Last night and this morning I was crying my eyes out.
For the last five minutes I've been cha-cha-cha-ing round my bedroom doing handsignals like fake maracas.
No, there's no need to worry about my tears - they were not my-life's-full-of-woe tears - they were unique-to-Miranda, pathetically-still-crying-over-programmes-that-ended-a-year-ago tears. I'm very strange, I know, but I do not care. The fact is, I have just had an amazing day. It kind of started last night.
you see, I'm feeling low deep down right now. it's nothing anyone can do anything about - it's just that it will be a year ago on Monday that I went in hospital for that operation with left me with not only glandular fever, then CFS, but also a phobia of hospitals. I thought the terror would go away with time but it never did, and I never truly explained what happened. The short version is that the hospital actually tried to make me believe I was still in pain when the pain had gone after the op. They tried to refer me for tests which had nothing to *do* with the problems I had and even made out that the painful sex I'd had was a psychological problem and I needed couselling. The painful sex was, of course, due to the fact that my womb was stuck to my rectum. And Y and I confirmed that fact the, err, very next night... *blush* Ahem. Yes, sex became a lot more fun after those two items had been detatched from each other....
(Yes, I know I should not have been having sex 24 hours after surgery, but we were very gentle and besides, I really needed to find out if it would now be painless)
I was subjected to a little medical bullying which I still can't face going into, and of course I took away from that operation a nice dose of Glandular Fever that has robbed me of aspect of my life for this last year. I am sure you can picture why I am feeling upset at the moment.
So I decided to throw myself into other aspects of the what-came-after period. Having glandular fever was one of the very worst times of my life, and yet in the strangest of ways I almost look back on it with fondness. God, that must sound bizarre. It was as though for those 3 and a half weeks I was trapped in a little bubble. I did not have the strength or energy to worry about anything, therefore nothing could touch me. It didn't matter what happened, it couldn't possibly have been as bad as being stuck in bed feeling the way I was.
If you have never had Glandular Fever, I'm going to give you a brief description of what it was like for me. I firstly started to feel as though i had the flu, except without a blocked nose or anything. I had a sore throat but I thought that was still from the tube stuck down my throat when I had the operation. I started getting the most incredible fevers I've ever had. I was sweating from every tiny inch of me, and I was boiling to the touch. I started to get the worst headaches of my life as well. I went to the doctors and he diagnosed tonsillitis. The biggest mistake I made was looking in my throat - it appeared that my tonsils now consisted of white pus! Ugh!
Over the next few days I got worse, not better. I got a blocked nose and sinuses, was coughing up crap and I could not swallow because my throat was that sore. My head hurt so badly I couldn't sit up or draw the curtains. I know I had phone calls with Y but I can't remember a word of them, nor how I actually managed to speak during them! And I had to call work to tell them I had tonosilitis - and they couldn't hear me!
Guess what coincided with this? A bleed. Yes, I was in agony, I had wounds from surgery that were still painful too, and I had what was presumed to be tonsilitis. Is it any wonder those weeks are a musty blur? As time progressed, my mum called the doctor out and he realised this time it was glandular fever, which a blood test confirmed. The only place I could have contracted it was the hospital. I've gone over and over it so many times but it remains the only realistic possibility.
At some point during those weeks - where the day was filled with lucid naps and the night was filled with me coughing myself awake and watching endless episodes of The Hoobs because I couldn't sleep - I had Shop! on in the background as I lay with my eyes closed. Ahh, Shop. Shop was my favourite shopping channel. the one I watched all the time. It was a bit like an old friend. I don't care if that sounds sad - it was true. And then one fateful day, Debi Jones's voice filtered through to my mind -
"We're all very sad that Shop has to close...."
For the first time in days, I sat bolt upright.
"WHHAAAAAAAAAAAAATT?!!"
I was devastated. As one of the most successful shopping channels, I don't see why Shop had to close. I mean, it had Helen Brumby and Ali Cooke! They were both gorgeous! I could not believe the news and spent the following weeks tucked up in bed, getting sick of bloody soup (all I could eat) and watching the channel melt into chaos through the closing down sale.
Now, me being me, I am a video hoarder. I collect videos of things. Not shop-bought films and TV shows, but things I have recorded off the TV. Things that mean nothing to anyone else but I get a barrel-load of fun out of watching. So i decided to tape the final weeks of Shop.
I finally started to get my strength back and recover to a point before things started to go back downhill a few months later. I started to emerge from my Bubble. I found the carpet in the hall had mysteriously been replaced with a purple one and that the Queen Mother had died over easter. I rediscovered clothes and food with more solid content than 250 noodles per tin. The day I coated my hair in bleach and looked at a blonde reflection in the mirror again is the day I came back to life.
The Big Breakfast also finished during that bubble time. Good Friday, I believe. I taped that too, but forgot. I put the tape, along with about 100 other unlabelled tapes, back in my video drawers to remain unidentified forever.....
Or until a year passed, in fact. And I decided I would go through every unlabelled tape I own (yes, this could take years) and watch them all to label them up correctly. I began last night by picking any old tape at random.
It was the Shop/Big Breakfast tape.
I sat there last night and watched teary-eyed as I saw The Big Breakfast finish all over again and the Shop presenters tell the viewers how sad they were that the channel was closing. I don't know what was making me more sad - the closure of things I loved or the memory of the Bubble. I feel a bit like I'm going to be trapped in that bubble again until this week is over.
Just to make matters worse, on the same tape was Cat Deeley's last day at SMTV! just to make me even more sad! It felt like a conspiracy! "Let's all make X cry!" Bah humbug! But once I got past that tape, I went through 7 others. Some bits I watched, some I fast forwarded. There were Tweenies, old clips of the Spice Girls, Big brother finals (all three!)and an episode of the dreaded Swap Team. Did *anyone* ever see that?? It was a kid's show that ran for one series in 2000 in which kids had to collect Swappits. It was, err.... even worse than I remembered it!
So after hours of watching through those tapes, a chinese takeaway and a glass of a white wine that i actually liked (I'm a red girl) I came online to check my emails and got two good pieces of news. First of all, I'm getting my new tattoo next friday! I didn't think i'd be able to - i thought i'd left it too late to book up - but luckily I've managed to get in! And secondly.... I have got the most amazing birthday present for Y. I actually had to bid on auctions to get these items for him - and I won! I was thrilled - and later this week I'll do a private entry with the details in so he can't see what he's getting ;) Heh heh heh!
Anyway, it was that coupling of good news that spurred on my fake-maraccas (sp? I've never had the cause to write that before!) and my cheery smile.
So, yes, don't worry about me shedding a tear or two for Shop. I like tears of nostalgia. They feel good :)
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