Dances with DS

Over the years I have realised that sometimes it’s the small changes we make that can have the most impact in our lives.

Like when I stopped eating just one little bar of choc daily and went on to lose 6BMI points in the following 3 years. Doing this I accidently reopened a window I thought was closed. One small thing, one big loss! The thing about ‘ a little change ‘ is it takes away the rush, the panic and one can leave it to work some magic.  I never lost 6 BMI points fast - this took years but the weight loss happened and I cannot honestly say I put in any kind of effort.

Fessing up - I don’t like exercise.  I once joined up for a gym and it lasted all of 5 sessions. Then one day I decided to go small. Small is always better than nothing. So I began to walk daily.  Sometimes I visit a new town or London & I walk all day long as I explore the area.  I don’t think of it as exercise even though it is - it’s just something I like to do. It makes me feel good too.

Protein - well one can look at 80 - 100grams a day as a DSer and feel daunted but if one takes just one drink or bar and divides it into several small glasses or blocks here and there through the day before one knows it 30gms can disappear without too much sweat.

The same goes for food. Adding a little cheese or milkpowder ‘cream’ wherever one can into the diet starts to boost the protein points. I really enjoy soup lately and since I discovered that adding smooth cottage cheese to it boosts the protein, calcium & the taste, I do this all the time.

Here and there in the course of my DS life I take additional supplements. I do this on a small level, not huge doses, not every day and usually with some consideration for how my current needs are working. Take now for example. I am on high dose zinc. It’s been quite a sustained use.  I know zinc at high dose over time can affect copper levels. So I take a little extra copper accordingly. This way I hopefully stave off the possibility that my iron levels might drop too as copper helps iron metabolise.  Occasionally I take some extra Vit C too - just here and there. Other on-off supplements I use are B Vits, l-carnitine, alpha lipoic acid, rutin, lutein, iron - not mega DS type doses - just normal ones. The DS is selective & most supplements besides the ones we know must be bigger doses, are best in normal dose.   As  much as we run the risk of deficiency we can & do occasionally overdose, so imo with untested non lab supplementation it’s best to go easy.

I try to choose supplements that have some synergy …like iron & Vit C for example. I try to observe my body. Right now with the rrhoids going on recently I am using rutin & Vit C plus tissue salts in the evening.   I believe by doing this I am giving my body the opportunity to use what it needs and it’ll lose the rest - as it needs. I believe the body is the balancer…it’s an incredible extraction machine in many ways. But as I said, I don’t push this ability by mega dosing on anything other than my labs indicate I should. I’m well aware I am shooting in the dark.  However there are so many labs that we do not get such as copper labs - or even Vit K labs that to me it just makes sense to sometimes give our bodies a little short term extra micronutrition from time to time.

I also aim for micronutrition  with natural foods. I eat goji berries with brazil nuts for snacks. I swapped orange juice for  pomegranate juice. If I’m eating something high carb I try to eat cinnamon  or protein with it to slow down my insulin response.  When it comes to veggies & fruit I try to aim for the superfood status where ever I can.

Sometimes little changes are things like trading in the daily breakfast cereal for eggs.  Or swapping ordinary bread for a soya-linseed type of bread, maybe eating a can of mackerel twice a week for all those lovely fish oils,  or making sure snacks are not carbs, but protein. I used to love macaroni cheese & sometimes I still have a little of it, but more often than not I trade it in for a delicious bowl of cauliflower cheese.

Here’s a really easy little change worth doing : eating 3 brazil nuts a day will provide us with more than the daily recommended intake of selenium.

Thinking little prevents me from overwhelming myself. It makes me  more likely to progress into a full blown change and it eases the way for this.

It can be applied in many ways to our lives. For example, for longertermers who might be struggling regains , it can be used to eat a little less perhaps. Just a little less daily can set the balance right beautifully sometimes. I have a DS friend who developed late onset diahorrea - she tried everything for it but nothing worked. Then one day we were discussing food intakes and she said she felt she was eating too much. So she was going to just cut back slightly & try to reconnect with her natural appestat instead of waiting for her tum to feel drum tight. The diahorrea stopped the day after she did this. The body is brilliant in how when we give it balance it will work to sustain that balance.

At the start of my weightloss surgery journey I remember having to consciously take little steps everyday to help myself heal.  My life was punctuated with little sips of water and later on, little meals. Slowing down can be frustrating but it also gives one time to smell the roses so to speak!

