Tuesday, March 4

The Ever-Increasing List of Things That May Kill You

Before I begin to rant, here is last night's deceptively serene closure to the day.

A cool lemony soothing glow. In fact, today has dawned beautiful, crisp & blue, with sunshine & very little breeze.



Fabric finds over the weekend Garage sales wont kill me...unless the growing stash/stacks fall on top of me & crush me to death!!
Nor will the large collection of buttons & oddments that I might need one day! For a time I worked in a shop that sold fabric & buttons. My collection grew every payday!
I keep this collection in a small set of drawers, & have more than I could ever need, if I live 2 more lives. My Granddaughter has spent many happy hours playing with this collection. When she was a bit bored she would ask me if she could get them out, & look at them. I would give her a tray, & she could empty the little drawers out, & pore over the contents.
I also have tins of buttons, many of them from my Grandmother's collection. They also have provided hours of entertainment for me as a child, my children when they were young, & the grandchildren.


None of the above will kill me. In fact playing with fabric & buttons may well prolong my life, seeing it makes me happy. It is current opinion you live longer if you are happy- I think?



"They" say changing your Doctor can kill you. I can well believe it. In the ongoing boring & itching, twitching saga that is my skin, I went back to our Dr's for a referral to a Skin Specilist, since nothing is improving & in fact, has worsened. I am like some demented St Vitus dance victim, clawing & scratching at parts unmentionable, & wake to find I have made myself bleed on my chest & upper arms & legs, from indiscriminate scratching in the night! Sorry for that last bit, perhaps a bit TMI.


As it happens our GPs, a husband & wife, have been away for the month of February, so there was a locum attending. A perfectly nice man, very kindly & quite concerned to see the condition of my skin. He decided it was one of the drugs I take for my Arthritic aches & pains. "Dont take it" he said. I explained that I had been off it for a fortnight previously to see if there was any improvement. There was none. He declared it needs a month break, at least, & prescribed a hideously expensive alternative drug, to use for the month.


So far there is no improvement. Nor is there much pain relief from the new drug. The most effective relief came from a drug which is almost 'guaranteed to kill me', this Dr declared. I told the Nurse, it is a trade off. Sometimes I think I would rather live less, if it could be painfree! I am a coward, plain & simple.


In another cosmic conspiracy to piss people off amusing twist I rang to make an appointment with Skin Specialist.
"Erm, Haha," said the receptionist, "We are booked out until the end of June, & the books are closed until the end of March. So, if you would like to phone back then, we will be taking bookings, for the following 3 months."

Oh JOY does this mean I might get in around September!


Frustration at the shortage of Skin Specialists may kill me. That, or a rage attack, at the idea of clawing myself raw for another 6 months.


In other news Gom continues to keep rather well. He is hanging out all the laundry now, & gets it in, folding as he goes. That is another idea the Locum GP had. It may be 'sun sensitivity'. So, I am doing my best to keep out of the sun.

There was a beautiful butterfly kept flitting about the garden yesterday, taunting me. I am sure it was deliberately teasing me, making me think I could get a photo. I kept trying to sneak up on it, but it would sit perfectly still, & the minute I lifted the camera, off it would fly. Another CCTPPO! I have learnt that balancing precariously on the bank, can almost certainly almost kill me!

Last time I tried it, I had a haematoma the size of a cricket ball on my shin, & various deep wounds bleeding profusely, when I plunged down the bank, impaling & gouging my legs & other bits on sharp branches of Grevillea. Gom was horrified, & told me to get up! I told him it was ok, I would just lie there for awhile. The pain was so bad, I couldn't even swear! (It must have looked hilarious though! Gom was to be commended for not laughing.)




Dire Straights, Romeo & Juliet.


13 comments:

Tanya Brown said...

I had a nice chuckle out of your title. Now I'm having no small amount of envy over your fabrics and embellishments! It's particularly nice that you have the intergenerational bridge between your grandmother's buttons and your grandchildren getting to see them. I remember playing with my grandmother's things. They were just discards to her, things she kept to be thrifty, but they were full of character. I wish I could see them once more.

I'm so sorry about the itching. It sounds simply horrid. Beyond horrid.

Ali Honey said...

Sorry you are still itchy and scratchy, sounds horrid.

Love your buttons. They can be fondled; looked at; sorted in so many different ways that little girls know and remember....ahhh.

Granny J said...

I, too, had a grandmother with a button box, though I've never brought out my own button box for the grandchildren -- don't know why. As for fabrics, in our house there was The Drawer. If I mentioned that I'd like a new dress, we'd immediately go to The Drawer to see what Mom had on hand...

meggie said...

Hi All,
Buttons always seemed to have a fascination for me. My grandmother used to cut them off garments once they had worn out. There always seemed to be the perfect button to replace a lost one.
My other Grandmother had a chest, with fabric in it, & she would let me peek in it when I was little, & she would choose something to make me something. Often it was a 'Pinny'- which was an apron.

Anonymous said...

Awww the itching sounds unbearable. Does it get any better if you are away from home?

meggie said...

RB, I am away from home for such short times, I dont really have time to find out if it is better. I still have the feeling it is chemicals in the new carpet. Not sure how to go about finding out.

Mary said...

Oh boy that skin condition of yours dements me. No it is the lack of diagnosis that dements me.

I loved all your buttons and bibs and bobs.

Your poem is a song.

Lindi said...

I inherited my Grandmother's buttons and I love them. When I was about 5, she taught me how to sew them on to cloth. She always kept scraps of cloth in her button box, so we could sew button patterns on to them. We never took them home. They stayed in the box in case she needed them. One of my many treasured memories.

Hope you find something to get rid of the itch soon.

fifi said...

oh you poor itchy thing.

I was almost bitten to my death by lice in a race once and the only relief to be had was a bath in Coal tar liquid.(pinetarsol)
utterly stinky, but stops the itches with which I was completely demented....

Rosie said...

oh meggie I hate hate hate it when my skin gets irritated, out of all proportion to the actual pain.Mosquitoes love me and I come up in enormous itchy lumps. You have my sympathies, especially for the long wait to see a specialist. In France you have to wait 9 months to see an eye specialist. There should be a global medical pool dont you think?You come here for your skin and I'll come to you for my eyes

Tanya said...

Oh Meggie, I wish there was something that could be said to make things all better for you! Your itchyness and pain and frustrations with doctors, medicines, even the sun now! Hugs.

Q said...

Dear Meggie,
I put aloe vera on every part of my body! Maybe it would give you some releif. I would think if there is a waiting list of 6 months somebody should go to school and get into this profession! WOW! One could itch to death in 6 months!
No falling chasing butterflies! I do love seeing your photos of them but would never want you to have injury.
Sherry

Merisi said...

Beautiful button collection, I also like the fabric with the fish.
Regarding your itching skin, have you ever been tested for allergies? I cannot eat my favorite fruits, like peaches and apricots and mangoes anymore, since I developed a sensitivity to them. As soon as I eat them, my skin starts to itch as if I had fallen into a batch of poison ivy. Good luck!
Thank you for your kind comment on my blog.