Billygean.co.uk

Compulsive Reading

College tomorrow….

“How’re you feeling?” MindReader says as soon as he gets in the door. He has been to Frightened Rabbit. I have not. This brings the gigs I’ve missed because of illness total up to three (Newton Faulkner, Frightened Rabbit and CROWDED HOUSE).

“Rubbish,” I say as I unload a plate from the dishwasher.

His arms come around me and I bury my face in his neck.

He seems to be working out how to say something.

“By May-Billygean’s standards…” he says, “you know -” he gestures to the dishwasher, to me standing, “I mean – you didn’t MOVE for months. It’s not happening again.”

And even though I don’t think I feel much better, he has a point.

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More moaning

Okay.

11 hours’ sleep. No better. In fact, ear is painful again and glands behind ears are up, so probably worse.

You know what really annoys me? The STIGMA. I just text a friend to cancel, and I suspect I shall not be able to see Frightened Rabbit (band) tomorrow. And people will not just think – oh, a flu – they will most likely think Billygean’s ill again…

I just said to MindReader, I am not too freaked out that I’m going to be ill for 10 months again. It’s just, because I was ill for 10 months, I can’t even cope with being ill for two days. I am immediately transported to last March, or May, or October, whatever, and I have run out of things to do. What do people DO? All I want to be doing is working or shopping or sitting in the sunshine.

Actually, scratch that. I DO think I am going to be ill for 10 months. And why wouldn’t I? The last time I felt like this, it lasted from January until May and was then replaced by even more sinister symptoms.

Go on body, surprise me.

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I am getting some test results from GingerDoctor on the 9th. If I am not fixed by then I shall demand HE fix me!

Oh god.

Oh god.

I appear to have THE FLU.

I know! My first proper illness since The Original Illness which er – hasn’t quite gone yet technically, if you consider how much I still sleep, and indeed how often I freak out.

Had head cold yesterday and was telling EVERYONE (mostly people who didn’t ask) how well my body was coping. Blocked nose? Check. Aches and pains? Check. Energy levels, fine.

Woke up this morning and, well, then MindReader and I went back to bed, then we had pancakes, then I had a bath. Started to get ready to meet my friend in town – very cheerful, because it’s SATURDAY and MindReader wasn’t playing football and I was going to stroll through town in the sunshine and maybe buy something beautiful – and got DIZZY.

THAT dizziness.

Lay down ALL DAY. And I KNOW that plenty of people get ill and it’s normal and it passes but it’s very frightening. Anyway.

Reasons why this is not like chronic fatigue/coeliacs.

1. I have not eaten wheat*
2. It has not gone yet and chronic fatigue stuff normally gets considerably better by the evening.
3. I have a blocked up nose, dry eyes, and my legs feel shaky and achy.
4. I do not feel like I’m dragging my body around the house like I used to. It feels more like when i USED to get flu.
5. It doesn’t get worse the more I do.
6. A girl in my class had a ‘bad’ cold and the day later I got sick. I kind of want to ring her and see how bad it was? Did her legs feel like they were bending too far backwards? Did the glands behind her ears go up? Of course, I won’t.

Okay. Breathe. It is a normal illness Billygean. You MUST stop freaking out.

* well, I went to a wedding 7 days ago and have my suspicions about the gravy they used. But 7 days would be a long time after the event for my intestines to get upset. Right?

Watch this space.

1 Comment »

A friend just wrote this on my Facebook wall

At a conference at the weekend I was talking to a girl who is a coeliac, and described my friend who was laid low for a year with glandular fever and then found out she had coeliacs. I got the reply, ‘Was it Billygean?’.

Bizarre. Are you the most famous coeliac in the world? Or are there only like three in Britain and you all know each other??
Anyway, her name is Kylie, she knows the blog, and asked me to say hi.

So – hi Kylie! And also, there are lots of Coeliacs. So I guess I’m just famous!

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On weddings

We are at MindReader’s friend’s wedding. I am in my beautiful Venice dress.

“And how’s the new flat?” MindReader’sFriend’sMum says to me. I feel MindReader’s hand on my back and he smirks at me.

“Beautiful,” I say.

“Mm, because it’s yours,” she says, articulating more than my mother ever has in one sentence.

I shift in my chair to let another person past and onto the dance floor. The beat pumps painfully in my ear while the candles glow all around us.

“I hear he was absolutely amazing with your – illness,” she says, and I smile as, having got up at 9:30 and walked around til 2 in the morning, it is resolutely, past tense.