When I feel down and life is slamming me with things I’d rather not deal with I try to remember to look for just one little positive thing in my life. Sometimes it’s external to me, like taking time out to enjoy the birds outside using the big bird bath I built them. Or going for a walk in the woods. I always feel better when I reconnect with mother nature in some way.

One change I will be making in the following months is to just have some fun & relaxation.Recently I have been caught up in the many domestic/ physical matters and my recent outing to Arundel reminded me that there is a life to be LIVED!

So think about it - maybe you need a little change in your life. Perhaps an extra glass of milk daily or more water? Maybe a little less food on your plate…or a little more?   Maybe you need a little extra supplementation right now. Or maybe you just need to have a little more fun in your life too!  Think small and just make one little change and you’ll see it’s easier than you thought!

It’s one am Tues 27th  & I’m feeling very awake!  So I’m writing about today for posting up tomorrow if that makes any sense.  Mainly because it was a lovely day and I don’t really want it to end!

It was a lovely day because firstly the old bum is doing much better today. Like you needed to know that - lol!

It has been a work though, sitz baths, douching, the whole story several times a day, but I have the edge for now. Unil I resume calcium intake in a few days time which I am dreading. I know though it’s just temporary this will need that dreaded visit to the GP. But I will get away with things as they are a little longer.

I woke up and had a good old pat of the steatoreah. Good normal DS poop.  No sharding pain so I felt chipper about that - yes I know it is very sad really, but life has a certain joy when your state of mind can leave your bum. 

Then I realised the world was drenched in SUNSHINE,after many days of Grey drizzle.  And I just knew without a doubt the Gods had chosen for me to have a happy day.  So I decided  to really carry the vibe with a big DS breakfast. But it had to be simple and protein only. So I scrambled up 2 huge duck eggs and threw a large handful of cheese into the hot mix so it melted. Bit of parsely and some black onion seeds on top of it all and a splash of ketchup. Delicious. Somehow duck eggs and cheese is right.Maybe because the egg is softer and creamier than hens eggs.  I did momentarily think maybe I should try the quail eggs that I bought so boldly a few days ago, but I lost my nerve. I have never eaten a quail egg.  I’m thinking maybe it will be like when I first ate a duck egg and I felt a bit squeamish at first until I knew what I was eating was actually really good.  I might try them for lunch tomorrow seeing as I am on an egg thing currently. The problem is they are so tiny - I’d probably need to eat about 20 of them for 20gms of protein!

Pete and I went to Arundel.  I had spotted a ring there before christmas and it hovered about in my consciousness. So I thought if it was still there - it was meant to be.  If not, the drive out there is so beautiful and we both needed a break.  Pete works from home and it can have some advantages as it means we can sometimes pretend that a Tuesday is really a Saturday!  Mind you it works the other way around too more often than not - when the weekends and evenings are lost in a blur of deadlines and we pass each other like ships in the night for months on end. But such is life. Mainly it works for us.

I love West Sussex. I’m planning to go out there more often to really explore the surroundings.  I love the countryside there and the way the hills merge with green pastural fields and the light play in the sky. It feels like where I want to be which in itself is a near miracle as I have never been able to settle. Even when I am suppossedly settled, I’m unsettled as all hell and I often suppress itchy feet syndrome.   So maybe that will be where I next try to settle and hopefully do it once & for all because tbh I’m thinking settling might not be a bad thing. Provided there is a view of some kind.

Arundel is near Chicester and it has a huge old castle that hovers on a hill above the town. It’s a bit like a fairytale place. I felt like I was walking around in a very ancient book of history.  There are old stone walls and ancient graves and Cathedrals. There is moss in the cracks of walls and yellow lichens. Everytime we go I see something new.  Some great little shops line the streets and one of the ones I like most is an old bookshop. The books are diverse and it makes one want to read. I’m not reading enough at the moment, kind of miss that. Browsed a few Antiques shops there and saw some fine pieces.

We walked around the town and Pete had scones, jam & cream tea and me a brown bread bacon laden sandwich in the local tearoom. I resisted the amazing rock buns they make there because tempting fate with the rrhoids would not be smart.  But it was hard not to throw caution to the wind those buns are to die for.  Then we went to buy my ring - it is a bling ring, an in your face diamond ring that was created somewhere in India I believe. It’s not mainstream at all, big chunky rose cut rocks of no defined quality,  set quite roughly in gold & silver, but I love it. At first when the shop owner took it out the cabinet I thought ‘awwww, it’s way too small, it won’t fit!’ I had a pang of disappointment. But I tried it on anyway &  it fitted  as if it was made for me.  Yup, it was meant!   

