Buddy Box

Ever since my GP told me that it’s likely that I will be on medication forever to treat my headaches it made me think.

1. Do I want to be on medication forever, forever is a very long time!

2. Is he really trying to help me?

3. This isn’t right.

I don’t know whether my hemorrhage gave me a new super power of confidence but it suddenly occurred to me that this isn’t right. I shouldn’t be feeling this way. I have been on medication for so long and I don’t want to be. For some it may be the right course and I respect this but I have reached a point where I don’t want this. I have seen a couple of different GPs since. One was open to alternative therapies, suggesting Indian Head Massage which I have tried and it was wonderful. The second said, you’re only 32, it’s a long time to be on medication for and referred me to Neurology. After two and a half years it felt like a relief to be told that this isn’t right.

Since the eye-opening moment I have been looking at ways to ease my headaches. There doesn’t seem to be a cause that I can pinpoint. No triggers. I say that I’ve been suffering for two and half years but that only counts the moment that they started occurring every single day. I remember getting them at high school a lot and at college. I remember getting a migraine in the middle of the night when I was at uni and not being able to move. I remember getting a migraine at work and my manager not believing me and in between customers I would curl up into ball on the floor behind the counter. A photo appeared in my Mum’s Facebook memories and I said I remember that day, I had a bad headache and felt ill.

I truly am the lady with the headache.

Some remedies are easier to try out than others. I’ve heard of that ear-piercing that’s supposed to help but that seems quite extreme although my sister said she’d come too! apparently showering in a certain baby wash is also supposed to be good. Both I’ve yet to try.

I’ve mentioned before that I hate the change of season from Summer to Autumn. It makes me feel physically sick as Summer ends. I don’t hate Autumn itself I hate what comes next and that Spring feels so far away. I find myself filling the season with things to look forward to. We booked to go to Legoland, we visited BeWILDerwood for Halloween, we have had a January family holiday booked at Center Parcs since we came home earlier this year. All these things distract my attention and help me look forward.

In September a post by the Blurt Foundation appeared in my Facebook newsfeed and it caught my eye outlining their ‘Buddy Box’ scheme. A package of self-care surprises. The Blurt Foundation is a support network for those suffering mental illness. Fortunately the dark days of depression are behind me but the thought of going back there scares the hell out of me. As we were approaching October, my least favourite month of the year I thought I’d treat myself to one of these ‘Buddy Boxes’ because I LOVE surprises. As a child the Christmas presents I looked forward to the most were those from Father Christmas. We would get a pillow case filled with practical and fun small gifts. Some were predictable, every year we would get bubble bath and I loved this. There would be chocolates, underwear, small toys and as I got older a Smirnoff Ice! Father Christmas visited me until I was about 20, I must have been very very good. October’s ‘Buddy Box’ promised to be something cozy. With the drop in temperature promised and the days darkening this sounded perfect so I pre-ordered one. When it arrived I was surprised because I didn’t know when to expect it and I couldn’t wait to open the present to myself. I went on to order November’s too and I have a confession to make, I love the way they are wrapped in their pretty little box that I have kept them that way and now have 2 hot chocolate sticks to enjoy.

October and November’s Buddy Box goodies

 

Being more self-care aware has opened my eyes further. I realised that being a mum of 2 boys, a wife, both employed and self-employed there are very few moments to look after number one and when I do I come under scrutiny. What’s with the essential oils? What’s the hippy tea all about? When I was in hospital for two weeks it was the first time in many years that I was being looked after. As an adult I don’t expect to be looked after but isn’t it lovely when someone does, no one else is going to surprise me so I may as well surprise myself.

Family Time

One of the most infuriating things I find about school is the way they implement organised activities and gloss them to be family orientated.

Maths and reading cafes which are meant to encourage parents into the class room and become involved in their child’s learning. ‘Family Picnics’ which involve waiting on the school field for a quarter of an hour for your child to appear only for them to ushered away again half an hour later. I love spending time with my two children but I hate being dictated to when and how I should do it. I spend two days a week working elsewhere and a number of hours throughout the rest of the week working at home. My children especially Mini Jedi puts an enormous amount of pressure on me to attend the vast quantities of assemblies, picnics, cafes etc. it’s only a short amount of time for the children and I’m not disputing the amount of time and effort that they all put in but to me it completely cuts up my day and means that I actually have less quality family time than I would have if I had stayed at home and cracked on with cake orders, the amazing amount of admin work that I have backed up and of course the never-ending house work.

