Saturday 9 February 2013

Saturday 9 February 2013: C's ingrowing worry

Catmint has been in abeyance since New Year while we grind on with the cold and the snow, and Dave's latest injury (fell off his workbench and sprained a ligament in his right knee) and most of all with Catherine feeling ill every day - reflux, nausea, griping pains below, feeling painfully full after a couple of mouthfuls. She has endured another difficult procedure - gastroscopy - and must wait another couple of weeks to discuss the results with a doctor. Going back on a gluten-free and also dairy-free diet may well help. Feeling her stomach is blocked, though, is worrying and difficult to cope with, and the more she worries the worse it gets. She has found the label gastroparesis, but I just don't know which came first with her : the name or the symptoms - whether reading about the symptoms is enough to cement them into her brain and therefore body in a case of terminal addiction to medical websites, or whether it stems as she still thinks from injury to her stomach, and in either case how to break out of it. Mrs Harling thinks, and I think I feel it too, that it's the accumulated strain of last year taking it out on her gut. With C so much of a worrier, and very much on her own with no close friend around except me, who knows too much, her whole state of mind is like an ingrowing toenail.

But in the last few days there have been gleams of light - Corrymeela have asked her to go over for 3 weeks or so around 11 March; and meeting up with Natasha yesterday cheered everything up; and Camp America is definitely on for June. Also the decision to go g-f and dairy-free is something more positive to do than just worrying.

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