Category Archives: Health

Mid Winter Hibernation & Healing

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monarch butterfly
20 Jul

Varicose Veins are another of the delightful things I inherited from my Father – together with his nose, long, gaunt face, hair trigger temper and belief that I know best about all things.  There isn’t much I can do about my nose or the shape of my face, I have worked very hard on my arrogance, unasked for offering of advice and my anger and temper.  My personality has changed, but the physical attributes remained.  When I first saw myself in profile aged 15 I was devastated and begged my Mother for a nose job when I turned 18.  It never eventuated.

And after years of aching, itchy, legs and never being able to bare my legs in public in the summer, I decided to put myself in the hands of a vascular surgeon.  Luckily she was a lady and a nice one at that.  She listened to my horror of anaesthetics, scalpels and hospitals, and made me feel safe.

I went on a waiting list that was anticipated to be at least 6 months, and forgot about it.  Then came a phone call – could I commit to a slot in 10 days time as Wauchope Hospital had had a cancellation.  Ged agreed to be home and I grabbed it.  Better to be sick and wearing support stockings mid winter!  Then there was a huge debate about my refusal to have an epidural.  Some people are scared of flying, some of horses, some of heights – for me it is epidurals.  There’s no way anyone is going to stick a huge needle down into my spinal cord.  Ugh!

Finally the anaesthetist agreed to a General Anaesthetic for me and I was booked in.  Rather like childbirth, it is a good thing I had no idea what I was in for beforehand!

Up really early on the Friday morning and drove myself and JP to Wauchope, for him to drive the car back home.  Nil by mouth and all that, but clutching my thermos of tea for after the op.  The hospital was extremely efficient and everything happened very quickly.  I was first up so straight into the hospital gown, the anaesthetist came to meet me and I made him PROMISE not to do an epidural (!) and then the surgeon came to mark up my legs.  Quick as a flash I was in pre-theatre and needled and the next thing I knew I was out, freezing cold, teeth chattering and nurses flitting around me asking about pain and temperature and trying to stabilise me.  Then I was out in the day surgery warmth and drinking my tepid tea before staggering into the loo to get dressed.  In and out must be their motto because they rang Ged to come and take me away before lunch and he decided to take me straight home.

Of course I was flying from the anaesthetic for days.  We had our big mid-winter party on at the weekend so were surrounded by friends, and I mainly sat with my feet up in our newly configured sitting room, knitting. I even went for a walk on Saturday although that was pushing it!  I supped champagne and enjoyed being Queen for a few days.

When the drugs started wearing off my legs really ached and I wondered what on earth I had been thinking.  Then I really crashed with a temperature, throwing up and diarrhoea.  Not sure whether it was flu or opiate withdrawal.  Whatever, I was a groaning, shivering, blob under the duvet for 2 days.  Thank God Ged was there to keep the wheels turning while I hibernated.

It was great to be able to give in to my body’s demand for rest and recuperation, rather than forcing myself up to look after Ben, pushing myself beyond my limits as I have done so often over the last 5 years.

I knew when I decided to have my varicose veins ‘stripped’ that it was an outward, physical, manifestation of the inner work I have done over the last few years – letting go, forgiving, changing.  And in succumbing to the surgeon’s knife I was ripping out the old, outdated, gnarled and twisted that I no longer wanted or needed in my life.  Prescribing myself a new beginning.

Under the duvet I let go . . . I meditated on my last foray into a world of opiates and the heroin withdrawal I masterminded and oversaw for my friend.  I repeated silently to myself ‘I lovingly forgive and release the past’ as I slipped in and out of deep and dreamless sleep.

And I healed.  On all sorts of levels.  I rested.  I stopped cranking the handle and the world still turned . . . I gave myself permission to retreat, recuperate, be vulnerable and weak.  I let those who love me care for me and see the control freak felled to her knees – vulnerable and pathetic. It’s only me who has a problem with that!

And when I arose after my exile of travelling dark recesses of my soul and psyche and passaging in places of pain, I was different.  MUCH more relaxed, with my sense of humour returned to me (how I have missed you!), a sense of balance and proportion about work and play and a real readiness and willingness to listen to others, to learn at the feet of masters, and to give myself pleasure and nurture myself with the things and people I love.