Whilst I am doing my damned hardest to not only spend time with my own children at these events I also make a conscious effort to involve the friends of my sons whose parents are unable to make it due to work commitments. I have been accused of thinking I’m some kind of ‘Mary Poppins’ in the past. I’m no Mary Poppins, I drink on my doorstep whilst my children play on the pavement into the night, some days my children don’t even get dressed. I’ve accepted that some days are a Netflix marathon kind of day. Our home is not ship-shape, it’s a bomb site. I’m not a perfect mother, I just do my best but I can’t help but feeling a little irritated when I am forced to go and spend family time with my family at school. I firmly believe that school life and family life should remain mostly separate with a kind of blur in the middle so you can be kept up to date with your child’s progress. I have never been to a school family event where it is truly family orientated. I’ve seen parents encourage their children to jump the face painting queue, parents having a catch up on the latest gossip whilst their children cause chaos. Just to reiterate, I’m no perfect parent and I’ve often turned my head it just irritates me that these events are made out to be about family yet I see hardly any family interaction.

Just to support my view that school and family can’t mix, yesterday we were fortunate enough to be invited to a family party. Not a party held by family members but a party held for families. It was a private event held by an acquaintance of my husband. At first I felt apprehensive, unfamiliar social situations send my anxiety soaring. At the same time I wanted to go. It’s the Summer Holidays and all I had done was go to work, make wedding cakes and have parties on the pavement. My babies deserved to have fun. With the week ahead cake order free and a wedding cake set up yesterday morning the time couldn’t have been better. I was ready to chill out and spend some much-needed time with my family.

unfortunately I never learned to drive

 

Well a free bar if I’m honest is every 30-something mum’s dream come true. Add that to a plethora of kids activities and a big open space and you’re nearing paradise! Not once did I want to run like the day I took the boys to a party at Megafun. I hardly knew anyone but I didn’t feel out-of-place. What struck me most was the number of parents playing with their children. They were painting with their children, blowing bubbles, eating their meal with their children, running with them, encouraging them. Doing all the kinds of things that families should be doing together and it was heartwarming. Often an anxiety inducing moment for me is being left alone but during the times when the boys were playing within eyeshot and my husband was mingling I didn’t feel afraid, I just kicked back in a deck chair with another large plastic cup of Pimms and felt grateful to be alive, invited and for my favourite time of year, the Summer holidays.

One Step Back

So what happened literally after I hit ‘publish’ yesterday morning? I received a telephone call from Addenbrooke’s Neurosurgery team telling me that they’ve had to cancel my appointment and rescheduled it for the 20^th June. How did it make me feel? Angry and annoyed shortly followed by disappointed that I wasn’t going to get the closure that I was hoping for on part one.

Now I’m not about to start bashing the NHS, the very people who kept me alive, who I have spoken very highly of in my previous posts and who I have developed an enormous respect for. There is probably a very good reason for them needing to cancel and having a strop over it will get me nowhere. After all the two surgeons who were responsible for getting my brain fixed were called in on their day off, one of which wasn’t even on call that day. You might think that perhaps that well yes, that’s their job, they have to come in on their day off and save your life whether they’re on call or not. The government is calling for a 24 hour NHS, newsflash! We have one. No you can’t see your GP on a Saturday evening to demand antibiotics for a virus but should you need emergency brain surgery there’s a fairly good chance you’re going to get it. Antibiotics are not going to cure your common cold but brain surgery will save your life when you have an aneurysm that could explode again.

The lady on the phone listened to what I had to say, she listened to my concerns and was very understanding. She told me that she would pass the information on and that she would get someone to call me back. I came away from the telephone call feeling frustrated. I felt a little let down if I’m honest. I just wanted to move on from it all and I felt strongly that this appointment was going to be the way to start this process.

As promised I received a phone call back and didn’t have to wait very long. Of course as soon as the phone rang, Meow-Cat, who had been playing with Mini Jedi in their room, came running down the stairs and started to climb all over me. It’s one of life’s mysteries. It doesn’t matter how old they are human children have an innate ability to disrupt a telephone conversation from birth.