This is another advantage of losing a lot of weight - rings fit. The flip side is the old rings one had fall off and can get lost.  I have several that still need to be resized and one that I will not resize but keep as a reminder of the days when even finding a ring to fit was a difficult proposition.  It no longer fits even my thickest finger and it is quite hard for me to believe it really once was mine and it fitted tightly.  

We drove home chatting all the way.  That’s the great thing about my marriage, Pete never bores me and I value time with him.  Got  home and I had a plate of prawns and a nice salad for dinner. Then we watched a movie, slippers on & contented dogs on laps.

Time for a hot chocolate fortified milk now & then bed!

Don’t read further if you are not a bowel fixated patient yourself.  It’s about the rrhoids. Hemorrhoids to be precise, the stuff we think only pregnant ladies and the elderly suffer. When I used to work on a forum I decided I’d  speak of the old bowel issues, openly and without reserve. Happily for me the company I was in at the time felt much the same and we laughed our way through the more smelly, accidental and rather colourful subject of poo. Or ‘the beast’ as one Mr Clare used to call it. I confess I still laugh out aloud when I think of ‘the beast’.  I have become profoundly lavatorial.   I was not always this way. Once upon a time in the land of ordinary poo, I’d not have broached the subject nor have found it amusing. But those days are long gone.

So let me be frank. I’m dealing with the little butt cutting boogers right now in my life. It hurts to walk, to sit and to poo is the nightmare from hell. I am thinking of signing up for butt induced nun-hood.   I never regret my DS but I can tell you in the moment of acute rectal pain while trying to pass a veritable calcium laden rock I cuss the surgery loudly and without reserve. Afterwards bum bleeding and all, I am contrite about that and manage to get perspective again…but in the moment…

I thought I was over this. Such are the joys of WLS. You think you have reached la-la land and feel a little smug and then like a whale surfacing from the ocean it crashes back into your dimension with a challenge. Even in your seventh year and probably in your later years too.   I wryly think of how a surgery is lifelong.  I knew it and I bought it and no bloody kidding it is! When I am like this I see lifelong not in my usually rosy light either - I see it as lifelong with rroid management.   

But then I am having a pity party today.  It happens.

In year one and two I would get rrhoid flare ups quite often, around three or four times a year. Then it stopped and generally I lived a good rrhoid free life with I think I recall vaguely a small episode that came & went quickly.  I thought I had it down pat. At the first sting of a rrhoid I would look at my diet with scrutiny. I would stop ingesting simple carbs pronto. An overload of these would always trigger the rrhoids.  I’d eat a banana and take one acidophilus with it…just one, as more tends to firm up my bm’s.   The idea there was to get my intestine back in balance.

After being on the toilet I embark on a bum washing exercise that involves me first wiping the delicate area with baby wipes, then perching on the side of my bath with the shower on cold and liberally drenching the butt hole. Doing this odd and precarious act placates my dissing of my DS as I am filled with mixed feelings. On the one hand is the burning raw butt hole,  on the other - just look at me!  I can perch with a certain elegance, a thing I’d never have been able to muster when I was morbidly obese. This small wayward act reminds me that life is not all bad. Even though I know it is a departure from logic after all without the rrhoids I’d not be performing such ridiculous acrobatics anyway! But one must focus on illogical silver linings sometimes and that is mine.   After that up the nether end I insert  a suppository and swear like a fishwife at the same time. I do laugh afterwards as I find myself doing this is in my South African language. British is just not expressive enough. Oh bother or even feckin’ ‘ell!  is not enough. I resort to shameless dirt.   We have a people in my country many of whom are masters of the most colourful profanity known to mankind. They inhabit the Cape flats predominantly and I and my rrhoid put them to shame on the profanity score.  Which if you know my land will tell you a lot about just how graphic I am. 

After that I apply Tescos numbing ointment and spray Germaloids HC spray liberally and live with squelchy bum (but some relief) the rest of the day.

