annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary
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Mammo
So, I dug the last letter from the Breast Care Centre out of the bin, made an appointment and today had a mammogram, in some kind of twisted homage to Stepfie. I last had one about ten years ago, but stopped going, as they're so horrid, squashing the fuck out of your breasts first horizontally, then vertically. Also I read something somewhere about them being useless, and I can't even remember if Stepfie's cancer was first spotted in a check up, but still, thinking of her I wanted to go, so I did. That up there is me in the changing room, shocked by the giant mirror into taking a selfie, terrified, wishing I'd asked someone to come with me.
Sigh.
The worst thing about death is the way people go on being dead. Like you hold on somehow till you get to the funeral, but the other side, which is meant to be 'getting back to normal' just isn't as they're still not there. And facebook - six of my facebook friends are gone and I can't quite bring myself to unfriend them as there's no going back. But that way madness lies. And we'll have none of that around here, thank you very much.
ED finally had her physio assessment today - nearly six months since she moved here. There were two of them and they were both very pleasant and very thorough, asking a million questions, moving her limbs gently around, giving us some exercises to do with her to try and keep the movement she still has in her arms and to stop her hips seizing up. I found it all very emotional - I see them looking at her, lying inert in the bed, and have to fight the urge to tell them she didn't use to be like this - as if that would make any difference. The other residents in this care home have never known what it is to have a high-functioning or even medium-functioning mind or body, but that doesn't affect where they are today compared to my daughter. They are all deserving of being made as comfortable, pain-free and fear-free as is possible. But still, I was on the verge of tears through a lot of this assessment, an hour and a half altogether, so I missed yoga too, which doesn't add to my calm.
I walked in the maddest wind, out to the end of the pier, over a very high sea - higher than it looks
Well, almost to the end of the pier - I had to actually hold on after being blown right across the way
which was pretty fucking scary, especially as there was no one else there. I don't think you could be blown off into the water though, unless you were really fucking unlucky, as there's a panel down the middle and railings and all. I wanted to stand in the middle at the end to take a pic looking out to sea but chickened out.
And today makes eleven months since I stopped smoking - the longest I've ever gone without a fag since starting aged eleven in 1965. Fifty years - Jeez. Seems a bit late to stop after all that, but I guess I want to keep my legs. I posted about it on my facebook page where lots of people congratulated me and my brother wrote, "Well done Anna, I never thought you would quit. I remember you selling me my first cigarette when I was 8 & you were 12" which I'm sure I didn't. Well, not sure exactly... but would I have done that? Probably, I guess. Seems a bit brutal to bring it up now, 49 years later. He was never a committed smoker anyway, not like me and my sis.
I am grateful for: discovering I can do the photo-a-day on Instagram where I am 'meeting' people from all over - lots of chat with two Finnish women, an Indian woman, some Australians and one of my Venezuelan nephews, which is fab; for finding the determination to keep walking; for the soup I made tonight turning out all right - I'm calling it Thursday soup as the organic veg box comes on Friday and I just chucked in everything we had left in the fridge (apart from disgusting beetroot, yuck), and it wan't amazing but it was edible; remembering I have a small bar of chocolate in my coat pocket, which I shall eat when I finish here; a big warm bed; lots of free wood for the fire.
I hope you are all as well as can be, though I know some of you aren't. I am saying the Om gum ganapatayei namaha mantra for Hil and for Joyce, who surely have had enough difficulties for this decade if not this lifetime.
Love xxx
12:58 a.m. - 18.11.16
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