My anxieties were immediately put to rest. I was told that if I felt ready to return to work then I could. She asked me if I wanted anything put in writing but I told her that I always see the same GP so I was sure that I could form a plan with him. I was told to be aware of the tiredness and when I told her that apart from the tiredness I actually felt ok. I was reassured that it is normal for this to go on for some time due to the trauma on my brain. She told me not to be startled by signs of depression, it’s the brain’s way of making me not do things! This explained a lot.

When I woke yesterday morning I had a feeling of dread. That feeling that it wasn’t going to be one of my brighter days. The dull headache that I have all the time was starting to amount to something. I told myself that maybe I could sort the washing so my husband didn’t have to when he came home from work, nothing too taxing but it would be helpful. Those who have had the misfortune to experience depression will know that you have no desire to do anything, you don’t want to do housework, you don’t even want to make a cup of tea, you don’t want to get dressed and there are times where you could just sit and stare into space and do nothing. As a busy person to experience all these feelings after so long, has all come as a bit of a shock. I have the urge and know I should get these things done but summoning up the motivation is near impossible. Every time I stand up I’m overcome with dizziness and have to steady myself and if I do too much for too long I feel like I’m going fall asleep on the spot. At the same time I’m riddled with guilt that I can’t find it in me to do more. I have experienced many conflicting thoughts over the last few weeks. I couldn’t find myself feeling excited about going to the Travis gig at the LCR but when I booked the tickets ages ago I couldn’t wait. I wanted to go but lacked the enthusiasm. I wanted to spend time with my family for my niece’s birthday but at the same time felt I could just as easily sit on the sofa and stare into space. So when the senior nurse told me not to be fooled everything kind of made sense. Basically my brain is telling me to sit, do nothing, heal.

Yesterday wasn’t a great day and I regressed back into my trackie bottoms riddled with guilt and got back to being practically useless.

I then asked her about my headaches, explained that I was previously being treated for Chronic Daily Headaches and not a day went by without getting them. The pain isn’t unbearable all the time. Sometimes it’s just a dull ache in the background but other days it builds and builds and occasionally I experience migraine. I told her how I had been prescribed Propranolol recently but was then too worried to take them as I knew I was taken off Amitriptyline, which was previously used to prevent my headaches, for a reason. I came off the phone reassured, dug out my prescribed beta blockers and took one, hoping more than anything that they do work for a while at least like they had done a couple of years ago.

I really could have done with that appointment on Monday but they have still done their best for me. Next target, see my GP on Tuesday, get back to work.

Cupcakes and Lollipops

It’s now seven weeks on since rupture day and the half-term school holiday is drawing to an end. Meow-Cat woke up in a horrible mood. He just sat their howling to himself and went on to snap out of it as suddenly as he had snapped into it. I can’t say I blame him, I felt like howling to myself when I woke up too. I had a terrible nights sleep and have woken up with a bad head. I tried not to be cross at him. He was probably feeling as terrible as me and the shock of waking up is enough to make anyone cry. The difference is he is only 4 years-old and I am 32 so over the years I’ve learned to control my emotional response to traumatic everyday events such as waking up, being hungry or thirsty, walking around a super market and not being able to find the last piece of that puzzle. Both boys are happily playing now wearing Star Wars costumes.

I am now counting down the days until I see the man who fixed my head. I really should write down everything I want to ask but I always think of things at stupid times. Often these thoughts come to me as I’m trying to get to sleep or occur in the middle of the night. My mind is constantly whirring at night whereas during the day it’s a blank and I struggle to stay awake.

Some of my questions are:

• What’s with the two years of daily headaches and will they ever go away?
• Why do I feel so tired when otherwise I feel ok?
• How long will I take Keppra for and how will I know that it’s safe not to?
• Why do I need to take an aspirin every day?
• Please can I go back to work?
• Did I make the right decision to have it coiled rather than clipped?

There are probably many more.

I don’t know why but I’ve spent the last five weeks looking towards this coming Monday. It’s what I’ve been working towards. Somehow it feels like it will be the end of part one and then I can move on to part two. Part one of the story was about the aneurysm rupture, getting more ill than I have ever been in my life and then building myself up again with the help of an army of family and friends and the NHS. I’m hoping that part two will be about restoring normality and will end with my next brain scan. Part three will be the result of the scan, whatever way that may go.

