God makes beauty from ashes

Hey you, Yeah it's been a while, I know. This blood clot in my lung is a lot more serious than I thought it was and has really affected me strongly. I'm tired all the time . I nap a lot - not because I love to nap (and I really do), but because I seem to actually need it. Breathing is hard. Walking is making me weary and just generally existing is tough. I saw the Surgeon on Monday - a kind old fellow. Dr M is good at his job and together we figured out a plan. I'll have surgery on 7th June where he'll take out the fibroid in my uterus as well as my ENTIRE WOMB. It's going to be a HUGE/serious surgery and will take me a long time to get better. Until June, I've been instructed very sternly to "just rest". By the way, Albert the Angel did call me, guys. He rang about a week after the whole hospital 'fiasco' and I didn't answer because it was an unknown number. He left me a voicemail with his name, explaining he drove me in an Uber ...

I think they are everywhere, you know...Angels. I think because they look just like regular people, we walk past them in the street, brush past them on buses and trains, maybe return their smiles in shopping centres or at parks, thank them when they hold the door open for us or let us on the bus before them even though they're ahead of us in the queue. I think I saw an angel once last year - crossing the street to talk with me when I was lost and I think I saw one earlier this week. I think he was my Uber driver and I think he was there to calm me down on my journey to the hospital emergency ward. Here's how it played out: I was scared. My heart was thumping away at 90 miles an hour as my GP had assessed my swollen, bulbous left leg and said "get straight to emergency in hospital". Oh shoot. So there I was. I stood in front of a Bankwest in the centre of Morley so I'd be easy to find. I booked in the Uber and typed out all the details it requested fo...

So, I'll catch you up on everything that's happened in the short space of a week. My leg swelled up as I was in a hair dressers getting my hair straightened earlier this week. I felt it before I saw it - a pressure that built up over the hours (it took FOUR HOURS to chemically straighten my hair!!! Can you believe it?) first in my ankle, then in my entire leg - as I was sat in the salon. My left ankle was throbbing and my leg felt...heavy...but I ignored it because I was excited about my hair. Later that same afternoon and I glanced down and noticed my left leg was almost twice the size as my right leg. This was not good. I made an appointment to see a local Doctor and he took one look at me and said "get yourself straight to the emergency ward at hospital. Go" I was so scared!!! Alun was at work and I was on my own. What was going on in my body??? I booked myself an Uber (I'll blog about that later) to the Hospital Emergency Ward. Since then, thi...

I read it in one of my dearest, closest friend's blog and I wanted to write about it today - about the prejudices held against you when you are overweight. (Yes, I am eating chocolate while blogging this. Haha). It's tough when your'e overweight because it's immediately visible. It's not like being on drugs because you can hide that. You can hide all sorts of naughty behaviours or mental illness and you can hide a lot of other things that might not be great (sex addiction for instance)...but when you're fat - everyone knows it . They can see it a mile off. What I want to address, is the stigma that comes with it. "They probably eat take-out every single meal" "Lazy" "Fat bastard" "Yuck" "Do some exercise" "Just cut back on the 10 pies a day, for God's sakes" But there is no compassion towards overweight people. There is no understanding or gentleness and what I want to write about t...

Praise God, I've had a week off. A week off work and a week of doing mostly what I've needed to do for a few months now - and just rest . It's Friday today and I'm blogging to you from outside in the garden, smiling as I see the tomatoes are turning red and our dwarf orange tree is straining with the weight of brand new, full-sized oranges that hang heavy from the glossy green branches. My wish is that a week of WORK would pass this quickly. This week of rest feels like it went by in a matter of a few hours. Seriously. Alun's parents are out - they've taken themselves to Scarborough Beach and have been away all day. Al's Mom texted "We are stopping at a few pubs on the way home - do you want anything from Coles?" Of course you are :) Haha. This is where Alun gets it from, I guess. "No thanks, Mam (that's Welsh for "Mom"), I'm okay - have fun xx" I text back, smiling. I almost went to the beach myself today. I...

So today consisted of: 8:30am - awake. Not because I want to be, but because Alun has licked his finger and put it in my ear. "Morning, Gorg! Margaret river todaaayyyy!" he sings. *sigh* 9:00am - help Alun load cases and bags of food (mostly of beers) into the car boot. Why? Because Alun is taking his parents 5 hour's drive away for 3 whole days. YAY YAY YAY!!! *happy dance* 9:05am - realise Alun is going away from me. Panic . 9:10am - refuse to let go of Alun who is chuckling and trying to get my arms off his waist 9:15am - tearfully wave goodbye as Al and his parents reverse from the driveway. Convinced - 100% - that I will never see him again, somehow. 9:30am - back to bed. Blissful, wonderful, peaceful sleep. Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep. 11:00am - leave home to go to a Doctor's appointment. 11:20am - In the waiting room, anxious as hell and wishing I was home. Leaving the comfort of a now guest-free (hooray!) house is really, real...