And as I recognised that I needed to grow and change more, to journey along more challenging healing paths to the heart centre, I began to look for places and people to help me.  I found a book I have had since 2004 and have put off and off and off embarking on.  Sequel to the life changing ‘The Artist’s Way’ it is Julia Cameron’s ‘Vein of Gold’ which demands daily walks, morning pages and a voyage of self discovery through the trivialities, tedium and trauma of one’s past.

I pounced on the book like an old friend and readily committed to the journey.  Perfect winter work.  As we hibernate, heal, connect deeply with our most immediate family and friends and ourselves.   Mining ourselves for our riches, dreams and inspirations.  Plotting our futures and pathways to our goals as the winter winds howl and the cold scratches at the doors and windows with its icy fingers.

Winter is time for inner work and introspection, just as summer speaks of reaching out to friends and the world, partying and celebrating the warmth and fertility.  Just as the land sleeps and rests so must we.  It is good for me to finally learn to rest and not to be constantly questing, working, doing.  The seeds of deep change are being planted this wintertide, and despite my averse reaction to drugs, hospitals and surgery, I can see that science can complement metaphysics to effect deep change and transformation.

Will I submit for the other leg too . . .. ???!!!

The last Rebel Yell and Ben’s gift of Balance

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Symbol of Change
14 Sep

I have always been an extremist. Black/white, right/wrong, yes/no – well, let’s face it, mainly no, to any form of authority. Rebel without a cause. Rebelling mainly it seems against myself – making life hard for myself, beating myself up or putting myself on a rack of my own making. Goodness, what a torturous path I have been trudging all these years.

I am a firm believer that children come to teach and heal us. They mirror us so perfectly and show us ourselves, they hold candles to illuminate our dark corners and recesses – those shadowy places where we would rather not see how we are, how we behave, what we show the world.

We ask ourselves where they get their ideas about life and how to behave from, and if we are brave enough, we see ourselves. It’s not pretty. It’s very confronting. Sometimes it is truly horrible. All we can do is change ourselves, our reactions to the world, our interactions, our perceptions. And we can read and listen and learn and try to be better parents, different parents to the way we were parented – less controlling, more patient, kinder etc . . . it all sounds so nice and sweet and obvious – but when the child is tired and hungry and throwing a complete tanty and the mother is desperate to get same child to bed so she can have some peace and quiet, things can degenerate very quickly if the Mum reacts at all. In other words, it’s bloody hard work!

Balance and the middle ground were unknown to me until Ben, the perfect Libran, came into my life and slowly, slowly (and against my knowing) started pulling me from my alternate extremes into the middle – neutrality, balance.

I see so clearly now how swift and sudden my swings can be. The recent cleanse has shown me how much of a role what we eat plays in our emotional and physical wellbeing. Now that I am back on ‘normal’ food I am finding that I miss how good I felt on the paleo primal diet and how many grainy foods really don’t agree with me. Just ask Ged about the first time I had lentils after my cleanse!!

So many grainy starchy foods are convenient and quick, requiring little thought or pre-planning but don’t serve us either in energy, clarity of mind or digestivity (did I just make that word up?) Of course vegetarians have to eat lots of pulses and grains to stay full and get enough protein. They are safe, familiar and filling. But actually, I have to admit, I felt amazing on the veggies, meat and seeds.

But now that I am eating grains again, I don’t fancy meat so much but I don’t feel as good in myself. I don’t want rules around food because as an anorexic and bulimic I have imposed far too many of those on myself in the past but I do want to feel the best I can – body, mind and spirit. I have long known that my vegetarianism was just another way of controlling what I ate and would ‘allow’ myself to put in my body. For sure I just need to relax and have no rules but I think it is important to know what serves me, nourishes me, fuels me. Because as I learn to love myself more I want to give myself what is good for me.

Because it feels like for so much of my life I have been torturing myself – with my thoughts, diet, repetitive running, and other strict regimes. And rebelling against any form of authority with my giant ‘f**ck you’. But in the process have been hurting only myself. Smoking for 15 years to spite my parents (hello?), drinking to excess to spite myself, drugs as my anti-establishment two finger salute, but the only one I harmed or scared or hated with all that was myself.