Several years ago was struggling through a severe bout that hit me at the same time that I had an appointment with the then gastroenterologist I was seeing, only that day he was not there so a locum gastro was in his place. I thought I would ask for a bit of medical help seeing as I was in pain and so I began to tell him of my problem.  I promptly shut up when he began to laugh nervously. Infact he tittered like a teenager discussing forbidden subjects. Now, I titter like a teenager too sometimes but it is MY rrhoid. I will titter, cuss, cry if I want to! Right!  But I’d not ever joke about another persons pain.  I ended my conversation with him fast.  I felt very humilated at the time and since then I fess up that while I can discuss my troubles freely with my peers I’m afraid to broach the subject with the medical peeps.  I’m in a right fettle now as this latest bout is severe enough to need proper medication imo, but I struggle with the fear of broaching the subject with my GP.

So it’s back on the DIY job. Constant douching, lot’s of over the counter stuff. I could not survive without paracetamol, Tesco’s rroid ointment, Germaloid suppositories, Germaloids HC spray.  And today the pulsing monster has shrunk somewhat.

I’d address my basic diet but the cause is not my diet this time. Nonetheless I think I need to still look into taking rutin and additional Vit E internally to try to build up some vein strength.

The fact for me is that using such high dose calcium causes constipation. Which causes rectal malfunction any way I look at it.

I just want my DS steatorreah back. With all my heart.

Ordinary fibre supplements work back to front for many DS patients - causing firm stools rather than soft ones, so that’s out. I’ll eat the old banana daily though as the soluble fibre is a gentler way of getting some bowel balance.

I’m literally between a rock ( the bm) and a hard place (my mind) right now.

I’m not alone either, over the years several WLS patients have told me they cannot take their vitamins/minerals due to this problem. I completely understand as I have at times felt like kicking in my lot too. This is not a little mamby pamby problem to overcome. It’s big stuff. It hurt’s badly enough to make one willing to risk ones bone health. Unfortunately.

As it is I have stopped the extra calcium this week. I have embraced cottage cheese in a bid to get a little extra via food but tbh it’s a drop in the ocean.  It’s stop the extra calcium & risk bone loss or risk a mutilated and shredded bumhole. Deep joy.    I continue with the basics but I need that extra…you can’t argue with the dexa. So what to do???

I don’t know. I tried upping fluids heavily to avoid constipation with no improvement at all. I tried upping fats with a little improvement, but not enough imo. I’m not keen to try lactulose or other laxatives as I want my body to at least get a modicum of benefit from anything I take. I need to see if there is a magnesium out there perhaps that could provide me with laxative effect. This way hopefully I can get a balance going.

I’ll experiment over the coming weeks. There has to be a way around this,  I just need to find it.

Been thinking about how much my attitude to fast food has changed today. I think I last had a big Mac  about  3 years ago…is the big mac even still being made?       See - I am seriously outdated on the junk food front nowadays.  And I used to eat that rubbish every week in the last year before my surgery.  I had a few MaccyD’s,  mostly without the bun in my first two years…but it would sit heavy on the tum.

I ditched them permanently when I discovered I could do much better by making my own DS burgers at home. Sans bun. Proper lean steak mince made into 2 thin patties (made to just the size my Sleevie was demanding) mixed with grated onion & barbeque seasoning and bound with a little egg.  I put salady things to taste and some tomato relish between the two patties. Over the top goes a great cheese sauce covering the lot. DS heaven and fantastic protein. Never bothered with Maccy D again.

However doing that takes time and tonight I felt lazy and I was in the mood for fish & chips.  Problem is the fish shop was closed. Plan B was to take the Birds Eye Fish Melts (With tomato & mozzarrella filling)  I bought last week for just such ‘I don’t feel like cooking’  moments.   As usual I read the package out of habit. 1 portion is 13gms of protein.  I can eat two which ballparks at 26gms - that’s okay, later on I will have a warm milk drink to push the count up. It is crumbed but I don’t have a need to eat all the batter - half of it always remains on my plate. I could not see any suspect chemicals lurking in them. Got some chips from the kebab shop and cooked up some baby peas and sweetcorn for the veggies. Ate my usual large handful of chips…can never seem to manage more than that.

The fish was lovely and soft but the cheese filling could have been better. It reminded me of processed cheese squeezed from a tube - but hey sometimes you can’t have it all. The lack of kitchen mess  and the short cooking time ( I was hungry!) made them a nice buy. I’ll be buying them again.