During my stay at Addenbrooke’s hospital the nursing staff were all so lovely. I actually thought to myself that I’m going to miss these people. I told myself that when I came back in I would bring them cake as a thank you. They must see so many patients go through their wards and I don’t even know if they’ll remember me but they really touched my life. Everyone was saying how bored and fed up I must be in hospital but I really wasn’t. I felt safe and looked after and it was far better than any Travelodge I’ve stayed in! It was clean, the staff were pleasant and the food wasn’t too bad most of the time. All positive attributes that Travelodge lack. I joked that I was going to write an excellent Trip Advisor review on the place. I suppose I was also thinking to myself that I hope that I’m well enough to be baking again by back to the place.

During my stay on Neuroscience a nurse in passing my husband looked disappointingly at him and said, ‘oh… I thought you had lollipops’. This clearly planted a seed as he then organised through my dad to bring them in the biggest stack of Chupa Chups I have ever seen. I don’t know if they were all on some kind of sugar high as result but the nursing staff were buzzing. They asked me whether it was my husband who brought in all the lollipops and they were smiling. One nurse said she had eaten so many lollies that the roof of her mouth was red raw. There was lollipop evidence everywhere. One nurse told me how she had text a picture to one of the other nurses who had a day off promising to save her one. Even a few days later when I had been moved onto rehab a nurse produced a lollipop from her pocket.

Lollipop day reminded me of what made me start baking. When I brought cupcakes into work or baked for my friends and family the happiness was contagious. I may have been feeling like the most miserable girl in the world but seeing everyone enjoying my gift, made me feel happy. From start to finish the baking process took me to my happy place. Directing my energy into baking distracted my mind and then seeing them enjoyed created happiness. I baked some cupcakes as a thank you gift once and was told, you could do this. So I did.

ID. Free

All of last week’s targets were made! Meow-Cat’s class assembly, see Travis at the LCR and make my niece’s birthday cake. I should feel happy but I feel indifferent.

Making the birthday cake was very important to me as I couldn’t imagine not making it. I’ve been making them since she turned three-years-old and I intend to make them FOREVER! Five weeks ago I wasn’t sure if any of the above things would be possible. Everything was up in the air as my hospital stay was constantly extended day by day.

Four years of birthday cakes

 

The hardest thing about this has been going from an incredibly busy person to a very not busy person. My life was non stop, I hardly sat still. I did my two days of work a week in retail and when I wasn’t there I would usually be at home. At home I would either be working or if there weren’t any cake orders to work on or admin to be completed I would be cleaning and tidying the house until it was time to collect the boys from school. Then my evening would begin, feeding the boys and cooking for myself and my husband. We would get them to bed together and crash out in front of Netflix.

I function best when I’m busy. It’s been six weeks since I last went to work. I’m beginning to miss the contact. I’m missing catching up with my colleagues. I work with a team of people who all have their own distinct characters. The two days a week that I work there is exactly the right balance for me. I don’t have to spend much time away from my two boys and I get to be someone else other than ‘mummy’. I also get to learn about the adventures of my colleagues of which can often prove to be amusing. As someone who doesn’t like talking to people I don’t know (I’m not the kind of person who will randomly strike up conversation with you on a bus) I was once asked, how do you do your job? In the playground I keep myself to myself although I see the same people day in day out. At work I see many many strangers but can talk to them about anything and everything. Their choice of new shoes, how old their baby is, whatever cookery show we happen to have showing on Food Network at the time. I’ve had conversations about wedding venues, holidays, outfits, books, films and of course the weather (that goes without saying). My reply was because when I step through the doors of my work place I’m a different me. I have a role to play. I put a face on and do my job. Setting up my own business was terrifying as I had to actively put myself out there. At work I’m just one of many and I always do my best to be a good contact for the business. But as a sole trader that is just that. I think 12 years experience of customer service has proven useful. I am personally responsible for making it work.

I’m missing both my jobs. I’m missing my colleagues. I’m missing seeing people. I have my follow-up appointment with the man who fixed my head in two weeks and I hope I’m given the all clear to return to work. I’m missing my craft. Most of all I’m missing my identity. My work life is quite separate from my everyday life, sometimes things over lap but its unusual. At work I’m Kirsten who is obsessed with keeping the shelves tidy, likes drinking tea and will bring cake to work if you’re extremely lucky. Elsewhere I’m ‘Cake Lady’ working hard to make something of my business. I’m Mummy and a wife at home. Currently I can just about achieve ‘mummy’ giving hugs, making sandwiches and reading stories are tasks that I can manage, being a wife isn’t so easy. More recently I’m the ‘Lady with the Headache’ and that’s all that seems to define me right now. Everyone is telling me not to hurry back to work but I want to regain some normality. I want to be in the place I know, I want to talk to strangers about the weather because they don’t know what has happened. I want my colleagues to talk about their holidays, nights out and nonsense and make me laugh. I want to be me again.