And I have always rebelled against ‘goodness’. Why don’t I want to be ‘good’, why do I want to be ‘bad’. Or is it that I believe I AM bad and therefore want to hurt myself accordingly, or that because I am bad I don’t deserve good things, or gentle treatment, or nurturing . . . or love?

I rebelled against my cleanse and jumped off the wagon to start supping my tea again. But you know what, my body has been telling me for more than 4 years that I have to give up the black tea. And I keep fighting and reclaiming my last great addiction, clinging to that pommy warming sustenance which actually no longer serves me. Bucking feeling good, clear and bright in the head, and glowing in body and mind. Why? Because I want to have one last vestige from my past life as an addict – because I want to stay an addict? because I want to feel bad? and be stressed and be cranky instead of peaceful and happy?

Wow, this self-sabotage of mine is sometimes mind-blowing. Literally.

I am going back on the cleanse in order to shed this unhealthy habit once and for all. And to let my light shine unfettered. And because tea stresses my adrenals which then hurt and powers up my negative monkey mind, whereas herbal teas make me feel lovely and ‘good’ and happy. I am going to further explore the no grains paleo primal diet and work out how to bring more health-giving foods into our lives and lifestyles, without compromising taste and flavour (I am always up for a bit of a kitchen magic challenge!)

I don’t know why I am so scared – I have been caffeine free before and it was great. Maybe it was because I was fat then that I am so scared of getting fat again (hello, that rings true!) I can be caffeine free and slim for sure!

In two weeks I am going to walk the middle way – balancing meat, grains, fruit and veg in healthy quantities (am so loving my huge daily salad). And picking fresh herbs from my beautiful herb garden for tisanes and fresh, healing drinks which nurture and sustain me.

I want to thank Ben who all those years ago brought meat into our lives and instigated the raising of our own meat animals and who shows me myself in all my fury and who is teaching me to love my inner child, the importance of play and relaxation, and how precious family time is together – just the three of us.

Both Ben and Ged have taught me that while it is tempting to rail at the behaviours and actions of others, we can only change, and heal, and help, ourselves. And by changing the way we see and react to the world around us, everything changes – the world shifts and a new paradigm is born.

So here I am, letting go again, free falling into the unknown and trusting that the grass is truly greener on the other side . . . so mote it be.

Giardia or the Alien Invasion at Avalon

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04 May

Ever since I first started living the rural Australian life near Tamworth 10 or more years ago I have been drinking tank water and relishing it. In Tamworth the water was pumped from the huge dam in the old lime quarry on the neighbour’s place or fell from the sky. In Kangaroo Valley it was trickled down from a spring in the bush behind the property or gifted by God in the form of rain (which there was plenty of!) and here, at Avalon, it is pumped from the river until we put a rainwater tank after Pickle was born. But I relish the fresh, sweet, water we drink here and from the river or creek on a run. I love just dipping my hands in and gulping it down on a hot day or just to cool down a hot flush. I don’t want to stop that. We have a horrible Richard Scarry book (we call it ‘the torture book’) about how the world works and we tell Benno that we don’t believe in coal powered electricity (it is old-fashioned) and that we don’t understand why they treat the water with all the chemicals . . . only now I do!

Before Christmas when the river was very low because it hadn’t rained for three months, we had friends to stay and for lunch and the following week we all had dodgy bellies of varying degrees. Then in February I felt sick all the time and had an ache in my tummy and foul diarrhoea and burping. After a couple of weeks I even went and saw our divine Doctor who, of course, prescribed antibiotics, thinking it was a bug. I was so sick that I went on holiday in The Tree House to rest, and I took the antibiotics for the first time in well over 20 years.

I did feel a bit better for a few days after that but then the symptoms came back and I was exhausted! Dragging myself around and sleeping after lunch in ‘quiet time’ every day. Then I figured it must be an ulcer because I’ve had one before and all the symptoms were similar – constant nausea, loss of interest in food etc. So I started myself on the heal ulcer diet – bananas and natural yoghurt all day. My tummy felt a bit better but my symptoms kept getting worse. Then we had all the floods and in addition to dragging myself through each day, I was hauling Ben and I over the raging river every day, hand over hand, on the flying fox. Every inch a huge effort, with a few rests on the way, and Benno counting me in for the last 10 metres each way.

