the Vomit List: everyone should have one

I've had a really rough time. All the things that make standing upright without toppling over are things that appeared: extreme heat, rain, barometric pressure changes, sleeplessness, aggravation- the usual. So I've been struggling. But-in a few weeks time, the weather will have changed-then I can complain about cold and damp. Honestly, sometimes you just can't win.

Debbie has gone back to Oz. We all met on Friday for dinner, and we decided to make it a very low-key affair: no fuss, no fanfare, and who knows? She might be back at some point. What was interesting for me was the fact that if Claire's marriage hadn't exploded when it did (or, rather, imploded), we wouldn't have known anything about it. So three reprobates ended up supporting the fourth. Considering that we only really got together once a year, that was a pretty good outcome, I'd say.

We went for Italian, and the wine flowed very nicely. We were ordering,and Deb asked for a bowl of-okra. Ewww, we all went: okra! Nasty, nasty okra. Even the waiter looked at all our faces and said to Deb, "you're not from around here, are you?"

I said I have had what I call a "vomit list" since I was a child. It's a list of food that I will not eat-because even the thought of it makes me want to vomit. So we all named and shamed our least favorite and most hated foods. Lima beans (in this country known as broad beans). Yuck. Nasty. Mushy peas-whoever thought of mushing peas? Ewww...Black pudding. That is a biggie. I first discovered it when I came to live in this country. It's made with someone's blood. I don't know whose blood, but someone's blood. How can anyone eat something like that? Maybe someone who has been watching too many episodes of True Blood.  Oh, well...for Debbie it was bananas (of course it was; she loves okra, what more can I say?). Claire hates avocados-just the sight of guacamole makes her heave. And Sara and I are in agreement: okra is number one on the vomit list. Does okra belong on the plate? No, it should be put down the toilet.

Okra tastes like stringy, slimy, boiled nylon. Okra looks like snot.

So Debbie was enjoying her bowl of snot, and the rest of us were avoiding looking; instead, we just drank more wine. Lots more wine. And  I'm happy to say that I was absolutely fine the next day. I really must drink more wine more often...good excuse, anyway.

Both Claire and Sara are leaving the country at the end of August-so we will, of course, have another good knees-up before they go. We all came together in a crisis-we all made some life decisions that we wouldn't have made until we were forced to do so. Life has a funny way of slamming you with stuff that you just have to handle. It'll keep slamming you until you do handle it...

I've had enormous trouble because next Saturday will mark exactly four years (to the day) since gentamicin wrecked my life-or, rather, my life as I knew it. If I could just press a rewind button and go back four years and force the idiot doctors to remove the cannula from my arm until they could come up with something other than the poison they gave me, I would hit rewind in a heartbeat. But I can't do that; I'm left with all the destruction, and I need to learn how to deal with it.

I do think back. I think back all the time. I've had people tell me how courageous I am, and what an inspiration I am. Personally, I would trade all that for having my four years back. But-I have to learn to deal with the things that are right in front of me, rather than thinking about how things could have (should have) been. Looking back is, I think, one of the primary reasons for depression. And who needs that? Does it help? Of course it doesn't - depression just keeps us from living the best life we can live.

There is a huge difference between acceptance and resignation. I'm still at the resignation stage: what has happened has happened, nothing I can do now can change it, I'm resigned to having no vestibular system, resigned to the fact that there are things I probably will never be able to accomplish.

Acceptance? Hell, no. I will be seeing Dr. Dimples next month, and he will discharge me from the neurology clinic-because he told me last year that I will have come as far as I will ever go, and no further. Well-perhaps I will tell him that I did the Race for Life and see what he says then.

I'm still improving, even though improvement has slowed dramatically. I'm not dead yet-therefore I am not giving up just yet. The people who succeed are the ones who never give up-who look at the naysayers and say yeah, yeah, whatever-and just keep going.

I guess I have grown a lot stronger in the last four years-out of necessity more than anything else. And we will see how I get on when it is suddenly next Saturday. How positive will I be then? I will let you know. One thing I DO know is this: whatever you want to accomplish, whatever you want to do, don't listen to anyone else. Keep at it. Keep putting one foot in front of the other (even, if like me, you topple over every once in awhile).The naysayers? Just keep thinking that, if nothing else, you will outlive them all. Just lay off the okra.