Pins and Needles

Random fact: around 25% of women will suffer hirsutism at some stage of their life.

Geography, genetics, medications or certain medical conditions will up the ante.

I’m not sure what the percentage is for ladies who get told about it in a not-so-tactful way.

After almost 3 years of pain and nerve damage in my right leg and foot (from another apparently ‘random’ surgical mishap) I am still searching for a solution. I know I’ll never get permanent relief- the doctors have already given me that terrific news- best I can hope for is short-term benefits. I have tried physiotherapy, occupational therapy, hydrotherapy, and any number of alternative therapies in a bid to ease my pain and improve my movement. Some more successful than others.

A while ago I once again found myself flat out and face down on a treatment bench. My torturer, I mean therapist, today had already stretched and massaged my injured side within an inch of its life, and now decided to finish off with some ‘dry needling’. The very term also made my mouth go dry with apprehension of what agony may lay ahead.  Or should I say behind.

I’ll get to that, because here I should mention that I had to take my girlchild with me, being a pupil-free day at school, and no husband at home to have her (I had managed to offload my boychild on a playdate. Just as well as it turns out). She’d sat nice and quietly through the initial assessment and treatment thus far (as quietly as a 9 year old can anyhow) but when my physiotherapist brought out the needles she was all eyes, and all questions.

“Are you really going to stick those in mama?”

“How far do you have to stick them in?”

“Are you going to use all of them?”

“Does it hurt?”

“Will you make mama bleed?”

And so on.

So there I am laying there, half-bare-buttocked, twitching in direct relation to the depth of the needles (they were huge!), eyes closed, trying to remember to breathe, all the while pushing my face through the cut out in the bench with a lovely little sheen of perspiration breaking out; and what do I see when I open my eyes again?

My darling daughter’s face, about 2 inches away from mine, peering at me in concern:

“Are you ok mama? ‘cause you look like you’re really hurting!”

“I am hurting darling, but I’m ok,” I lie through my teeth and through that wicked little face-hole.

And yet Little Miss Chatterbox chatted on:

“Random question mama, but is it ever possible for ladies to grow a little moustache?”

How is that random?!  Her face is mere centimetres from mine, I can feel the beads of sweat on my upper lip, and yes I admit it, I am approaching that age where the females in our family start to sprout a few unwelcome hairs here & there (conversely, while the male members lose ‘em!)

So now am I not only in pain, feeling embarrassingly exposed, with enormous needles in my butt and back…I now am only too aware of hair somewhere!!

To both their credit, there was much denial - and no laughter- from either therapist or my daughter. And I have to say, as a distraction tool it worked wonders. Wasn’t thinking about the pain at all was I?!

Until the needles started coming out again, and my little girl gave a narrative about the various drops of blood appearing.  And how red and sore my butt looked.

Quick, let’s think about hair removal techniques again instead.

Oh and next time I’m going to make sure my appointment is on a school day!

 

Jx

© 2013-2014

Saving Face

Sometimes being economical can come at great cost.

There I was, thinking how clever I was using the department store's Tester Product of the ridiculously expensive skincare serum that promises so much, and costs a darn sight more.  I'm right in the target demographic (25-65 year old females), I've long longed for it, but have never been able to afford it.  Not at around $AUD250 for about 50ml.

So here I am, planning on saving myself some money by using the store's supply instead- albeit only enough for one spot, on one day...and kid myself I could save my skin one section at a time.

Perhaps I should have invested more time in planning.

At the very least I should have paid more attention to which way the little nozzle was facing before I squirted.

Did it go into my waiting hand?  No.

Did it make it anywhere near the skin in question?  No.

Instead, a decent dose of expensive serum landed squarely on my shirt, in the general vicinity of my mammary gland. To be totally and embarrassingly honest, I found myself doing my best impression of a lactating lady; well and truly wasting about $10 of said serum in the process.

Multi-skilled mother that I am, I simultaneously swiped at the affront to my front, whilst looking around to see who had witnessed my misfire.  Happily, it was one of those days where staff was in short supply (as opposed to being accosted by many the minute you set foot in the door), and other customers were fairly sparse as well.

Nevertheless, I was left red-faced and wet-chested as I quickly but casually made my way away from the cosmetics counter, and back to my car, fighting the urge to cross my arms or hold my handbag up as a shield of sorts. Or something not so casual as that.

