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The Bodily Fluids Entry (or ‘the entry whose title could attract some creepy people…’)
I never thought I’d start a post by quoting Bart Simpson, but seriously, after today’s all-you-can-wipe buffet of vomit, snot and nappy explosions so intense that they had to shut down Heathrow yet again, there’s only one way to kick this thing off: Aye Caramba!
I don’t know what I did in a past life, but I’m starting to have a sneaking suspicion that I did something – not horrifyingly awful, but just slow and painful, like tapping somebody on the head oh so lightly with an egg-beater for about forty years. Either that, or I nagged my husband to death.
The evidence, your honours. 2010 has thus far presented our family with a head-on-collision for moi, a near-weeklong hospital stint for hubby, and then a broken limb for our darling littlest, on his first day of day-care, no less.
I have to say though, as far as full-leg casts go, I really think he rocks it.
But hang on, where was I? Oh yes, bodily fluids. Naturally.
So in the wee (no pun intended) hours of this morning, Mister Six comes strutting into our room, with that beautiful expression that rings in my ears like honey to a bee (do bees have ears? Note to self: rethink your similes): “I need a bucket to puke.”
We sprung into action just in time, and proceeded to spend the remainder of the night playing “catch the yak!” with the little man.
Which was okay. Until this morning, when our very littlest decided to spew forth a raging torrent of the most foul kind from his other end. Which again, would be okay, except did I not mention that he’s wearing a FREAKING FULL-LEG CAST!!!! Here ’tis again, just in case you missed that tiny development.
Be still my beating gag reflex.
Anyway, I’ll spare you the gore, but let me at least finish with this: when you find yourself standing outside Woolworths (our Aussie equivalent of Sobey’s or Safeway, for the benefit of my Canadian friends), with one hand holding your son’s face over a bin while he pukes away in front of passing shoppers, and the other one cradling your toddler resplendent in his broken leg garments, there’s only one thing to do…
Strut.
Kids Parties: The Unchartered Domain
Car accidents, hospital stays, ensuing never-ending medical dealings, house-moving and now, the latest saga, my poor littlest darling, all 15 months of him, has had his leg – and simultaneously my heart – broken on his first day at his new day-care this week.
Ah me.
After all the drama of this year, I think we ALL needed a bit of a ridiculously elaborate celebratory bash. And, we reasoned, the 2nd littlest man’s 6th birthday seemed to qualify on both counts of:
a) peaking excitement at the entire concept of birthday-dom; and
b) potential to be remembered for the duration of said little dude’s life.
And so it was that what began as a ‘let’s just throw something together at short notice, invite a few friends over and have a few bowls of chips’ evolved into ‘let’s invite the entire neighbourhood, anybody who can come from the new school and pretty much everybody we know with small children, let’s buy a portable basketball hoop, water bombs, prizes galore, sausage rolls, chicken nuggets, platters of fine cheeses and more, let’s introduce a very loose superhero theme and last but not least, let’s spring for a freaking JUMPING CASTLE. And not just any jumping castle, mind you, but one with a shady cover, a slippery slide and a doggone PIRATE FACE, PEOPLE!’
Now, while I am never one to brag (except when discussing my sheer awesomeness), it must be said that this party completely freaking rocked. And given that I spent the majority of it carting snacks between the oven and the patio, wrestling with water-balloons that refused to stay water balloons (I mean come on, you’re a child’s play thing. If I can hold my shit together in the midst of complete chaos then what the heck is your excuse?) and trying to employ logic with sugared up pint-sized partygoers in regard to what constitutes ‘not freezing sufficiently to warrant elimination from the dance-freeze game’, that’s really sayin’ something.
Little Man all but lost his mind with the excitement of it all.
I think the moral of this story is that as parents, we have found with in ourselves some unchartered territory – the kind that goes completely over the top and here’s the clincher, actually enjoys it.
