If you see me, don't hug me

Posted by Lara Masters at 15:36 on 22 Jan 2009

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For months now I've kept a very respectable, tidy blog, like when you get a new piece of clothing and you stroke it and look at it in the mirror from various angles and take pains not to get mince pie smeared all over it or soak it in Merlot. But then one day, out of nowhere (or dribbling from a spoon) there’s a river of pea and ham soup meandering down your once-pristine V-neck and the gig is up. The honeymoon is over. The horse has bolted. The fat lady has sung. Two wrongs don't make a right (but nor does one wrong so really after the initial wrongness surely any further wrongs is just semantics?)

Today I reached my threshold for keeping a clean blog and felt the time had come for some grubbying-up. And by 'grubbyness' I mean I’m going to express negative emotions. Gulp...

I'm unhappy. There, I said it, it’s out there. I am sad. I have been crying a lot. And not sleeping.

But I don't think I am on the very edge yet because I am still managing to eat mince pies (do they ever go off? I've been munching mine for six weeks.)

This cocoon of despair descended on me when I went to see another 'specialist' who looked at the scans of my spinal cord and the cyst that is killing off my nerves and told me there is nothing that can be done, that I will just keep getting worse. Even though I know I am losing movement and obviously I notice it from month to month and sometimes from week to week, it's such a shock to see the pictures and hear the words out loud. Because for years, I have been observing my deterioration but still always half expecting a chink of hope, a miracle really, preferably in the shape of a spinal-cord-regenerating chocolate cake, magical muscle-building marzipan animals and a nerve-boosting elixir of fine Champagne.  

There is no tidy conclusion to this blog. No silver lining. It’s a messy one. I shall just have to go out dancing. If you see me, do not try and hug me. I will bite you.

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