It was a bit like morning sickness – constant nausea, feeling that there was a snake rolling and twisting in my belly, feeling a bit better with the first mouthful and worse thereafter. I was losing weight, listless, exhausted. It was horrible. Finally I turned to Doctor Google and found all my symptoms matched those for Giardiasis or ‘Beaver Fever’ as they call it in the US. Back to the Doc and as soon as I told him my symptoms he said ‘Giardia’ and printed out the prescription and the stool sample forms. I didn’t want to take the potent pills without a positive diagnosis but I got the script filled just in case (after all, we’re a long way from a pharmacy) and popped my poo into pathology.

Three days later, just before knock off time on the day before the Easter holiday, the surgery rang to say I had tested positive for Giardia. Thank goodness I had the pills to hand. I waited til Benno was asleep then downed them with some food and took myself off to bed (my very favourite place for this whole nightmare). Half an hour later I was bent double over the toilet bowl vomiting for the first time in many years. Those pills tasted truly foul coming up the other way. Sleep was the best way to process and I crashed out long before Ged came home.

The next morning I was up early and making everyone breakfast and tea and barking out instructions for the day. Ged and Ben looked at me in amazement. When I saw their blank and uncomprehending faces I said ‘what’s better – sick Mummy or bossy Mummy?’ With one voice, united, they replied ‘Bossy Mummy!’

She’s back . . . ! It was our very own Easter miracle, my own resurrection from the almost dead. Thank God.

Then we had Ben and Ged tested. Ben was positive, but Ged negative. Regardless, we decided they would both have the medicine, and in fact that week Ged started to feel sick and snake in the belly. I was tempted to let him suffer for a few weeks so he would have more sympathy for how I had felt for over 6 weeks, but relented in the end and organised the drugs. My symptoms then returned – obviously all the eggs had not been destroyed by the first batch, maybe because I threw up.

I was beginning to think that we would never be rid of this parasite. I felt like Sigourney Weaver in Alien, or maybe the colleague with the beastie erupting out of his belly . . . when would this nightmare end?

We all took the toxic chemicals, gladly if they would kill the uninvited guests. We all got our energy back, Ben started being happy again after I don’t know how long of crankiness, and Ged came home on the Friday night with a clear complexion after about a year of some strange, increasing, blotchy, spotty, red rash all over his face.

It looks like we had been hosting these little Aliens for a long time. Who knew how long?

Water is the most common source and I am now pretty neurotic about only drinking double filtered or boiled water. I hope I can and will relax my vigilance as time heals my body and the memories ease. I hope that this was an aberration, maybe caused when we have, by necessity, pumped still muddy water after a flood, or too low to the riverbed during the dry times last year. Or maybe it’s from drinking milk straight from the cow. Or maybe just from all the lovely poo we work into the veggie patch and simply not cleaning our hands carefully enough. Or maybe Ben had it first and Ged and I got it from wiping his bum and not scrubbing up enough or me cleaning the loo without rubber gloves – who knows. I don’t want to become OCD about hand washing or all Hyacinth Bouquet about Marigolds but I am becoming surgeon like! We will never know where it came from. We can only have all the water tested for E coli, not for giardia, so we will get the rain water tested and maybe the river water just to see . . .

We have some pretty vile herbs from Angela at The Horse Herbalist to make sure all the eggs are dead, and I have even been taking homeopathic arsenic so keen am I to make sure they can’t survive.

Fingers crossed it was an aberration and we will never be visited by these horrible parasites again – they are not welcome here!

How Life can change in a Heartbeat

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07 Aug

We have been happy and relaxed and really enjoying being a family again after Ged finally finished stage one of the solar inspections (30,000 kms in 3 months).  I have been revelling in unbroken night’s sleep as he gets up for Ben in the night and I have to do a lot less chop wood and carry water when he is around.  Plus I get to go for a run every day (yay!) so everything was looking rosy.

Then I woke up in th emiddle of the night when Ben woke up and called out as usual.  I felt the other side of the bed for Ged but he wasn’t there so I presumed he was already up for him.  I must have gone back to sleep for a minute or two and then Ben called again and I listened for Ged, thinking ‘where is he?’  And I heard a truly horrible noise.  It sounded like the Thermomix we had borrowed the weekend before kneading dough.  Sort of harsh, grating and groaning.  So I got up and went to investigate.