I’m serious. From now on, when it comes to parties, do not mess with us. You think I’m joking? Just try me baby. Name the time, name the place and we will be there complete with a jelly pit, sumo suits and a ghetto blaster spouting the best of The Muppets.
All that was left at the end of the day was to sit back post-clean-up, put up our feet and clink our glasses in congratulations.
That is, until Little Miss Seven came limping out of bed with those immortal words: “I threw up in my bed.”
And yes, we’re back to earth.
Valentines Day
It’s Valentine’s Day.
We’ve never really been huge on V-day, not through some self righteous sense of railing against commercialism or anything even remotely cool like that, but rather just because for us, February and March is already jam-packed with celebrations. Birthdays: Tim’s Mum, my Mum, my own, Tim’s sister, Tim’s brother, Tim’s own, not to mention the anniversaries of both our first kiss (March 14: at the Pearl Jam concert of 1998 no less) and our wedding. In short, we’re already overloaded with reasons to celebrate without adding the fuss of February 14 to the list.
But today, we’re gonna do it.
Admittedly, it will be in a hospital bed – and with Tim’s heart fright meaning that he’s completely sworn to leave hospital a changed man, determined to “become the healthiest person you’ve ever seen, just you wait!” it will be resolutely chocolate-free – and in a ward with three elderly women suffering varying levels of dimentia, but damn it if I’m not going to move heaven and earth to find some way to make that setting romantic.
The good news is – and this is cutting a ridiculously long few days very short indeed – that the cardiologist seems reasonably confident that there is no evidence of an actual heart attack at this point. Which is awesome. Though they have yet to rule heart problems out altogether (we’re awaiting more tests on Monday, after which, assuming all goes to plan, he will hopefully be given the all-clear and sent home), it is looking better each day. As in, he seems better. Calmer. Alive.
That first day of the phonecall, in my crazy strategy to stay calm in the midst of my panic (which basically comprised keeping my hands as occupied with activity as humanly possible) I grabbed a book to take to him in the hospital. I didn’t even look at the title, all I saw was that it was a chess book; it was only later that we realised the spookiness of the title given the circumstances: “Playing the Endgame”. The next day, again, not even paying attention to the name, but simply choosing a book by his favourite author, I brought in the much more reassuring one: “Finally Alive.”
It was only much later, once the worst of the storm had truly passed, that we were able to look at that and laugh.
Tim says that there were two points in this whole, entire, crazy affair where he honestly thought “this is it.”
The first was in the car. There he was, a third of the way through his daily commute to work, when it hit him: a paralysing tightness in his chest that quite literally knocked the wind out of him. His arms tingled, his breath shortened, and that terrible, terrible pressure pushing, pushing, pushing into his heart.
The second was in the ambulance. His heart pounding like it was about to leap out of his chest and onto the stretcher itself, Tim was terrified. I know. Because I felt the exact same thing – while not physically, but certainly emotionally – only three short weeks ago. To emerge alive from such a confrontation is certainly a victory, but like most battles, does not mean you come out the other side the same. Of course we all know that we will die one day. Intellectually, we know that. So why is it such a shock when you are actually confronted with a moment in time where you realise that this really could be that day?
Because, my heavens, it is. A shock. One BIG, LOUD, HORRIBLE SHOCK.
Some moments I find my mind drifting to what it will be like when Tim comes home. With both of us nursing our injuries – physical and psychological – will we lean on each other like two wounded soldiers and emerge closer for it, or will our combined forces just spiral us out of control like a tornado of trauma? It is then that I have to stop myself. I cannot think about the future. I can’t even think about tomorrow. Again, again, I am reminded of the one lesson I am clinging onto in the midst of all this insanity.
One day at a time.
In fact, at times this has become “One hour at a time.” “One meal at a time.” “One nap at a time.”
Whatever works.
