There's a change in the air. The tropical, coconut lemony smell of summer has faded. The air is thinner, clearer. Last week, the air was thick enough to wrap around us like a blanket - now it's more like a filmy sheer curtain, with a window behind it letting in an uncomfortable draught. Most days … Continue reading 5 Ways to Distract Yourself from Pain
Words - I love words. Words that probe and words that play, words that delve and words that dance. Words that explain, words that explore. I'm not so keen on words that complain and words that hurt, but they do have their uses. I have notebooks full of words. What writer doesn't! But some of … Continue reading The Words in my Notebook
Billy Bones. Roribug. Little Bear. Flop-Eared Houndybeast. These are some of the nicknames I have for my daughter and grandchildren. Well, the last one belonged to our dog, who had many and varied nicknames. The kids don't have floppy ears. I'm sure we'll all be familiar with the concept of nicknames as affectionate (or otherwise!) … Continue reading Why Trigeminal Neuralgia Needs to Lose its Nickname
Change. A single, soft-spoken syllable. Yet it's a powerful little creature, reaching into every corner of our lives. Sometimes it's an invitation - welcome and exciting. Sometimes it's a burden - disruptive and frightening. It's a bundle of contradictions: progress and retreat, secret and flamboyant, havoc and harmony. It can bounce into our lives with the … Continue reading Getting a Slice of the Cake
How often do we hear that Twitter, Facebook et al are a scourge of today's society, a cesspit of spite and vitriol? I'd need a hundred hands even to be able to start counting the times. And sure, you don't have to peel back any layers to find poison-filled, aggressive, trollshit swirling around. You only … Continue reading Sunflowers and Social Media
There is a storm brewing. I can feel it in my face - the way my eye burns, a vice tightens on my skull, and one hundred knives fresh off the whetstone slice at my gums. Just for starters. To everyone else in my family, the sky looks perfectly innocent. Perhaps the breeze has a … Continue reading A New Kind of Normal
Dear Healthy Person, Congratulations. You won in the lucky jackpot of healthy genes. You are twenty of me. I think I lost my ticket. I am a twentieth of the old me. You can work, eight hours a day, five days a week. Maybe more. I used to work eight to ten hours a day. … Continue reading Dear Healthy Person…
A constant claim from many people with chronic pain conditions is that nobody can understand the pain unless they have experienced it themselves. On a superficial level this is obviously true, at least in that people who don't have chronic pain conditions, have not felt what it is like to have chronic pain. But I … Continue reading Ten Ways to Understanding
Spring is flourishing here in New Zealand. The days are warm, the skies are blue, the birds have plenty to say for themselves and our feijoa trees are full with red promises of the fruit to come. Some days though, the weather likes to remind us that the season isn't all sunshine and glamour. This … Continue reading Who Needs Matching Pairs?
On a hot, wind-still, summer evening, the park by the river is the perfect place to be. When you are only just two, this perfection poses a few dilemmas. Climbing and running and jumping, your very favourite things to do, make your shoes and sunhat fall off, and somehow turn the hat inside out. And … Continue reading Sunhats and Selfhelp
