Boys' Garden Toys

Since the boyfriend's illness, the household chores that used to be his are now down to me. He has 350ft of garden. That means 700ft of hedge. That is an awful lot to prune.

I started off tackling 15ft a day with the shears. I soon realised that by the time I was halfway down one side (that is, if I hadn't fallen in the pond or frazzled myself on next door's electric fence in the process), the first bits I had chopped would have started growing again. I was never going to be able to start on the other side at all.

And so the boyfriend introduced me to the electric hedge trimmer. Now, the EHT somewhat resembles a bright orange tailless shark with its serrated blade and fin-like handles. To work it, you have to squeeze in two places simultaneously. Not only are these positioned for large male hands and need a strong male grip, but the beast also weights half a stone and I am only 5ft 4ins. I have also never used a piece of electric garden equipment in my life, especially one capable of severing limbs and decapitating small animals. Maybe large ones, too. Maybe even me.

Now, I have a phobia about anything with a motor that might run amok and get beyond my control. Sewing machines and cars are out of the question. Electric carving knives? Forget it. My psyche is rooted in the stone age, though I'd probably have had a phobia about the first ever Flintstones-style stone wheel.

Nevertheless, I picked the EHT up and did a sweep of the hedge. "No, no, you're doing it all wrong, the blade must be flat to the hedge. Look, you've gouged a hole in the privet," complained the backseat gardener. I growled at him, climbed the ladder, heaving the EHT after me, then did a sweep of the top. That's when I discovered that puny 5ft 4ins females with undeveloped biceps, arthritic elbows and short arms aren't cut out for cutting hedges. Especially 700ft hedges. What I need is a giraffe which can operate a hedge trimmer with its jaws, or perhaps a carefully trained elephant. Please apply here.

Stroke Progress

It's now 24 days since my boyfriend had his double Type 2 stroke which paralysed his right-hand side. He can now walk very well but he still can't use his right hand much, though yesterday he found he could whistle again and today he could poke his tongue out straight, instead of only to one side.

He is still trying to push himself too far. Today, he walked all the way to the Iceland store, about a mile and a half away, and back. He arrived exhausted, with a backpack full of frozen veg that weighted a ton. He then collapsed onto the sofa looking done-in and is now asleep under a duvet.

I worry about him all the time. I worry in case he has another stroke from which he might not recover. I worry about my own precarious position, with my house sale going through and my belongings having suffered yet another soaking in his shed, and the pressure on me to find another house where I have no mortgage and have the peace and time to write, and the equal pressure to stay and look after him.

My Google horoscope for today (Pisces) tells me to be patient. I guess this is the key to everything. The one good thing that has happened to me in the last few days is finding the ultimate in noise-blocking earplugs. The Boots own label foam ones in the green packet. They cost £1.99 for three pairs and I'm about to clear their shelves. My old earplus only lessened the traffic noise slightly, but these provide perfect peace. After reading the first 50 pages of the latest Harry Potter last night, I lay there, eyes closed, marvelling at the quietness. Though I think, for perfect relaxation, I need medieval head armour and a bullet-proof vest, too.

Bullets

I have a bullet hole in the window of the front bedroom I sleep in. Tonight someone shot a hole through the front door glass. Not big boy bullets, but an air rifle or a ball bearing gun, which is still enough to blind you or do some serious damage. There is no back bedroom. Boyfriend sleeps in the attic which is much too hot for me and he doesn't like the fan on. I've just realised that it's no wonder I'm so tense I can't sleep. I hate the city. If he hadn't been recovering from a stroke, I would have gone. Tonight. Anywhere. Preferably somewhere deep in the countryside where the only marauders are rats. But hang on... I don't like them much, either. I could get a cat. Or a terrier. Or buy an air rifle.

Shoelaces

My stomach is roiling and burning and I am back on Ranitidine. My boyfriend is making brilliant progress, though he won't try to ride his mountain bike again for a while. On Wednesday, the day after he came out of hospital, I was appalled to see him circling the lawn on his bike. As his balance is still a bit wonky, he came to a sticky end, lying on his back waving his limbs in the air like an upended beetle. I ticked him off whilst examining him for damage. "Just imagine if you'd broken your leg and had to be taken to hospital. They'd ask you when you were last in, and you'd have to say you'd only got out yesterday. Would they call you an idiot?" He agreed that they would and promised not to ride it again for at least a week.

Today, he proudly demonstrated how he had re-taught his right hand to tie his shoelaces. It was like watching a five-year-old show Mummy his latest accomplishment - until he pointed out the difference, which is that his mind already knew how to do it and it was just a matter of getting the message through to his fingers. But he did it, and I felt so proud. He even walked down the stairs without having to grip both sides, and without a lurch round the corner. His speech is a lot clearer now, too. He had his double stroke only 15 days ago. I wonder if his is the most rapid recovery on record?