To twist matters more, I find myself eyeing off the doors of the emergency department at this particular hospital with a sense of almost time-travel: these are the exact doors, this is the exact building, that is the exact emergency department which – some twenty-five years ago – my own mother was brought into on the last day I ever saw her.
But that is a whole other story.
A plea to 2010
The posts below are just random musings from the past couple of weeks. I hope it all makes sense to you. Some of it doesn’t even compute with me, so if you continue on: kudos!
Just to update you, this has truly been the most insane time of my life. Last Thursday my husband Tim was hospitalised with chest pain. He was in hospital for 5 days. I will write more about this some other time, but in short: NUTS. NUTS. NUTS. Not his nuts, just the situation. Not his heart either, thank goodness! Though that’s certainly what it was looking like for a little while.
So here we are. Not even two months into the new year and both of us with life-confronting encounters behind us.
Details to follow, but for now, can I just throw my hands in the air, wave them around a little bit and make one big giant plea to 2010 to just calm the heck down?
Thank you.
That is all.
Support from surprising places
Even reading over these past couple of entries, I find myself nauseated just with how self-pitying I have become.
And in some ways, that’s been the hardest thing to get a grip on. How have I – who I like to consider a pretty damn positive person, to the point where at my university interview the panellist actually called me “Pollyanna” TO MY FACE – devolved into this uber negative whinger? Ugh. Today I’m actually feeling a lot better mentally, a lot worse physically. It’s two steps forward, one step back – all I need is Tina Turner’s “Nutbush” and I will be officially fulfilling my lifelong dream of living life as a musical.
The house is a freaking mess. Tim is trying to help out as best he can and I am grateful; but what it comes down to is this: calling his housekeeping and my housekeeping ‘clean’, is like calling Toowoomba and New York ‘cities’. Sure, there’s a commonality there, but that’s about where it ends. But I can’t get mad at him. I can’t. Because :
a) he really IS trying as best he can under really difficult circumstances and
b) I’m on Valium and thereby unflappable.
I just feel so stranded in a house that I start cleaning only to be halted within minutes and reminded of the fact that my body has changed. Agh. I know intellectually the easiest way to solve this is just to let go of my expectations – after all, isn’t that what this whole thing is teaching me anyway? – but taking that knowledge from my head to my…well, other part of my head, is just something else. Whenever I really start to panic about the state of things, I find myself – or at least, a voice in my head, hopefully of the healthy variety – saying these few words over and over:“It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.” Then I remember to take a deep breath. I’m alive. My family’s alive. It’s all good.
I bit the bullet and checked my email on my phone today (we don’t have the net at home) so even though it costs a billion dollars per email, I just threw caution to the wind – see how reckless I am now? Oooh yeah, this life-changing event has made me bbbbbbbbad to the bone, baby – as I just had the need to feel connected. And I’m so glad I did.
Along with so many messages of support and encouragement, I got the most beautiful email from an old school friend who I haven’t been in touch with for years. I’m constantly amazed how in the face of hard times, (having been through and supported others through theirs), so often the people who lift you up, are the ones you least expect. I just want to post here what she wrote:
I am so impressed with you! I know we were not that close in school but since you have been on my facebook i have kind of been following you and what you are doing…..not in a stalker type fashion..obviously!!
For ages your stuff would just come up on my news reel thingy and i would read it and wonder what the hell you were on about with all the loose moose stuff etc..then one day i checked it out and thought that is so cool! couldnt help feeling a little bit envious of your motivation and ambition…..but you did always have that!
I have been on your web page several times since then and did see some stuff on facebook about your recent road “incident” so have just gone on and read your blog type thing….
a) am sorry you had to go through that but very happy to hear you are both ok
b) Just by looking at your web site and all the things you have achieved both personally and professionally you will NOT be stopped!!
c) Drugs could make for some interesting and cryptic comedy acts!
d) Writing is theraputic…..and you are very good at it.
So i just wanted to say that really. Rich tapestry of life…etc etc.
