- BUT I can also see that I do associate thinness with malnutrition…I think Africa did that to my mind. There I saw too often the classic signs of malnutrition wrapped in a thin body. But I need to put this conditioned response aside… it is possible to be thin but perfectly nourished. Thinking this allays my sinking sense of panic. I think my panic about my weight has more to do with aesthetics really - I don’t want to be thin - never have strange as that might sound coming from a wls patient. I just wanted to be healthy and able.

Am I eating so much that I am triggering a fast metabolic cycle inadvertantly? I wonder. There have been times during the initial two years of my DS that I found super eating revved up my weightloss. However never when I was eating sugars abundantly as I am right now. So again I don’t know. I suspect this is going to be a time of learning again. I think God is up there in the great sky laughing at me trying to learn all the lessons I am presented with on the DS front. I hope he is not mad that I take so long to even get halfway there (around a circle!)…but I figure he will most likely have an air of benevolant amusement. Perhaps too - the whole thing about a surgery like the DS is it forces one into an existential thing - where much more than learning one is also deep in a process. A very ongoing process in my case.

I am going to try a new tack…up with the protein. Mellie gave me a lovely protein drink - superb - and I will do several glasses a day. It is also time to start doing the Vitamins properly. My bm’s are often naturally firm lately so I think my innards can now handle the V4L. I thought I would start a few days ago but I am having difficulty getting into the flow of it again. Will have to pin them in a pouch to my body to kickstart the old habit.
I am taking back my life now. I have thought on this and I have to stay as positive as possible. Someone wrote on a WLS info thread : ‘you will climb those steps again’ and it made me bawl my eyes out. And after I had a good weep I thought I frigging well will. And I will travel. And I will remake my business. And I will cotinue to love each day and live to full human capacity sod it! And every day I will hug and kiss my children & my hubby and try hard to remember to not slip into a self pity or a forgrantedness.

I know it will be a practice. Even as I write my bold words I worry because this week Pete is going to New Zealand for 9 days and I have fears still & challenges. But it might be a good thing. I find I am clingy right now.
Aside from me me and more me - I heard from Aziz after a long unusual absence. He was selling silver in Jerusalem when one night 3 men broke into his hotel room. They beat him senseless and left him close to death with a damaged head, ribs and broken foot. They stole all his silver. His family fetched him to take him home to Istanbul. He recieved the poorest medical treatment out - his foot is not even in a cast - such is Istanbul medically. It seems only geared for the extremely wealthy. He survived by lying in bed for well over a month and is only now able to manoever himself about. He has been shocked to the core. He is an honest businessman and a kind person and it is awful that this happened. So we both had a pretty crap March hovering on the edge - his incident took place one week earlier than mine. The morbid side of me thinks it might have been awfully suprising to have seen him in heaven had our worst scenarios materialised!

Of course hearing from him I suddenly have a deep pang for Istanbul. I need the warmth, the buzz, the beauty of the place and I miss ridiculous things - kebab, salt yogurt drink, sitting on a ferry with the seasalt in my face drinking apple tea. I want to sit high up on a roof deck, cool drink in hand the sun setting and the Mosque Domes glowing gold. I so miss walking down to the Bosphorus in the evening with the sounds of the place in full evening force - here a lone Sufi flute - there a dog barking, the bellowing of ships, hooting of cars, laughter and chat of people passing by. I miss these things like a starved woman. I don’t belong in Suburbia and first world places in my heart, even though I need the safety they provide I am always torn…my instinct and heart is with places like Istanbul, Africa, Thailand…my logic sits with England. Both are important. I think I had a past life in Istanbul though - it’s like I always belong there. I know where to go - I read the people. So much so, Aziz said when he first saw me he started chatting away to me in Turkish as he thought I was a Turk! We laugh about it. I tell him - look I know you are deeply Islamic - okay - but I am sorry to inform you I have been reborn many times you know! He is a good mate & I am so pleased he is still alive. This morning I got a text message from him:

Gut morning Ceyn (spells my name Ceyn!)
Todey niw day

hapy day

Ordinarily one could just see this as any good wish. But coming from where we have both stood in the valley - it is potent with meaning. It put a lump in my throat. Sometimes one just gets a gift that makes one smile all day long.