Stroke News

Great news! After 13 days in hospital, my boyfriend can chew and swallow, walk (even though it resembles the lurch of a drunken sailor), and can wiggle the fingers of the affected hand, although cutting up food, getting wrappers off things and picking up a tea mug is beyond him as yet.

The reason they let him out so soon was because he completed what should have been three weeks of physio exercises in just three days. The man is quite miraculous in his determination and focus. He had a double stroke, one twenty minutes after the other, caused by 'electrical activity in the brain', which is medic-speak for we don't know what the hell caused it.

The cat has ceased to sulk and, as he can't drive (six weeks ban as his vision in his right eye is still squiffy, apart from having only one working hand), he has turned himself into Alan Titchmarch and is saving me having to water the plants as he can manipulate a hose-pipe with no trouble at all.

All of which puts my tiny health problems into perspective. However, I have signed on with a GP up the road to my boyfriend's and have got two months' supply of ulcer tablets and the promise of some physio for the dodgy fingers. The doctor approves of herbs and alternative treatments - she recommends Glucosamine and was interested in my arnica gel pain relief.

One more piece of news - at long last it looks as if I may have sold me house! But, oh bitter chagrin, the house I sold for £325,000 back in 2003 is now back on the market for £500,000. If only I had held onto it, I would now be able to achieve my dream of having a flat in London and a place in the sun. As it is, I have travelled backward in the property market while everyone else has surged forward, and will have to put my faith in the good old Lottery. Byeeee - I'm off to buy a ticket!

Stroke, no joke

I have been absent from this blog for a few days because something really serious has happened, health-wise. My boyfriend has had a stroke. The story is long and complex and harrowing. It includes Hillingdon Hospital discharging him while he was having mini strokes every 20 or 30 minutes and telling him it was “just a migraine.” Less than 24 hours later, he had a major stroke and is now paralysed down one side. I am considering a legal case.

As to my own health, I didn’t eat or sleep for three days and am now beyond exhaustion, and feeling very lonely and uncomfortable in his house, surrounded by his things and a poor, crying cat who doesn’t understand and keeps sniffing things that smell of him and gazing at me and asking the silent question, “Where is he?”

De-feeted

I realise I haven’t mentioned ailments lately, and they were the main cause of starting this blog. In fact, I’ve had a good run for my money, apart from the insomnia which is still plaguing me. If only I could sell the house and move out of the boyfriend’s and have my own things around me again, I think I’d start to relax.

Today, though, the foot problems kicked off again. (Yes, I know, awful pun.) I am a Piscean. Every star sign has part of the body allotted to it as an area they should take particular care of, and for Pisceans, it is the feet. Apart from getting a stiletto heel through my right one at a school dance (an accident, not a stomp from a jealous girl who saw me dancing with her boyfriend – I was the bespectacled wallflower whom nobody asked to dance!), my feet and I had a trouble-free relationship even in the barefoot Sixties when my soles were so tough that I could walk over gravel without wincing.

In 1993, I was coming out of a changing room in a charity shop when my left foot was almost sliced in twain by the corner of a knife-sharp piece of stair-edging. Gushing blood, I hobbled up the stairs to the till and asked the young, dopy girl assistant for help. She blanched and waved me up the road to the chemists. Leaving bloody, CSI-style behind me all the way, I reached the chemists where Mr Mistry produced a wodge of cotton wool and some sticky tape and told me it needed stitching. ‘Too jagged for stitches,’ said the hospital, after my tetanus jab. They butterfly-clipped it and it gradually healed, but left a weak spot that hurt when I touched it, and a long white scar.

“Give me the address and I’ll sue them for you,” my solicitor said. This was the same lawyer who had won me six grand following my whiplash injury. It was three weeks before I was well enough to walk down to the shop, only to find it had packed up and vanished, probably aware of my impending lawsuit.

Fast forward five years. I’d had a hysterectomy that had left me feeling as if a bayonet was stuck in my stomach. It was three months before I was capable of walking the mile to the doctor’s. I didn’t realise that feet are held together by muscle and tendon and ligament and that these can go slack through lack of use. I set off at my usual stride and wham! A terrible agony shot through my left foot and I couldn’t walk. Somehow, I managed to hobble painfully home. It took half an hour. I transferred most of my weight to my right foot and three weeks later that suffered the same fate. I was now saddled with a condition called metatarsalgia. No more high heels for me. Instead, a lifetime of sensible shoes with squidgy insoles.

Last night, I danced barefoot for an hour and a half to the Who’s Glastonbury concert on TV. Wow, my feet are getting better, I thought happily. I have a party to go to next week and had bought some shoes with small heels, hoping I could wear them. Well, fate had the last laugh (yes, you can hear my old cry of "It’s not fair!”), for this morning I stubbed the middle toe of my left foot so badly on the leg of the bed that a sickening pain shot right through my foot – and now I can hardly walk again. Bye-bye high heels, it will have to be sequinned flip-flops now.

Footnote: I am rubbing arnica gel all over my foot three times a day. Here’s hop(p)ing…