Hope you feel better soon and keep writing…..
Alex
xx
That totally made my day. Seriously. It’s these little things that are making a huge difference to me right now. Thank you so much for taking the time out to write, Alex. xx
And on another note, if you haven’t read yet another old school friend’s comment about her own unexpected pre-festival show debacle, then please do here. You are such a sweetheart Sar, I cannot wait to hang and see each other’s shows and geek out about all things comedy whenever the stars align.
Love you guys. Thank you all for the encouragement. Here’s to brighter days and positivity rising. But also thank you for allowing me the grace to just let it all hang out. Whingeing, self-pity and all. xxx
One Day At A Time
Some days are up – I feel so positive, so alive, so happy that (especially considering the thoughts that were racing through my mind just post-crash and before results were in) I have basically a happy ending – while others I come crashing down to such a low that I sometimes find myself even wishing that on that evening I had died.
It’s a horrible thing self-pity. Because it’s partners in crime are loathing, hatred and even self-harm. I don’t mean physical harm (though those thoughts have passed in my mind as well) but more of the emotional type. Mental abuse. On yourself. And it’s a vicious cycle, because the more self-pity you feel, the more you go off at yourself for even feeling so self-pitying. After all, what right do I have to feel sorry for my state of affairs when there are people in Haiti who have lost everything? When there are people commemorating the anniversary of the worst bushfires in recorded Australian history? When there are people I know how have just recently lost their 7-year-old son unbelievably suddenly to too-late diagnosed leukaemia? What he hell is wrong with me? I have it all. I walked away. I have injuries, sure, but my son is just a little bruised, I can still watch him play, I will be here to watch him grow up. My career plans are completely in the shitter for the year, but really, in the grand scheme of things, does that even matter? Is comedy even important? Is any of this really important ? Is it?
And so it spirals into an attack on myself – what kind of person am I, what kind of horrible, self-obsessed, narcissistic and ungrateful whinger, to even dare lick my wounds when what I essentially have is a happy ending.
Because I do.
I’m still in pain, but my spinal cord is intact. My shoulders and my back hurt, my neck aches and I have constant pins and needles in my arms – and sometimes my legs – which at their worst feel like cramps. With the meds,I can deal with it, it’s now, almost three weeks on, that it’s finally bearable: sometimes I think the worst part of it is just the constantness of it all. It’s unrelenting. The tingling first appeared two days after the accident, but it was sporadic, with no discernable rhythm. It would come and go, and occasionally my left arm would go completely numb for about twenty minutes. Now I no longer have the complete numbing sensation but the pins and needles are more intense and in both arms 100% of the time. The doctor – after viewing my MRI results – thinks this is because my nerves have taken a very violent lashing in the jolt of the accident and that the symptoms could last even six months. Six months of constant pins and needles. Can I do that? It seems a small penance given that I get my son intact, my life continuing and so on. I can do it. I can.
I can finally start lifting Cassidy again. He has been so out of sorts since this whole thing began – going from waking perhaps once through the night to five or six times. The sleep deprivation is starting to get to me. I’m on Valium. I’ve cut right back on the initial dosage, only because it was beginning to make me feel like the walking dead, but hot damn if I don’t keep my temper now with all things child-related. Seriously. I’m not endorsing the stuff, but all I can say is I’m totally getting now why it was the drug of choice for the 50’s housewife.
They’ve also started me on anti-depressants. I don’t know if they’re working. The second day after I started I felt amazing – not physically, just mentally, as though the fog had lifted and I could finally see some sunshine streaming through – but the next day was a hard crash back to the ground. I just feel so helpless. I can’t perform: on the stage or at home. I can’t keep on top of anything house-related. I can’t properly look after the kids. I tried homeschooling for one morning and it took me a grand twenty minutes to realise that I just cannot do it. Thus, Ella and Caleb are now at our local primary school. The transition has been surprising – I would have thought Ella would have had the most dramas settling in as she can be a little shy in big groups, but she has taken to it like a duck to water, and it is Caleb (usually unbelievably social and quick to make friends in any place) who is struggling to adjust. I’m giving him the same encouragement I offer myself: just take it one day at a time.
