Boils and burps and blues, oh my!

'No, I can't come out from behind the couch. No, I can't tell you why, because nice girls don't tell tales about their  hypothetical boils that aren't covered by their hypothetical stockings on their hypothetical legs'

Things I gleaned from the universe this week:

• I should stick to my day job. I get BBC job alerts (I love my job, but just in case), and one of them was 'Researcher on Silent Witness'. This actually made me laugh out loud. Can you think of a job that comes less recommended for an anxious person? 'Hmmm, let me just see how I can make this grisly murder look more convincing and true to life - *Googles real life murder details. Faints and never leaves the house again*.

• I should never again swallow peppermint oil capsules that are not covered in enteric coating. Basically they just explode halfway down your unsuspecting oesophagus, and create a burning lining of peppermint everywhere in your digestive system. Painful peppermint burps and blistering heartburn ensue - I feel like I've rinsed my intestines with industrial-strength mouthwash. And apparently now (I Googled my symptoms even though my family has tried to ban me from consulting Dr Google) I get to look forward to 'anal itching and burning' when said peppermint finally vacates my system. Fabulous.

• It's hard to feel glamorous when you have managed to harbour a BOIL on your leg (in the middle ages I believe they were referred to as carbuncles, arg) - in all likelihood exacerbated by a shamefully lax shaving regime. As I applied my Chanel lipstick and pouted in the mirror, I realised I was painting a very thin and insufficient veneer of artificial glamour over an angry body full of weird, stifled gallstone sludge and carbuncle pus (sorry chaps). Sexy!

• Having a doctor as your upstairs neighbour is a mixed blessing. On the plus-side, I find it ridiculously comforting hearing him padding around upstairs - essentially I know I can bang on his door and get an emergency tracheostomy STAT should I ever need one. On the downside, his ghoulish medical mailings are in the communal post area. 'Nasal-gastric tube errors: avoiding the risks' screams out from the latest issue's cover, with grainy black and white pictures of perforated lungs underneath. Shudder.

• Tomorrow is another day. The hardest thing to cope with at the moment (ironically) is my endless fretting about how I will cope with this for a possible five months until the operation (worst-case scenario of course - this is me we're talking about). But the fact is, I AM coping. I AM getting to the end of each wretched, crappy day, so all I need to do is carry on with what I'm doing, and inevitably the days will snowball and roll into weeks, which will turn into months, and I'll arrive at my promised surgical land of manna and scalpels in the end. *  

* Check me out, being all Buddhist and accepting. This is a blatant lie, of course - I hope you spotted it. Inside (and outside, to be honest) I am screaming 'HOW THE BLOODY BEJESUS AM I GOING TO COPE WITH THIS FOR MONTHS ON END???!!!!' but I'm trying on my beatific monk's robe for size. Fake it 'til you make it, kids!!!        

I tell you what, they'll keep you 'aglow' all right...

                                                                             

Reasons to be cheerful...

'Well, that's simply marvellous! I would LOVE to hear your avant-garde Hegelian haiku!'

1. I just had (and paid for) a posh boozy London lunch with my pater familias, and did not have a panic attack.

2. I was hungover and premenstrual (sorry chaps) on Sunday, and did not have a panic attack

.

3. I bought a book called 'Optimum Nutrition for the Mind'* which will tell me about loads of costly supplements I should take that will take away the panics and cure me forever. Woop! I can't wait to go and splurge in a health food store on loads of panaceas that have been extracted from rare Guatemalan jungle flowers and cold-pressed by the light of the moon. I will keep you updated on my miraculous recovery.

4.  My friends think I'm insane because I am absolutely not afraid of all the poisonous Aussie things that freak them out ('whaat, you went and played netball even though you had a paralysis tick in your ear?!') but get freaked out by being on the tube or getting on a plane or being stuck somewhere. You see, I AM brave and fearless dagnabbit, just about dangerous things. I am only frightened by non-dangerous, non-life threatening things that probably won't happen. Duh.

5.  I make my friends laugh a lot (I am sometimes witty), I give my boyfriend hysterics  and I am mostly the life and soul of parties. That makes up for occasionally crying in toilets and backing out of things at the last minute and curling up with my lavender oil and back-to-back HBO series. Shit - everybody's got to have SOMETHING, and this, girls and boys, is mine (and yours).

6. The new Bruce Springsteen album is out. 

7. On Sunday I had a raspberry ripple chocolate brownie and some codeine headache pills and found them to be a very medicinal and soothing PMS combination (sorry again chaps - might work for the manopause too).

8. I have had a fringe cut by my gorgeous gay pal (every girl's got to have one you know) in his 1950's style dining room (listening to Judy Garland - it's like gay bingo), and now I look less like a tramp and more like a poor man's Zooey Deschanel. 

9. One day I will own one of those cats that are like dogs, and I will call it Walter, and we will have a love like no other (not like that you filthmongers) and I will walk it everywhere on a leash.

10. Nutella exists.  And when you are an adult no-one can tell you off for eating it from the spoon until you feel sick. And the ads say it is nutritious and full of calcium, which is really good for anxiety. So there.

*Note that the boyfriend has already pointed out the irony of my using a sweet wrapper as a marker in my  'food for the brain' book...

Where can we get these placebos?!

In the beginning, God created light, and a whole host of other very good things. And then, after a bit of a rest and a lie down, he blessed the earth with millions of teeming creatures, all thrilled to part of this wondrous creation. But by day 17, some of them became restless, and irritable, and unsettled and frankly - a little bit anxious about all sorts of different stuff. 

This carried on, unabated, for many moons.  And then, on day 17,061, God created tranquilizers. And that day was a good day, and all anxious animals and panic-plagued peoples rejoiced. 


Tranquilizers are awesome, but sadly (cue wailing and gnashing of teeth), the sadistic doctors won't let us take them all the time.


So what else is there? 

Rescue Remedy

Does this actually work? I have absolutely no idea. I pump it onto my tongue furiously whenever I'm starting to freak out, but it may well just be a placebo.  All I know is that if I'm *really* freaking out, nothing short of being shot with an elephant tranquiliser will help, so spritzing some flower water on my tongue feels a wee bit like putting a band-aid on a broken leg. But I'm happy to be proven wrong, so readers who have had success with the big RR - let me know!

Lavender Oil

I spray this all over my pillows and sheets, much to my boyfriend's chagrin. He protests that it's like sleeping with his Gran - and to be honest the sheets are just half of it. With a penchant for Agatha Christie's Poirot, and a liking for fusty vintage clothes and afternoon tea, he's essentially made a conjugal pact with a prematurely aged WI leader. But it's very soothing for scary nighttime, so I do it nonetheless.

 I also take a multi-vitamin, omega oils and probiotics, because my mum sent me a long article extolling the virtues of acidophilus etc. Apparently it helps the brain too, and can stave off depression? No idea, but no harm taking it (and obviously it's super good for your belly too). 

I have also bought a stuffed monkey. With a removable, microwavable, lavender sachet belly. I hope I don't need to explain why this is a good idea. 

Oh, and a nifty roller-ball hand mitt massager thing. The kind of thing that's advertised on day-time TV alongside no-win-no-pay legal cover and incontinence products. I found it on one of my regular excursions to Superdrug, and it's actually really cool for anxiety crippled neck and shoulders etc. Hooray for consumer gullibility - sometimes it really pays off!