Ged was unconscious in a pool of blood, sprawled over the bathroom floor in a pool of urine, with his head resting on the side of the bath which had burst his cheek, just under his eye, as he made contact.  His eyes were wide and staring with pupils like pinpricks and I tried to lift him, to communicate with him, to shake him, wake him, to no avail.  Meanwhile I was trying to keep Ben out of the bathroom and calm him down.  Finally (it seemed like forever!) Ged came too and was able to lie down on a towel I put on the floor.  Of course the recovery position didn’t even cross my mind.  I realised immediately that his cheek would need stitching so told Ben we would have to go to the hospital for the doctor to sew up Daddy’s cheek, just like he had to go and get his chin glued up when he fell on the slippery slide.  I set him to packing a bag with toys and books while I tried to sort Ged out.  He was groaning and swearing by this time so I had to try and shut him up!  He managed to sit up and then threw up. I ran a lukewarm bath and he managed to sit in it.  Needless to say I was dosing everyone up with Emergency Essence and, as usual, at my best in a crisis!

Got us all dressed and organised and in the car by about 3.30 and to the hospital by 5.  No one there so he was straight into triage.  They had him on a bed and an ECG within 5 minutes and then discovered that while he hadn’t had a heart attack, his heart was in extreme distress with arrhythmia.  Watching the numbers on the ECG was like watching some sort of random numbers game, 138, 32, 114 etc.  Ben was terrified and refused to stay near the Daddy who was hooked up to all these machines and insisted on returning to the waiting room to read stories with me.  He came in again for a brief moment or two while the young and lovely Doctor (I am definitely getting old – they are all little more than teenagers!) told us that Ged’s heart was all over the place and he would be staying put for the time being.  Ben and I went home.  I was ever hopeful that Ben would sleep and so he did for almost 20 minutes until we pulled up outside the door and then he was awake and adamant that he was not going back to bed, despite being up since 2.30am.

And thus began a surreal day.  Ben got to watch the Gruffalo three times while I did the washing up and ‘thunk’ – that we don’t have insurance for Ged, that we can’t afford to lose him, that we lose everything if anything happens to him, that I want him to get fit and slim and spend a long and healthy life with him . . .

And every few hours I would ring the hospital where Ged was being wheeled from test to test and seeing specialists etc.  He passed out again when they stitched his face – lucky he was lying down.  Finally at the end of the day they moved him into a private room and out of the Emergency ward so he could sleep.  Ben and I somehow got through an extraordinary day.  The poor child was as much in shock that his mother let him watch TV all morning, than that his father, so recently returned to us, was in hospital.

Suffice it to say we all slept extremely well that night.  And thankfully Ged’s heart was beating better in the morning.  Ben and I decided to visit him after lunch (so hopefully Ben would sleep in the car – ha, ha, this eternal hope of mine is laughable!) By the time we were on our way the hospital had decided to release Ged and he was, according to the nurse, in the ‘transit’ room.  Air side or land side I was tempted to ask . . .

But Ged told me he was being sent home with no monitoring equipment or any guarantee that this wouldn’t happen again so of course I went ballistic.  The nurse knew nothing about his case.  So I called in reinforcements.  I rang Macca and she agreed that he couldn’t come home to the farm without some sort of halter monitor.  She knows only too well what the hospital is like (she used to work there) so she put on her battle armour and said she’d meet me there.  She got there before me and woke Ged up from snoozing in his armchair.  He wasn’t surprised, he knows me well, he just raised his eyes to heaven and said ‘Hi Macca, she called in the artillery, did she?’

Ben and I couldn’t find a car parking space in the same postcode as the Hospital so we took advantage of our 4WD and parked on the grass.  And then walked long, featureless, corridors to find the transit lounge.  Not much of a lounge and not much transiting taking place as its inhabitants looked to have been sitting there long enough to have melded with the furniture.  Apparently waiting for a doc to sign a piece of paper can be an all day affair.  When the very young trainee doc came to sign Ged out with her red stethoscope and matching high heels (I last saw style like that in a B&D Brothel where a friend used to work!) I stated my case for a halter monitor.  She looked shocked to be challenged in her role as benevolent authority and disappeared to find the specialist.  Another well heeled blonde appeared in a pencil skirt and sashayed in front of us to find a meeting room.  Any red blooded man would get better just looking at her!  She was about half my age . . .