Yesterday was my first day alone with Cassidy at home. It wasn’t as bad as I’d dreaded. Being able to at least focus my attention on him keeps him happy, though he’s still extremely clingy since the crash and I indulge him too much by lifting him up – I woke up this morning and my back felt much worse. I shouldn’t really be lifting him at all, but when he’s upset, he’s also cutting a tooth on the bottom gum just to throw everything in there in one big hit, and when I know he’s also gone through a huge trauma having to deal with me not being myself in the aftermath, I just can’t help but give in to him. I have to get better at this.
The saving grace in all of this of course, has been the amazing people around me who have held me up when I have fallen, and – well, without belting out a Bette Midler ballad – have and are making sure that I get through this and that I know I’m not alone. My sister has been unbelievable – as much as I know and have always known that she loves me, she really has gone above and beyond the call of duty, from driving me to umpteen doctors, hospitals and while doing so, making sure she takes the back route so I don’t have to revisit the scene of the accident itself before I’m really ready, to making phone calls and chasing up admin details (why the hell is there so much paperwork involved when shit hits the fan?) I can’t even begin to complete the list of things she’s done.
People I don’t even know have brought us meals. Friends of friends have emailed through advice on insurance, physios and other nuggets of their experience in navigating the beaurocratic nightmare. My sister-in-law Mary has driven me umpteen kilometres to drop kids to childcare, then stayed with me during darker days to keep my head above water. My brother James didn’t even blink before making the big mission down to Brisbane to pick me up and drive me back up the Coast, then took me out to their favourite café for iced coffee on a particularly tough morning. My darling mate Ash rocked up on day one post-accident with an entire meal prepared for the whole household with whom we were staying. Jem and Sam gave up their bedroom to us and made it clear not to stress about outstaying our welcome. Corinne came over, baked, washed and got house stuff sorted. Tamsin went and bought me loads of fruit to help fight off the effects of too much Codeine. Kath researched schools for the kids and got the ball rolling before I’d even given it a passing thought. I’ve received flowers, messages and words of support from people I would never have even expected. The kids stroke my back and hair with their gentle little hands to help me feel better. My hubby gives me hugs, words of encouragement, and puts up with what must be like living with J-Lo if she was a coked-up Hunchback. I could go on and on, but it’s getting a bit ridiculous. This is how supported I’ve felt: that I can describe it using a word like ‘ridiculous.’
All these people, and so many more, all putting their hands up to let me know I’m loved and most importantly: not alone.
Thank you.
Re: Melbourne Comedy Festival. I have run the full gammet of emotions on this one. My first post-accident conversation with Rachel, my Producer in Crime and mummy extraordinaire and just general all-round one of my favourite people in the universe, went something like this…
Rache: “So, um, is there any chance that you won’t be able to do the show?”
Jen: “No!”
Rache: “No?”
Jen: “Well…(big big pause)…oh God, Rache, I just can’t even bring myself to consider that right now.”
Rache: “Okay.”
Jen: “I know I should, I just…to be honest, it’s the only thing keeping me hanging in there right now.”I
Rache: “Fair enough.”
By the next time we spoke, things had developed – I had been referred for a CT scan as the pins and needles hadn’t eased up, the results had showed abnormalities in two discs, thus I was referred for the MRI and suddenly the doctor was talking the possibility of surgery and needing referral to a neurosurgeon. To put things mildly, I was freaking out.
Jen: “I have no idea what’s happening.”
Rache: “It’s okay.”
Jen: “If I have to have surgery, then I don’t know. I have no idea of when or what the recovery is or anything. I just don’t know…”
Rache: “It’s okay.”
