Posts by Isabel Hitchings
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Another fringe benefit of depression is that when your meds start to kick in, you get a week of absolute amazing euphoria, like every coffee is an orgasm in your mouth, every shower is being touched by angels etc.
Damn! All I got was a gradual return to the point where I could figure out which bits of shit were real problems and which were just my subconscious screwing with me. (Not that I'm complaining about that or about having been OK off meds for a decade mind - I am profoundly grateful for that)
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I was so lucky to have the support of a partner who had the misfortune to start a relationship with me three months before diagnosis (i.e. as you outline, I was already sick when we got together just didn't know it). He's still around, and I'm still lucky.
Ditto I'd just moved in with my partner when I got hit by a nasty bout of glandular fever followed by depression. I don't remember 1998 at all and am, frankly, amazed that when I emerged from the fug he was still around - a lot of other people weren't. It took a long time to get back to normal functioning and a lot longer to trust my wellness.
I really wish I had a time machine so I could go back and unthink the dumb stuff I assumed about some chronically ill people before I got to experience first hand how someone carefully managing their energy reserves can look like they are coping far better than they really are.
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Most collar-pooped aertex shirts I've encountered were on the boarders at high school (Nelson College for Girls) so more rural and moneyed than Canterbury in my experience.
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Sofie - your arm looks like it is entirely covered in happy! I love all the singing colours.
My Dad is happily still with us. It's the paradox of early detection really - a tumour measured in millimetres and a recurrence detected at the stage of being cells under a microscope weren't causing him problems at that stage even though they undoubtedly would have later. Several years after treatment he still has some pain but we're all rather glad he's still here. The two tin hips and replumbed heart are pretty awesome as well :-)
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My Dad's another for whom the treatment was worse than the disease (at least at the stage the cancer was detected). Probably not helped by having a treatment regime which has since been abandoned for being overly harsh.
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Movies I can quote? anything I've seen more than three times, in the last five years, with people who like to quote the same movie. In other words when I was younger and childless and watching movies was my main social activity then I could quote a lot more than I can now.
My kids, however, can do whole Harry Potter movies and Doctor Who episodes.
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Lots of the names I proudly wear can also be said as insults - woman, mum, hippy, pakeha, middle-class....none of these are bad words in and of themselves.
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Islander - the ability to translate specialist jargon for the lay-person without dumbing it down is rare and precious indeed.
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The best advice I have received is to ask whoever you're dealing with what they would do in your situation. It's not a guaranteed success, but it can draw out surprisingly useful tips.
Except when the doctor then says "I'd have refused the test in the first place" which is just annoying.
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You can drop being articulate as easily as putting down a gun
I'm not convinced. I think you can stop using your articulacy to be an arse to people but dropping the base facility with words would be more like faking a limp - possible for a while but requiring continuous conscious effort.