Have you heard that 'tale'? The one about someone in the middle of the sea when their boat sinks? They are in the water and obviously panicked and a boat comes along - "Get in" the people call out. "No no" the person in the water says. "God is coming to save me" So that boat leaves. A little while later and another boat comes along. They try to rescue the person stranded in the sea. They get sent away with the same reason "God is coming to get me" Lastly, a helicopter arrives and the rescuers drop down a ladder. The person in the water waves them away "No - I don't need it - God is coming to rescue me" the person in the water insists. That person dies. They drown. In Heaven, they are angry at God - "Why didn't you come and get me?" God says "I sent you two boats and a helicopter, what more do you want?" And that's what He did with me. I put my life on the line. I prayed earnest...

The tidal wave of pure rage has passed and now I'm just scared, heartbroken, anxious, worried and feeling discouraged. Deeply discouraged. What is my life? I really want to explain what I'm going through. I've thought about it all day - how best I can put it to you so you know what it's like and the best example I can come up with a broken leg. My depression is like a broken leg. It is pretty straight forward - my leg is BROKEN and I cannot walk on it. Only, everyone I encounter doesn't understand as only those who have had a 'broken leg' (depression) in the past knows what it's like and so many people in my life haven't, so they are getting really confused over it. "If you ran more, it would heal faster" "Do some regular walking on it" "Think good thoughts because you'll get better so much quicker - being positive and not having a pity party will make your leg whole again" They are poking and prodd...

I don't know what it was like for Robin Williams, or Kate Spade...or the loved ones of people left behind when they kill themselves. I only know what it's like for me. I've written about this before - things that lead up to a suicide attempt - but I thought I'd reiterate (my friend Marc's word) so that you will know why I did what I'm planning to do. Tonight I'm writing to you on the rage of a thousand suns because my period is in full force. I've had to change my pants SIX FUCKING TIMES today because I bled all through them. I bled all through the bedsheets. I bled on the sofa and on the rug. I have bled out about 2 pints of blood and I'm feeling light headed, SICK AS A FUCKING DOG and AS ANGRY AS A FUCKING BULL tonight. I'm so angry it's scaring me. Straight up - I AM TERRIFIED. This bastard menstral rage is so all-encompassing that I am fairly sure I'm going to kill myself just to escape it. I can't take the pain of this ...

I was so wound up, so anxious, scared, out-of-control and terrified that last night I actually did consider putting myself in hospital. My mind keeps imagining situations where I die. Jumping from a tall building or a high cliff over stormy oceans, making myself fall down flights upon flights of stairs, stabbing myself in a main artery so I bleed out in seconds, overdosing, gassing myself in Alun's beautiful Audi (okay I could never do that to him), getting hit by a train, bus or truck, putting large rocks in my pockets and jumping off a bridge so I drown...again and again, these scenarios were going around and around in my head. So much so that I thought I would go mad. So at 10:00pm last night, I googled the Emergency Ward at Royal Perth Hospital. I could go to Emergency, tell someone I was suicidal - and get effectively 'locked up' to keep myself safe. Having medical professionals look after me would also ease the burden on Alun. I looked over at him, fast ...

Okay. This is it. This is the very end of my rope, you guys. I've tried. I've tried to be bouyant in a stormy sea. I've tried to be resilient and I just CAN'T anymore. I'm done.

I don't remember how old I was - maybe 13? My family and I were in America and I think we were in Florida. There was a huge pool and Jay and I were splashing about in it, having fun. Suddenly, these alarms started going off and people in the pool were cheering. "What's going on?" I asked a nearby swimmer. "Waves" He grinned back at me "The alarm is to let you know they'll start the wave machine so if you're not a strong swimmer or have a floating device, you'd best get out" Pfft. Even at that age, I was too cocky for my own good. Waves. It'll be fun. I thought instantly of going to the beach in Gove - about 20 minutes walk from my home. My friends and I would go after school (yes, we really did just go to the BEACH after class) and we'd 'wave jump' for hours. We'd wade into the sea until we were about waist-deep in the water and as waves would come, they would lift us from the sand below and them dump u...

I watched a great series on "Netflix" a few weeks/months back called "sex education" - the naughty scenes were hard to watch so I mostly covered the phone with my hand (I watch Netflix a lot on my phone) until they were over; but the parts where people were there for their friends and where the main character counsels his peers, they were so lovely that they seemed worth the naughtiness. In one episode, the young 'councillor' says to his peer: "Own your narrative" Which really resounded with me. What it means to me - is that you make yourself responsible for - and you fully accept - the person you are in your life. Your narrative is your story - no one else can be you - but you. So owning it - means accepting it. Maybe even getting to the point where you embrace and actually quite LIKE being yourself. I find this so hard!!! Because I always hope to be someone else. Someone better. I always hope to be thinner (OMG DO I WANT THAT!!!)...