I tell you, it never rains but it pours. It's been one thing after another here. I can't even remember the order things have been happening in. Let's have a think.
About a fortnight ago I had a conversation with Nick along the lines of "Do we have enough heating oil?" So Nick went and checked the tank and said "It's fine, honey." Great, so I paid for plane tickets to send the little ones to Canada with Nick next month.
All was well, until the heating fuel ran out. At this juncture I pointed out that someone had told me it was fine. That someone said "You didn't really expect it to last, did you?"
(Look of astonishment on my face.) If I had known the answer, I wouldn't have asked someone to check the tank!
Anyway, the upshot is, we have no heating, but the little twins get to go to Canada. It's a bit of a weird trade off, but I'm sure they'll remember the trip for longer than we remember the winter of hot water bottles and hanging out down at Grandma's!
So, a lot of the things I normally get up to at home have been put on hold. It is too chilly to sit still for very long, so reading, writing and watching TV is way down on the list. I'm only typing this because I have a plug-in radiator wedged up against my chair. I'm also wearing three sweatshirts, a scarf and a woolly hat.
Yesterday there was another snow shower over night. It wasn't a very large one, but it was enough to make the roads slippy. On the way to school, I made a poor choice and took the cut through lane. It's a couple of miles long and has a couple of steep hills (12% or 1 in 8 gradient).
Somewhere around the middle of one of these hills, I realised I had no brakes. Now, this was a fairly long hill . I had time to try my brakes several times, try steering ineffectually, decide to try driving round the bend at the bottom because stopping wasn't an option and finally inform the kids that we were about to crash.
Fortunately, despite the endless slide down the snowy hill (maybe 80m), I was still not going very fast when we landed in the Leylandii hedge at the bottom. The car ground to an undignified halt, miraculously intact. Naturally, we were at the bottom point and whether we went back or straight on, we had to go up. I decided to cut our losses and come back for the car when the roads had cleared.
So I reversed up and left the car. I thought I'd better move it, or the next car to slide down there would have ended up in my boot (trunk). The kids and I walked to school. At least the dog got a walk. I didn't take him out again!
The same day, I had a doctor's appointment. I have been putting off getting diabetes for about 10 years, but I always knew I would get it eventually. Being borderline, I have had a blood sugar test kit for years, and I check my sugars every now and again. In the past few months the levels have been slowly rising, so I started checking it regularly. They have now risen to the point where medical intervention is needed.
I'm not quite sure how I feel about the inevitable catching up with me. I knew it was coming, but that doesn't mean I welcome it. I know my Dad (who was diabetic for 36 years) just got on with life and stuck two fingers up to people telling him his limitations. I can't help feeling a bit like my life is over, even though I know it isn't.
Certainly I like adventure. Especially since Dad died, I have been trying to make up for missing him, trying to live twice as hard and fast, as though I can live on his behalf too. Getting a disease that requires daily treatment is really going to make adventures more awkward. Last summer's holiday would have been way more inconvenient if a supply of insulin a needles was required regularly.
Besides, I like to go off to wild places. Bear Grylls and Bruce Parry would be severely curtailed if they had diabetes. I can just imagine them paddling up the Amazon in a dug out, doing their piece to camera:
"Once you've skewered the wild boar, remove it's pancreas using only a sharp stick. Grind it between two rocks and sieve it through knitted vine leaves to extract the insulin.... Insert the insulin in an iawusca brew via a poison dart frog arrow..."
It almost sounds tempting...
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First off all, you can't imagine how much I identify with your posts. Even in the hard times, you have your witty sense of humor and pratical outlook. Things are hard here too (like running out of propane heat before!), hubby is still really sick and can't work, I am looking for a job but not all that hard since I am not very excited about someone owning my time. The kids have adjusted well to school but I have had a hard time adjusting to not being in charge of them all day. I too have something going to catch up to me one day, hypothyroidism. I already have "subclinical hypo" which means that I have to take medication daily, but don;t have most of the other symptoms like weight gain. However, I am told it usually turns into it when you get older. These are rough times and I finad solace in the fact that I have the right here and now, I am alive, we are all together, and I still have my sense of humor. Thanks for the post.
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