My team surprised me with a Storm Trooper cake for my birthday last year

 

Creating my niece’s birthday cake was a little about regaining normality but it also reminded me how far away it still is. A couple of months ago I managed to make six cakes in a week without stress. There’s no way this will be happening anytime soon, my order books are closed for the Summer. We went to celebrate my niece’s birthday at my brother and sister-in-law’s house. The boys were happy to play all night and everyone around me was drinking beer and cider. Just tea and water for me as my head was already banging and the anti-seizure medication I’m on can make the effects of alcohol quicker and stronger. Usually I would have probably sunk a bottle of wine and not paid for it the next day. Each and every morning it feels like I’m suffering a hangover despite lack of alcohol. My head aches and feels like it’s stuffed with cotton wool. Everything feels foggy and fuzzy even the air. Falling asleep at night is difficult because of the pain and it’s harder knowing that the medication I was on previously would not only prevent the headaches but used to knock me out into a deep sleep. My daily headaches have been back for a couple of weeks, this is usually the point that I go crying back to my GP. My GP has prescribed me an alternative but I don’t dare take them so it’s a vicious circle.

That feeling of waking up to a Disney song has well and truly disappeared. It’s a bit like a holiday, the build up is exciting and you can’t wait to get away from it all and then the journey home is exhausting and miserable as you prepare to get back to a normal life. Back to work and school. You have to unpack and do all that washing and the hope of the next holiday seems forever away.

Playground Politics

I have a confession to make. Schools absolutely terrify me.

When I suddenly burst into tears surrounded by various family members and the two paramedics, the paramedics seemed to assume that I had some deep dark secret to hide so all my family were ushered outside. No, it was because it was the day of my tiny four-year-old’s teddy bear’s picnic. I fondly call him Meow-Cat as that is what he changed his name to one day. When I dropped him off outside his classroom I told him that I would see him for his picnic. I had made a promise that I would be there. I made the walk home and just half an hour later my immediate future changed in a flash of pain through my skull. It devastated me that he was expecting me and the realisation hit me that I wouldn’t be there for him. My sister-in-law stepped up, she told me that she would be there with him. That was the second of many many favours that my sister-in-law has done for us. A valued member of my family, friend and neighbour – how lucky am I!

Just over a month on, today was Meow-Cat’s class assembly and it was one of this week’s targets. Make my niece’s birthday cake and make it to the class assembly. We practised his line over the week despite him saying that he hated school and he wasn’t going to do the assembly. My husband dropped us off at the school, I walked each of our boys into school and made my way to the school hall. This is only the second time I’ve been on school grounds since all hell let loose. Panic set in and I felt that familiar instinct of wanting to run from the room but there was no way I could let Meow-Cat down again. Thankfully a dad started talking to me randomly about umbrellas and carboot sales. The distraction was welcome and I refocused. As Meow-Cat sat down I saw his eyes flick around the hall to find my face. I caught his eyes and he gave me a little wave and a smile. I could now focus on the face that I loved so much. He said his words so loud and clear, he has changed so much since his first assembly when he was barely four-years-old. After, I went to meet him, I blocked everything else that was going around me and focused on him. After that I couldn’t get out of there quick enough and I walked home in the rain.

I am the mum who has the school run timed to perfection so that I walk onto the playground the moment the bell sounds. Meow-Cat is generally at the back of the line, he’s easily distracted but I love watching him. One day one his friends (and probably the only child he ever spoke about from nursery) had an umbrella. Well it was like she was coolest kid in class because instead of lining up Meow-Cat and a couple of other children gathered around her with looks of pure joy and fascination on their faces as she showed off her incredible umbrella. His older brother gets let out so he generally comes to find us and I hurry them out in hope that we wont get run over by the sudden influx of scooters and bikes that charge down the pavement. You really take your life in your hands, it’s carnage!

