My Mum bought a lot of prezzies here, brill website
I don't have much of a Christmas list of my own, specially after all the lovely b'day presents I had. I've decided to subscribe to 'British wildlife' magazine after much deliberation. It has articles on British Natural history and Conservation, coloumns by various top naturalists and book reviews.
I've been dreaming of 'In my pocket'/'Animal Hospital' pets. I loved them when I was a kid
A 'Puppy in my pocket' beach hut
They even have 'ocean in my pocket' now! Coral reef playset
This is my 2nd blog and my 1st blog entry on this new one 'Space of a ME guinea pig'. No doubt you'll be wondering why I've bothered to go through all the hassle of setting up a completely new blog just to change its name. There are two reasons;
1. I hoped that a blog with more commonly used words would get more hits
2. I wanted to change the CFS/PVFS/ME to just ME
After many years I've decided I like, on the whole, ME as the official name the best. The problem for a long time wasn't sure what the term Myalgic Encephalomyelitis means. Basically its a two words with five parts. My = muscle, Algic = pain, Encephalo = brain, Mye = spinal cord, Itis = inflammation. ME is the traditional name for the disease, being first used in 1956, whilst CFS wasn't used till sometime in the 70s/80s.
ME is a debilitating neurological disease initiated by a virus; an enterovirus. The 'ME' part of my condition was almost undoubtably caused by an enterovirus and was certainly pretty debilitating! I did suffer from neurological muscle pain as well. For a while I actually preferred the term PVFS because the condition is so often caused by a virus but now I've learnt that ME is also classed as a condition caused by a virus I've warmed to it.
I had no less than two bad dreams last night. The first one I can't remember; the second was a weird dream made up of memories of when I was little. A male district nurse was the main figure in it. He was very eccentric and dressed up as a teddy bear. The district nurses are two of the few people from those times that I remember with any degree of warmth though they were female.
Dr Wights tests have stirred up memories of those times for me, mostly not very happy ones. They have changed the way I remember them though; before my grief was always mixed up with guilt when I remember how ill I was. In spite of the fact my family and friends have always believed I was genuinely, physically ill there was always a small nagging part of me that held onto the abuse I'd been through and couldn't shake off the nagging doubt that I had had some control over my illness in some way. Since the tests and the recent research findings I've started to believe I was genuinely ill though and to regard it as just one of those bad experiences people go through in life. Like getting divorced or miscarrying or having cancer. Strangely thinking this has lessened my grief too
I'm now officially a year older than I was when I last blogged. I can't say I'm sorry to see the back of my 18th year as it was rather stressful from start to finish.
The grand finale of my 18th year was my beautiful baby bear, hairy monster, pigwig thing, Freddie Flintstone passing away. I wasn't expecting it; my Mum just came in on Friday morning, the day before my b'day party and told me he had gone. He'd been fine when I'd fed him the evening before. Freddie was always a little shy but he'd been nibbling fairly normally, snug inside his house. I'd woken up feeling bright and planning the preparations, but as soon as my Mum told me all my energy evaporated.
It was a blow I certainly didn't need. I thought when I started the Naltrexone that it would be the end of all my hard times, but so far all that'd happened was catching a cold, my friend going away to uni, my blog being hacked and now this. I was pretty angry tbh. I felt as if life was spiting me, saying 'oh dear, look theres something that makes Rosalind Amor happy, that'll never do, we'd better put a stop to that'. I know this probably sounds rather overreacting, but my animals are truely the centre of my life, the part that hasn't been swamped by ME. I'm trying to move on and rebuild my life but as soon as put the first block down, life destroys it
A photo of the Flintstones when they were pups with Freddie in his favourite place hiding under Barneys paws. Contrary to the popular cartoon characters Fred was always the shyest of the pair in spite of being twice the size!
Reading an ME magazine. They spent a great deal of time on my bed, cuddling, playing and pooing. When they were little they used to enjoy exploring which often led them to fall off the edge. I remember one incident when he was little and being a bit over frisky when I was trying to rest, picking him up and tucking him under my arm. He did snuggle down with his head resting on my hand but not for long!
In the winter he liked tunneling under the bedclothes and then he'd curl up by my toes. I particularly spent a lot of time cuddling recently as I've been having long rests for at least 2 hours the last year and Fred had better long term bladder control than Barney.
They had an indoor cage next to my bed.
Feeding. Their favourite foods were celery and home-grown salad leaves. They used to bolt the salad leavesin seconds they loved them so much.
In the garden. The Flintstones were the most outdoory guinea pigs I have ever had. Most of my guinea pigs would simply hide in their wendy houses untill they were taken inside again to their releif but these two actually seemed to rather enjoy it.
A 'Puppy in my pocket' beach hut
They even have 'ocean in my pocket' now! Coral reef playset
Animal hospital playset
RSPCA 'perfect pets' cross stich kit