Talking about ready bought food, I have become a tad addicted to Tesco’s mulligatawny soup for lunch recently, but the lack of substansial protein in soup bothers me. Usually I thow a hefty handful of grated  cheese in most soups to push the protein…but mulligatawny and cheese - nope, I am not going there. Then I had a lightbulb moment and used cottage cheese in it instead. It was lovely. I felt darned sanctimonious I can tell you about finding a way to get the edge on the protein.   I am getting weird of late, you know you have lost the plot when cottage cheese takes on a whole new meaning in your souped up life.

Been surfing the net a little this evening and found this interesting read about the Sleeve Gastrectomy.

I was particularly interested to see the results when the sleeve was applied to a RNY intestinal set up. Hopefully in the future even more will be known about the success rates of the Sleeve with DS & the Sleeve with RNY.  If you are researching browse through this.

Here’s the link:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/matrix/bt_200806-covidien/

Been noticing my eyes getting more fuzzy of late so thought it best to get them tested. I have been using over the counter glasses for several years but recently they don’t seem to do the job well, even at a stronger strength.

I always blame my poor old DS for anything that seems remotely different in my physical life. Well, needs must and it’s not a bad approach but it does show me up for the worry wart I am.   I know both Vit A and lack of zinc may have an effect on eyesight.  So I wanted to check out the old macular specially.

I stared at letters and lights and had a scan done and there’s nothing going on with my macular. My veins and optic nerve look right on form.  My DS is behaving regarding my eyes. Thank the gods, the zinc I consume in addiction type quantities is holding up on the eye front. Reckon the Vit A is still fine too.

I’m just getting even more short sighted due to age.  Deep joy.  Not much I can do about that then, but hoping that a prescription pair will make me feel all young again. If only…. sigh!

My mum has gone home and I admit I cried last night after I’d hugged her to death at the airport. I read her the riot act about eating well and caring for herself and being sure to go to the duty free to find a top of the range facial moisturiser sample to apply liberally before flying, and to buy a bottle of water to take on the flight with her… etc. Then she was going through the security gates and I suddenly thought how small she looked, and how vulnerable she was and how I better try my best to look okay abou her leaving incase she turned around to wave for the last time. Which she did.

After my crying fit in the loo at home last night ,  I was okay.  I was fine. Until I found a bowl of my mum’s homemade creme brulee in the fridge just now.  I ate it and I cried over it all the way through it. I got over that then saw that the Tulips she had bought me as a gift had all opened and I started to tear up again.   I’m thinking ‘for heavens sakes….’ - but it doesn’t help it just makes me feel really silly - which I suppose I am.  I’m getting shoddier with age at covering up my feelings. I also find I worry more - about less.     I have to come right in the crying department else by the time I am 50 I’ll be totally permanently dehydrated with losing all this water.

There’s not much to write about really.  I did not make any new year resolutions thank goodness for that. I’m very poo at resolutions and only end up feeling guilty when I break them as I know I will!   I used to always resolve not to eat chocolate EVER AGAIN. Then two days on and I would be eating chocolate and feeling like a huge will less lump.

I think I might go and buy some chocolate to celebrate that I don’t need to make the chocolate resolution anymore.

We are gearing up to do some big renovations on the old house. The bathroom is starting next week - new basin, taps, floors, repainting, tiling,  the whole mcoy.  I’m not excited about it - I am filled with dread about not getting in my  nice warm soak for a while during the repiping process.  I’m whining already and it has not even begun yet.

After that’s done we’ll be tiling the floors downstairs. Now this makes me excited as it means underfloor heating will be installed. I can’t think of anything nicer - I am already dreaming of radient warmth.  Note how my life is an obsession with heat.  I’m so cold today it’s not funny, even with my heaters on full tilt. I have taken to warming my socks on the heaters just to revive my frosty feet. I sit on the heaters too and open my shirts to try to get the waft of warm air on my skin  .  I know it sounds bizarre & it is.

I’m having a lazy day before renovation mayhem hits me.

Yesterday mum turned 71.  She didn’t want a celebration of her birthday, wanted it to quietly pass by half ignored. I say that’s BS - more so because there is much to celebrate. She is alive and that is celebration - so I tell her okay forget the birthday aspect, we will celebrate that you are alive this year. This is a good thing to celebrate - not the aging and the fears that come with it - but the aliveness that you are today.