Little did I know at the time but Rache was already on the case, contacting the Comedy Fest to find out what the deal would be if I was forced to drop out. She very kindly rang my hubby to discuss the options, knowing that at that point it was just something I was not in a space to contemplate, let alone discuss the finer logistics of.
Then at some point in the ensuing days, it began to dawn on me that this wasn’t just a ‘recover in a week’ kinda thing. Maybe I’m a bit slow (blame the Valium: I do) but I guess after that first night, once I got the clear from the x-rays, I kinda had it in my mind that I’d be sore for a week or two, but then I’d bounce back and be my happy self again. It never really occurred to me that there could or would be longer-term implications. Add to this the fact that my mental state was rapidly spiralling downward
My Melbourne Comedy Festival show was the biggest event of this entire year for me. This would be the first time I’d performed my full-length show – the one I developed in Canada at the Baff Centre and launched in its newborn form at Calgary Fringe Festival at Loose Moose Theatre – in Australia, and I couldn’t wait to show it. 23 shows in three and a half weeks. Intense. But so exciting. To say I was anticipating this with the eagerness of a rabid dog about to eat something – rabidly – is a massive (and weirdly worded) understatement. But because of the sheer intensity of the undertaking – taking the whole family down with me for the whole time , no less – I knew I had to be at my absolute physical and mental peak to do it well. I’d been working out every day. I’d been rewriting the show weekly. I’d been working on my vocals. And together with Rachel, we’d been plugging away solidly at what we considered a very organised and well-put together promotional plan.
But at some point over that week where words like ‘abnormalities’, ‘disc bulges’ and ‘surgery’ were being thrown around like scattered dreams, my feelings mutated from being completely gutted even thinking about the prospect of cancelling the show, to being utterly nauseated at the thought of trying to go ahead with it.
I finally admitted it. It sucked. I cried.
But this was reality.
The show would not go on.
Melbourne Comedy Festival is a go!
So excited. It’s all wrapped up and ready to go – well, you know, aside from the whole logistical, creative and organisational stuff – apart from that…SO ready to be there.
More deets coming soon! xoxox
Banff Centre Residency – the final leg
So in a nutshell, we are LOVING our new pad. Heavens above, I am so insanely nesting right now I might well start laying eggs. Oh snap. I’m even – please, take a seat if you’re that way inclined – ingesting ridiculous numbers of home-making magazines, PHOTOCOPYING the activities and then ACTUALLY DOING THEM. I know. Pass the hockey mask and lock me up for life.
But on the plus side of all this ridiculousness, our place is looking pretty damn hot methinks, in fact I’ve never felt so happy in a home before. So yay for that. Now all I need is some baby gear, but ha, that can wait til I’ve finished my mosaic mirror frame!
In other, more comedy related news, I’ve got the final jaunt of the Banff Centre Residency coming up straight after Christmas – we ended up changing the dates for various reasons that are way too boring and logistical and un-glitzy to go into here, but that’s the way things are. So expect lots of ‘this is me procrastinating from actually working on my art!’ posts during that week. Unless of course, over hte Christmas season you have, you know, one of those things, what are they called? Oh yeah, ‘lives’.
Then New Years’ Eve I’ve been booked with Yuk Yuk’s to do a gig in Red Deer. I’m not even sure where it is but it sounds cold. As it has been here. Today started off at minus thirty. Minus thirty. Yep, see? I’m not even going to comment on that as I believe I don’t need to. Minus thirty.
Oh yeah, and check out the belly on me. That thing you see before you still has nine solid weeks of baking time, mind. Again, no further comment.
I’m going to wrap this post up with my pearl of wisdom for the day:
Damn I love hot chocolate.
Why, God, why?
Why is it that my best friend Frankie’s baby bump is bigger than mine, even though we’re due on the exact same day?
Ah. Probably cos I’m carrying half of our foetus in my ass.
Jawsome.
