look both ways........

From toddling age we are all taught to look left and right, keep an eye out for danger whether it be crossing a road, climbing stairs, jumping, running  leaping, and in fact just existing in the modern world. Its about being streetwise. Its about foreseeing times that might yield danger, crossing the road when there’s a dodgy gang, pausing to check traffic lights and zebra crossings, you know where Im going with this I don’t need to list them all and there are so many of them. Well this is all good and well, but it doesn’t account for the rear attack......the time that someone creeps up behind you and mugs you or darkness sets in and you feel slightly vulnerable and you want to see whats behind you, but for all your checking and looking both ways there are times when it gets you right in the back. It lurches at you and takes hold out of nowhere, an event you couldn’t have forseen, avoided or even had time to step back or indeed run away from and that is the way of diseases. They grow and develop inside you quietly, benignly and grippingly, they drain you and in my case leach your bones.......they envelop you until they have got a firm and drastic hold and then one day they jump out of the dark and yell like a strike of symbols so deafeningly in your ears that you lose all sense of time, balance, understanding and comprehension. ‘WHY ME’ yells back or ‘I don’t understand.....how did this happen, what did I do wrong?’ Or even.....’are you sure you got the right person?’ (that last denial one is a real sucker!)

But you cant know it and it happens all the time, every day to millions of people, whatever the condition or disease, be it cancer, ME, MS or even osteoporosis, the list is endless sadly. Its just not fair, its unjust.....but it happens. These things are somehow so much more than, to carry on with the previous analogy, just crossing a busy street and looking left and right to check for oncoming vehicles.......its more than being engulfed in a crowd and having your pockets emptied. Its a huge truck coming full speed out of the fog with no time to slow down and BANG.........all time stops.

I read an article this week by Mike Marquesee about his struggle with a form of haematological cancer. He talks about the” roller coaster ride of symptoms treatments and side effects....”.  He continues on to talk about the heightened awareness of both our intricate dependence on others and our deep seated need to retain dignity and independence. These don’t always sit comfortably together. Nor do pity and support...they are also very opposite beasts. I related to his point that ‘restrictions in capacity and mobility are hugely frustrating and relying on others to supplement them is not a straightforward business.....engaged in a never- ending  battle for autonomy’.

All this hit me with great significance as I read, as the past 2 months have left me under house arrest, not able to drive, carry my shopping, go out anywhere in big crowds, travel in any capacity than a constant state of fear(the confusion and getting lost from all the pills aside!), staring at the fridge in dismay and complete lack of either enthusiasm or even energy to muster something from those icy depths, and the woolly headed memory and getting half way through a sentence to suddenly realise I cant remember what the helI I was talking about!  I cant cope with pissy customer services people (actually can any of us?), I cant deal with doctors, small day to day things have become overwhelming...... I have been caught in a war of “la resistance vs l’acceptance” in getting to grips with facing this, on the one hand and accepting its path and course now in my life, and whilst the change in itself is not the big problem (I usually embrace change), its the fear, pain and current self pitying belief that Im somehow not of much value now that I find myself fighting and then giving in to and back to fighting again........all the time trying to retain some sort of autonomy and independence and frankly just a bit of self  worth!

So there we have it, you must always look both ways, it reduces the risk that something  might hit you or knock you down. Its good sense. Its the least we can do when all said and done there may well be a path pre-ordained in the stars that has your journey mapped out and without that crystal ball looking left and right is the best we have.