I stated my case and she proceeded to bamboozle me with science and medicine which somehow soothed and calmed me even though I cannot recollect a word she said and I didn’t understand most of it.  I think they must learn some sort of hypnotherapy mind control at med school . . . ‘I’m a doctor, TRUST me . . . ‘

At least Macca had some fun reading and talking to Ben, even though she didn’t weigh in to my medical stoush, and we got to take our stitched up, banged up, much loved husband and father home.

We all had our safe and ordered world rocked.  Ben then came down with a five day fever and has been a pale and listless caricature of his former self and we are all trying to get a handle on how, why and will this ever happen again.

Ged and I went to the specialist yesterday who at least gave him permission to drive, hooked him up to the ECG again and ultra sounded his heart.  It all looks normal and sounds steady so now they have to work out if he is stress sensitive, so they treadmill him next week and then book him in for a night in the sleep clinic to monitor whether he has sleep apnoea.  He has to lose weight (hurrah, someone else singing from my song sheet!) but then so do I – at least we can help each other there . . .

And we need to make more time for each other, for holidays, for fun as well as the farm, for play as well as work.  I need to learn to relax and enjoy.  Both Ben and Ged can teach me that.  I have to let them.  And we have to savour every moment, treasure each other, stop taking life and each other for granted.  We none of us know how long we’ve got.

Ante natal or anti natal?

by . Posted on
14 Jul

It’s all pretty quiet on the western front here at Avalon this week.  No Willing Workers, husband gone from dawn til dusk, and just the sound of silence and my ligaments and muscles stretching to encompass the growing boy.  He literally grows overnight!  I had another visit to Antenatal (where they do seem to be very Anti-Natal!!) to go through the registration process.  Actually, I had a very nice midwife who checked us out (all fine) and had a good chat to.  My blood pressure raises 20 points every time I go near that place – you have never seen so many scary people in your life.  It’s like one of those 1980 horror movies – the day of the living dead.  Ugh!

We went to the dentist as we both had a feeling that fillings were required and it had been a long time between inspections.  Just picked one out of the phone book.  Oh my God – what a mistake!  The registrar, when taking my medical history asked if I had any medical issues.  ‘No’ I said, ‘but I am pregnant’.  ‘When are you due?’ he asked.  ‘September the 20th,’ I replied.  ‘This year or next year’ he asked????
Do I look like an elephant????
Then the dentist was a sort of modern day Frankenstein, more concerned with yelling at his assistant that the CD cover wasn’t showing on the computer screen to indicate which song was playing.  Eventually he asked me why I was there and I explained that because I was pregnant my gums were receding rather more than normal and I had a couple of sore spots so just wanted to check they weren’t cavities.  ‘What rubbish’ he exclaimed.  I should have walked out there and then, after all every pregnancy book on the market verifies the scientific research that pregnancy softens gums as well as everything else.  Good thing it has slightly softened my idiot tolerance ratio or he would be in the dentist’s chair and I would have been the one with the drill!  Needless to say, we won’t be going back, and the hunt is still on for a nice, friendly, normal, preferably human, family dentist for the three of us . . . .
We have been asking everyone we know who they use and each time get a grimace and a graphic horror story of that person’s last Port Macquarie dental experience.  Apparently there AREN’T any nice dentists up here.  Maybe it is the place that bad dentists come when they’ve been thrown out of every capital city in Australia . . . .
Good thing there are such nice Complementary Therapists up here.  We have been having some Bowen treatments which have been lovely.  Incredibly relaxing and long-lasting.  Both Ged’s and mine posture has definitely improved since we started and what with the acupuncture and the Bowen, I have been pretty good through the pregnancy.  My varicose veins have been fine, the reflux is annoying but it’s not critical, and I have kept very well and active throughout.  I am very lucky to have access to these wonderful resources and to have the emotional and physical support through this amazing time of transition from single and selfish to married, sharing and Mum!
The potential painter came today with his wife and kids to assess the work needed on the windows and eaves and the kids had a ball catching the chooks, chasing the ducks and petting Daisy and Paddy (still no sign – phantom pregnancy, maybe?).  He seems nice so he starts next week and hopefully we can get all those annoying little finishing touches jobs done so that the house is really a family home at last . . . . (is this the longest renovation in living history, I wonder?!)