Cuban prawn pasta
For all those who have commended my patience, reassurance that I am human: today I lost my patience with mum and said something I shouldn’t.
Mum has been having a bad headache day, withher usual morning headache lingering and getting worse as the day went on. She was also complaining about her urinary issues, and that ‘they’ don’t want to sort those issues, and “nobody wants me”, and “it’s going to be so embarrassing” going out to lunch tomorrow, and… I just lost it.
I told her that, in that case, I would go to the lunch without her and enjoy half an hour without her incessant complaining. I could hear the words coming out of my mouth but just couldn’t stop them. 😬
I apologised several times, to an icy reception, then fortunately Lil the cleaner knocked on the door and interrupted the stalemate. By the time we had caught up with Lil, having not seen her since before Christmas, mum had forgotten my unkind words1. And they were unkind, even if they were true, and I very much hope we get some respite care in place soon before my frustration builds to a point that I say out loud more of the things that should stay in my head.
Tomorrow I have a first meeting with a new consultant, after the one I had been with since I went into hospital decided there is nothing more she can do for me. The appointment was meant to be at Southampton General Hospital, where the consultant – like many specialists in this part of the country – is based, but thankfully they agreed to my suggestion that we talk on the phone instead. I just can’t see the point of travelling for two hours in each direction, paying upwards of two hundred quid in the process, for a 20 minute conversation.
I suspect most of the conversation will be me recounting the whole sorry tale of how I became disabled in the first place, a prospect which doesn’t thrill me when I’ve told the story so many times before. I might add how much I hate being disabled – not being able to rely on my body to do what I want it to do, then it doing strange things I didn’t ask it to do – but I don’t expect that to change anything.
I have subconsciously been delaying buying anything expensive to help me in daily life, hoping that maybe one day soon doctors will work out what’s wrong with me and hand me a treatment that will put me back to how I was before. I don’t think that’s at all likely, but I can’t squelch the little voice that says “maybe? Please?”
Dinner was a pasta dish, using a Simply Cook kit, and it was OK. Mum liked it more than I did, which I seem to remember was the case last time I made it, too. She was kind enough to let me have some of her “nice drink” – apple juice – after I dreamed about it last night and woke up craving a glass.
To finish, here’s one of mum’s favourite birds, which perched on the plant outside the living room window as if posing for her attention. Handsome birds, aren’t they?
- Well, I thought she had. She’s still being a bit ‘off’ with me now, several hours later, so now I feel really bad. 😬 ↩︎
Is it pineapple sponge today? 