And me, I must forget that each year now it feels like less time with her is looming large. I must also just be in that aliveness NOW and stop fearing the inevitable future when one day in a large portion of my heart I will feel that sense of dreadful loss of her physical presence. Oh, bittersweet times these days are and I feel we must not discount what is sweet in it all. We must savour the sweetest times so that later on, godswilling, we can hold them close and draw strength from them.

Part of the ‘aliveness’ plan was a trip out to the big Ardingly antiques fair.

And believe me there is nothing like traipsing about in near freezing temperatures to aliven one!

Seriously it was ICY cold.Very few people had turned up to buy so it was possible to get good prices (always look on the positive side!). We saw the large  Oscar Wild like chap from Bargain hunt being filmed. We walked until our hands turned blue. Ate a stodgy hot dog each.  I negotiated a great deal on an a 1890’s carved chinese box, picked up a chinese embroidery for a cinch and mum found some lovely blue plates.  I’ve not been to Ardingly before.  The prices were a lot more than the more local little fairs I attend - aimed at the London market I think, trade looked painfully slow, dealers eager to negotiate. It’s clear that this is a sector of the market that is going to be very hard hit this coming year as our economy fails. People see antiques as luxury goods and they are when you have to think on just surviving.

In the evening we went to see the movie, The Reader.  It was a very good movie I thought. Thought provoking.  Then we went to a Spanish restuarant & ate delicious Tapas for dinner.  I think mum had a good day.

The baconesque clot in my mouth has dissipated. I know what caused it - two factors - first a day where I was so busy I forgot to drink very much at all and was very dehydrated in the evening, plus I think my zinc had continued to trend downwards. I suspect part of that is not that I don’t take enough zinc for a small army daily, but because I have recently been drinking enough tea to create a small ocean of my own. I feel it’s affected my zinc absorption thanks to the phytates in the tea. But I HATE water in winter especially. So I must work on drinking pure water and less tea. I again upped my zinc dose.

The thing about my body is it was starting to make a noise before the clot appeared. I recently had a bad toe infection for ‘no reason’ - no injury to the toe that I could see & yet it was infected close to the nail bed. The infection was a tough cookie and healing seemed slow, we got there but it took too long really.  Alert number one…my body warning me that zinc was dropping again. But I heeded it not after all daily intake seemed pretty high. Next thing - the clot from hell in my mouth. It was so big it was misplacing my tongue. I read on the internet of it being a possible ‘rannula’ - omg - that was scary as the only cure is to remove the saliva gland. I panicked instead of reminding myself of what I know all too damn well - to not rely on internet diagnoses/info too much. Info is useful, and I am for it, but fear is not. It can be difficult sometimes to seperate the two factors.

I zapped myself hard with the zinc the next day and drank a glass of water hourly. Within 3 hours the clot went down - so rapidly it was a real eye opener. Today it is a tiny thing and decreasing each day so I am pleased. Also a bit alarmed at how fast a deficiency can cause such a problem. I know deficiencies can move fast - but this fast?!  Seems we DSers can go from level one to level 6 in a very fast time. I’m being reminded of that. The plus is the reverse also seems to apply - finding the balance is difficult but once the body get’s what it needs it quickly get’s itself on track, provided of course one has not left things too long.

Complacency, lack of action - that’s not good for us. I got a bit lax - low water intake, thinking taking 2 solvazinc plus V4L zinc intake I was improving the zinc situation, not thinking about my recent very high intake of tea that peaked with the cold weather, not very clever for an old DSer who should be wiser. It’s day to day stuff. I know that but I missed the mark. I have beat myself up about it - I want to be perfect!  Of course I am not. I will have these times when I screw up a bit. Not sure when I am going to learn that!  The problem is at this stage in my life I think I forget I am ever-learning. With WLS this is what we sign up for. There will always be on/off challenges to meet & things to grapple with.  I don’t think we set sail for life with a wls that stays consistently on course. Shame that, but that’s the reality.

I get focussed on my mistakes and then I start tearing myself down, instead of remembering my own good advice to ALWAYS look at the bigger pic. The bigger picture is:  I’m out here longerterm with my health in pretty good nick, my DS functioning nicely…not too darned bad. Most times I pre-empt any possibility of DS chaos.  I have met my challenges with honesty. So enough - no more indulging in self flagellation and useless emotions.  Now we (DS and me!) make plan B:  3 zinc a day for me, less tea, more milk & much more water (ugggh ugh!) for 10 days & then a blood lab to safety check levels as this zinc intake is extraordinarily high, and I’ll go from there.

