Little Broken Things

Some of my Twitter pals may be wondering why I've not been around very much recently, the truth is I've been struggling a bit and my usual jovial puntastic nonsense has been severely lacking.

A few days before Christmas I took my car to the garage, the back brakes had started to squeal and I knew this wasn't a healthy sign that all was well with them. I gave them my mobile number and wondered into town. After a while the garage rang to say my car needed over 400 squids worth of work doing to it. I cried and cried all the way back to the garage where I collected my car in the hope of finding a better deal elsewhere. I could just about afford to get the work done using the last of my savings, I'd had a lot more of which this time last year.

Anyway, it wasn't the thought of eating away at my last lump of available bank balance that upset me, that was there for such eventualities as this, it was that so much of that money had gone to supporting the family while I am unable to work because Ellie continues to be so ill. Also, a lot of that money was spent on private treatment for her in the desperate hope that something might helps us make progress, and they were the only things that seemed (if only very slightly) to help improve her quality of life at all.

That morning, when she woke, I had hugged her, as I do many times a day, every day. But she wasn't wearing her usual layers of clothing, just a nightdress, and through that one flimsy piece of material I could feel all her rib bones protruding down her back, and I felt over-whelmed with a rush of fear, a panic that no matter how the doctors had reassured us that although whatever was causing her pain couldn't possibly be life-threatening, her intense fear of food she had developed could be.

The point is that the reason why I was really crying was not because the cost of the car repairs were far higher than anticipated, or that there would be no savings left for the next big bill that would inevitably come at some point and bite me on the behind, it was just the sudden acceptance of the horrifying reality that might unfold if things didn't turn themselves around.

One morning in August, shortly before Ellie was due to start at secondary school, I had an intensely vivid dream. Ellie was dressed in the new uniform we had bought her for her move up to secondary school and she was leaping up on the back of the sofa in the manner she always used to that drove me crazy, she was a bouncing ball of energy. I woke up and rushed to the bathroom, locked the door, and sobbed. She'd been ill for so long i'd forgotten about the girl she used to be, and I realised I missed her so much, and felt for sad for her, how her life had become. That day was a really memorable low point for me, as was the garage day.

So truth be told I ain't feeling so upbeat, but I'm holding out for the Great Ormond Street Hospital appointment at the end of the month. Fingers crossed that helps us turn that corner.

Oh, and thank you and so much love to all who've been supportive to me, it means more than words can express.

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