“He was,” I say. “He drove miles every night just to come and lie down with me!”

“It’ll be you next, then!” she says, gesturing to the bride and groom dancing.

My stomach tightens as I realise MindReader has heard. I try not to look like I’m waiting for his answer. Brown-eyed girl comes on.

“Nah,” he shrugs and my heart – I confess – sinks.

I stand up, the lights of the dance floor skimming across MindReader’s blond hair.

“Oh it will happen,” he says, catching the look on my face.

Before I know what I’m saying it’s out. “You must have some idea of a time scale,” I say.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Married within four years?”

I think for a moment. I’ll be 28. Old enough to have a pretty good guess at what I’ll want when I’m 45. Young enough to not have wrinkles on the photos. We’ll have been together 6 years. Long enough to know, and not just romantically, like those jolts I feel now when he strokes my ear when it is aching, but to know intellectually, too.

“You’re on,” I say.

 

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Wherein my body breaks again but only minorly

“It huuuuurts,” I say to MindReader, curled up on our sofa.

“I knowwww,” he says.

I have an ear infection, most likely caused by the divine earplugs. So: not only do I listen to the builders all morning once again due to lack of ear plugs, but I am also up all night taking pain killers. Oh joy.

MindReader reaches for the steroid ear drops and spoons behind me, slowly decanting them into my ear as I giggle because it tickles. He massages my swollen glands and blows into my very hot ear. He is nice isn’t he?

“Why isn’t it getting better?” I say. “It’s been the same for THREE DAYS.”

I roll over and look at MindReader. His mouth quivers slightly with suppressed laughter.

“Billygean,” he says, “since when did you regard yourself as someone who gets over illnesses quickly?”

He has a point.

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Oh and yes! my tan is out of a bottle

Um, hi!

*stumbles into daylight*

Sorry about that. I dropped off the face of the blogosphere rather didn’t I?!

Well. I’ve been BUSY.

We had a house-warming. You know – that party I fantasised about the ENTIRE time I was ill. Well, it happened, and it was better than I imagined. We filled the flat with candles and made joint decisions on which snacks to go in which bowls, and I distinctly remember MindReader grabbing my waist rather drunkenly proclaiming that we were adults.

Photos to follow!

Er otherwise I have mostly been STRESSED. We have very noisy builders outside our flat reversing and beeping and throwing bricks and shouting so, until yesterday when MindReader bought me earplugs, I was a sleep deprived monster. Body didn’t need any encouragement to break a little bit, and I had one or two days where all I did was lie down and complain. Still! Earplugs saved the day!


That flat, all candled up before guests arrived

 

 

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Midlife crises in Ikea

MindReader and I are in Ikea. We have, so far, worked out that the cheapest way to own a dining table is to buy the top and the legs separately. So what if they don’t match?

“Ooh, scales,” I say, wandering over to the bathroom section. By wandering I of course mean negotiating hundreds of toddlers and couples having domestics. It makes mine and MindReader’s snogging in the living room aisle look a bit shameless to be honest.

I get on, amused. I have never suffered from the bad news that scales bring, having been 7 stone 4 for my entire adult life. Admittedly, in about November, after 6 months gluten-free that was more like 7 stone 7 but, as DoctorSister told me then, I am quite tall.

I look down.

And blink.

The scales say 8 and a half stone. For Americans, this means I have gone from about 48 kilos to about 56 kilos.

I start babbling. “I suppose I did lie down for a whole year,” I say.

“And you’ve been eating 5 meals a day,” MindReader says. “Besides, you used to complain about not being able to put on weight.”

I half-smile, remembering those claims, made purely to deflect any eating disorder thoughts that might be swimming around in stranger’s heads. I was an effortless size 6; of course I was happy.

“Right,” I say. “Besides, I like a bit of fat. Lack of reserves might be why I got so sick.

“I mean,” I babble, “it’s just weird for me. It’s not BAD weird, it’s just I’ve been 7 stone every time I stepped on the scales since I was 17.”

MindReader nods. “I know what it is,” he says. “I think – what do you call it? – I think it’s called being a woman.”

I look at him balefully for a moment as a toddler wanders around at our feet. And then my shirt button pings off.

1 Comment »

Presents!

So. Birthday. Presents :)

Beautiful bag from DoctorSister
Beautiful bag from DoctorSister
Close up of the bag
Close up
Beautiful summer coat from MadFather
Beautiful summer coat from MadFather
Animal cards :)
Animal cards :)
Present from MindReader :) :) :)
Present from MindReader :) :) :)

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