Mum leaves this Sunday. I’ll feel sad. Already do. We talk about when we will next meet up. Perhaps we will meet in Egypt later this year.

The time is already rushing by like a river, soon mum will be back home in South Africa.  We squeeze what we can into a day. Yesterday we went to London in the freezing cold of minus 2 degrees. The cold and me are not big mates and I trussed myself in thermal underwear to brave the weather. I was still cold, but I was viable!

Portobello Road was busy. We browsed the stalls, me ever in search of little treasures. Prices can be very inflated so it’s not easy to pick up  bargain, but I live in hope!  I did find some too.  A beautiful little chinese embroidery, a 19th century wooden chinese figure, a stunning old jade pendant of the goddess Kwan Yin and a wood carving, also Chinese, of similar date.  We enjoyed the buzz and banter of the market.  I was hungry and protein was not forthcoming. Food on the move always seems carby, and as we’d left home in hurry there was no time to pack up a lunch. I settled for Turkish pide on the hop. Not very smart. Several hours later my dear ole bowels decided pide was not for them and I had to do the public loo thing. My worst as I always fear public lashback.  Thankfully my spray seemed to fend off any unwanted commentry. I also find that using the disabled toilets is a smarter plan than trying to brave the regular toilets.

In the afternoon we went to the Tate Britain to see the  Francis Bacon exhibition. Holy cow & blessed mother protect us!   It is the stuff of nightmares.  I was not prepared for the impact of these fleshly carnal paintings. Good art it may be but it is also the stuff of pyschopaths. The body opened up, the body distorted, the body bleeding, the body screaming. Canvas upon canvas. I know a violence of the body myself - for me wls was the first willful act of violence I undertook. I think of it as an essential violence not unlike the birth giving process. It had to happen. I had no choice even if on the surface I wanted to pretend I did have. Later my body threw me into the violence of a bowel obstruction.  Mr Patel showed me pics he took of my grey strangulated bowel.  It’s pure Bacon I tell ya!  Even now,  my abdomen is a mini live Bacon painting of distorted flesh. It lacks the baconesque colour, being just ordinary flesh colour, but  it ain’t pretty.  I have had both morbid fascination with it and sometimes disgust has featured in my life. It’s not easy. I manage to accept it most of the time, but it is a management of my feelings.  There I was in the gallery pondering these things. Wondering how Bacon could so greatly enjoy his work and almost be revelling in the mutilation of flesh or ‘meat’ as he called it. It’s as well he painted. The energy is probably no less an expression than that of mass murderers. It was very tangible to me…at times I thought I might suddenly smell traumatised flesh. Lucid stuff.

And yet. Beyond the subject matter, the revelling, the pain & violence, beyond the monsters that culminate in toothy little gaping mouths, there is also pure colour magic. An extraodinary something about his ability to use colour.  I can’t help admiring his honesty and the gut instinct that painted the pictures. I know my mind is also a distortion as it sits full of it’s own feelings it’s own morals and disgusts. I tried very hard not to get subjective, not to spin my own thoughts about the paintings, or to fabricate my own stories. I thought how when one is faced with horror, the mind tries to find logic and sense. I should know better.  Trying to justify something shocking does not diminish it’s core energy!  I had to laugh at how my mind grappled for sense where none exists in reality.

Mum and I left the exhibition shaken by the images. Love it or hate it - Bacons work somehow hits one’s nervous system.He said he wanted to achieve that and he did not fail there.

We came home in the dark on an empty train & everything seemed surreal.

It was good to walk into the buzz and warmth of my little home, into the comfort of warm tea and the children laughing and something familiar, grounded  and safe.

Later in the evening I felt a pain or rather a ‘tweak’ under my tongue. Looking into the mirror mouth open I view more Bacon. In the veins and soft flesh beneath my tongue is a hideous kidney bean shaped thing of a kidney bean colour. Like a blood clot. I had been desperately thirsty on the way home and felt quite dehydrated, perhaps this has affected my saliva gland.   I drank as much  water as I could before going to bed, but today the thing is still there. Not as huge and no pain, but it is irritating. So I will see if it goes way. If not it’ll be the doc for me on Monday, deep joy.

Today there is a mound of housework waiting. There is frost outside and my feet are frozen already. We might go for a drive later on & take in England from the warmth of our car seats.