Now, I'm not saying anything against lactating mothers. Heaven knows I've been there / done that / had the milk stains to prove it. It's just that a decade down the road, I don't have the luck or the luxury of a screaming infant in a stroller to justify the look.  And quite frankly, looks were what I was trying to avoid right about now.

Since I was shortly due to go into a new school and teach a group of children I had not yet met, I thought it best to detour via my house and change my shirt before I went. Kids in classrooms don't need much to distract them at the best of times, let alone a substitute teacher with stains right at eye level...

So, sad to say, I still don't own the aforementioned miracle serum; my skin didn't even get a one-time treatment for free.

And my so-called clever, economical idea cost me time, effort, and no chance at all to save face.

Jx

©2013

The Birds & The Bees

It’s about that time that my daughter and I had a little talk.

Yep charity’s not the only thing that should begin at home. 

So does sex education.

I’ve learnt that the hard way.

Oh it was innocent enough- My Beloved decided we deserved a break from the constant bickering that had punctuated our Saturday morning up to that point, so he shut the bedroom door on the kids saying he wanted 5 minutes alone with mummy to give her a quiet cuddle. For a change that’s what he actually meant! 

Didn’t quite realize how it sounded to another’s ears until our 6 year old told a caller that “Mummy can’t come to the phone right now, she’s busy in the bedroom having a hug with daddy.”

Well, didn’t my friend give me grief when I got hold of the handset?!

I really don’t know who was more embarrassed or amused when Miss V knocked on the bedroom door to pass the telephone over and I was greeted with giggles from my friend, followed finally by an explanation of the mirth (also the background comments from said friend’s husband that Fathers’ Day was still weeks away and was he getting an early gift). It wasn’t like that at all. (Heaven knows we have learnt to schedule those sessions for when we’re least likely to get interrupted i.e. when kids aren’t home!)

But with our son now approaching the age where school sessions are scheduled to ensure the information is delivered in a factual and fun way (whatever that means), it means that the adults in the house are having “that” discussion about whether the children are really ready for it.

Here’s the thing. We’ve never used euphemisms or silly nicknames for body parts- we’re both big on calling a spade a spade (or whatever’s the relevant term for the item in question)- and have discovered real issues when our offspring bring home titles like “willy”, weener”, “doodle”, “family jewels”, and “front bottom”. (Front bottom? Seriously, what is up with that??)  And I’ve even had to have a quiet chat with my son at the request of another mother that terms like “balls” are really not appropriate to use in conversation with girls in the classroom.Unless it's in the context of sport.   

♫Awwk-waaard. ♫

I have to say though, that the very thought of having to sit down and have “The Talk” with my daughter immediately brings up memories of my mother attempting to do the same with me as a child. Being the youngest of three girls in an all-female household, there wasn’t a lot left to the imagination (think nudie runs from bathroom to bedroom simply to keep the schedule of all those women in a one-bathroom house), and of course we were exposed to the schoolyard discussions of what’s under other’s clothes or the private stuff that goes on in two-parent families. Ours didn’t exactly fit the perfect model of mum-dad- and-the-kids, my sisters and I never had the opportunity to accidentally expose what really goes on in the marital bed (and both my therapist and I thank our lucky stars every day for that, just quietly) so mum had some explaining to do.

I distinctly remember the extreme embarrassment mum and I felt when she took me into her room, brought out the tried and trusty copy of the puberty book (you know, I can’t for the life of me remember the name of it, only that it had a garish yellow cover– must have blocked that one out as a painful memory!) and sat me down and started to read. I still shudder at the thought of my mother nodding wisely at the advice that relations between a man and a woman are a special thing given by God, or words to that effect. I was so innocent and embarrassed that I couldn’t even come up with a clever comment like “So that’s why people call out His name?!” at the time.

But we both survived it relatively intact.  And now it’s my turn. With my little girl who has yet to embrace the fashion and makeup and all the bling things that others her age are well and truly into.

My turn to find the appropriate text to take into the bedroom and sit her down for that chat.

One can only hope that no one rings at the time or else my son might just tell them I’m unavailable because of something to do with sex!

Jx

©2010/11