My primary school days were happy ones. It was a small school of around 70 pupils. Bullying didn’t exist and everyone knew each other. It was old-fashioned. The dinner lady would march up and down the hall in a mini skirt and correct everyone’s table manners and make sure that my middle brother would eat his peas. I was never lonely. When I went to high school it was a big shock. I knew nobody and within a few weeks all the girls in my form turned on me one by one. My fear of schools began. The day I left high school was the day I suddenly felt that I could breathe. I felt like I had been let go. I have only taken one true friend with me from high school and she only spoke to me because someone dared her to!

My days at sixth form were very different. I had made a conscious decision that I would be a different person. I made friends very quickly and had a large circle of friends. Unfortunately I am not in contact with many of them any longer but they were good times. In reflection it was college that kept us together because as soon as the exams were over everyone drifted away from my life and I became a lone again. By the time I started university I was the high school student again. Making friends was hard but I did and although anxious I was happy around them and we had some great times.

It’s even harder making friends as an adult. You’re forced into social situations as a child. I love how children just start playing together at the play area regardless of whether they know each other or not. They strike up temporary friendships in a flash. When I had my first son I started to attend baby groups. I was welcomed into a circle of new mums. I felt happy to be surrounded by people again but after a few months things became nasty. When the whole group was together everything was sweetness and light, it was all fluffy and full of tea and cake like a chick lit novel. When I suffered a miscarriage they all insisted on forcing themselves into my tiny living room where they showered me with love and gifts and lifted my spirits. But I began to notice that when the group was split it was seen as an opportunity to bitch about whoever wasn’t there. Everyone was fair prey and I thought if they are happy to bitch about everyone else like that then there’s a good chance that on a different day they were laying into me. Well I spoke up and the messenger was well and truly shot. I’m now only in contact with the mums who never had a bad word to say and cut all other ties. I was too old for playground bitching but it also made me even more weary of meeting new people.

Stepping back into the playground when my now 6-year-old started school was terrifying. I was already sad that my baby boy was starting school but it triggered all kinds of fears for him. When I attended his assemblies and reading cafes I had Meow-Cat to hide behind. Instead of socializing in the playground at kick out I would play with him, chat with him, I just enjoyed his company so much that it wasn’t a difficult distraction. Letting go of him last September not even two weeks after his fourth birthday nearly broke me.

The Darling Buds of May

SONNET 18

William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Summer… How much I love Summer.

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 makes me think of flowers, birds, fresh air and although ultimately a love poem it makes me think of sunshine and lazy weekends. It’s only now that the word ‘Death’ jumps out at me. I suppose that I always glossed over it before.

We’ve now crossed over the first week of May. I’ve already written about how half of April just disappeared for me. Apparently we had cold weather and I joked that maybe I had fallen into a coma and woken up in the Winter!

During Autumn months I become quite anxious about what is to come as the weather turns colder, the days darker. Everyone else admires the colour and looks forward to snow and despite October being the month of our wedding anniversary and the birthday of our eldest son it still fills me with dread. I’m haunted by bad memories but each year I am determined to replace them with happy times so that one day there will be so many happy memories they will completely swamp out the bad ones of which are so few yet somehow more powerful.

May is still a month of loss. A birthday that never was and the loss of Grandad that seemed to happen all too suddenly. The leaflets say that it’s quite common to become preoccupied by death. Unlike October though, May promises me Summer. Brighter, warmer days. It makes me feel childlike again, it makes me want to play.

To be honest I’ll be glad when everyone goes back to work tomorrow and my Facebook and Instagram feed stops being filled with status updates and pictures of barbecues, wine glasses, beaches, pub gardens, water, I could go on and on. All I can do is think about all the things I could be doing. This wallowing self-pity is not a trait that I am very familiar with and I am actually making myself mad at myself for even thinking such self absorbing thoughts.

I need to turn this around and to quote someone less Shakespearean (Although I do believe he made an appearance in the film, ‘Lego Movie’), I need to think of, ‘Bubblegums! Butterflies? Cotton candy?’

Actually what is really spurring on is my niece turns six very soon. In ten days I need to be well enough to make her birthday cake. This is something I NEED to do. I know my brother would be understanding and say don’t worry (actually… would he? I’m not so sure!) It’s something I WANT to do. One day maybe I’ll be brave enough to write about why I started making and decorating cakes but I find it as scary as taking myself back to the day my aneurysm ruptured! To be without cakes in my life when I need them more than ever is incredibly difficult.

The Birthday Cake I made my niece last year