I have always liked the word Paradoxical - mainly because it's quite difficult to explain what it means but you nevertheless know what it means. Do you know what I mean?
Anyway, I am having a bit of a paradoxical time at the moment. It goes a bit like this: new medication comes along. For most people it is all singing and all dancing, no side effects, no relapses, going to make your life wonderful, medication. And guess what, it comes in tablet form. One pill a day and that's it. Fantastic.
Well, fantastic until you have the first set of blood tests and your neurologist suggests that you are either (a) a vampire or (b) already dead. Hmm. So, I plead with him to let me stay on panacea-type medication. He reluctantly agrees for a further two weeks because the alternatives are not so all-singing-and-all-dancing. In the meantime, I do that very dangerous thing: research on the inter-web (as my mum in law refers to it).
Research into medical matters on the inter-web is not for the faint-hearted. Within two hours I was convinced that I had dengue fever, chagas disease, leprosy and the plague. The research on said new medication however, was suspiciously elusive. I directed myself to that paragon of all human interaction: Facebook, and joined a group. Therein lay the answers to all of my queries.
So today I see my GP for a minor complaint which she concludes is stress related. Juggling too many balls in the air, she suggests. It quickly dawns on me (cos I'm smart like that) that the most stressful thing in my life is not my job, my kids, my PhD - it's my neurologist and the not so all-singing-all-dancing medication. Paradoxical: the thing that is supposed to make me feel good, is in fact the one thing in my life that I am stressing about. So, what's a girl to do? There's no alternative but to make a list of things to avoid the stress (admit it, you knew there was going to be a list) My GP suggests less coffee, sleeping, eating, that kind of thing. But oh, no. That won't do. So, here's the grown up woman's guide to avoiding stress:
1. Stab the neurologist with something sharp.
2. Give as many people as you can, the finger on the SZR and see how long it takes the police to arrest you (this is based on the hypothesis that it isn't in fact illegal to make hand gestures but is merely frowned upon). There's nothing like a night in Dubai Jail to smooth away all thoughts of anything else stressful in your life.
3. Avoid looking at the photographs that your best friend took at the Christmas party last week.
4. Arrange a further Christmas party (you might be able to remember this one)
5. Respond to the emails asking you if you would like to enlarge your 'member' just to see what they can offer (women only on this one please). The possibilities are endless.
6. Go into Gap and unfold all the carefully folded jumpers telling the assistants that you are looking for a size -1
7. Just for a laugh, spend the day trying to get something done in immigration - if you are really stressing about something in your life do this on a Thursday - all other stresses pale into insignificance once you have to contend with immigration.
8. Decide from now on to cook only things that require 1 tablespoon of wine. Be inventive: beans on toast au vin, sausages poached in wine with egg and chips,red lentil and sauvignon blanc soup, you get the picture. Once a bottle is opened it must be drunk or it goes off (which is a waste of money, which causes you stress, so you need to drink it).
9. Log in to Ebay and look in the miscellaneous-other section. Weird isn't even close. This will make you realise that no matter how stressful your life is, there are people out there suffering far more than you (and they are prepared to pay for it).
10. Finally, write stupid blog entry, include list that you can only think of 9 things when your OCD decrees that it should be 10, and then just add stupid statement on the bottom...
