A shrivelled up garden!

30th July 2018

Still on a roller coaster!

Two weeks after surgery, and I am getting used to a new reality. I have had some scary moments and some laughs. Family has pulled around me and brought me through the worst times of my life. Surgery is healing but it’s all painful. We’ve just had the hottest weather since UK records began and I’ve tried inside and outside to stay regulated. But it’s hard going and I’ve scared a lot of people, with unexpected reactions to things, and our plans diverging so much.
Outside we have beautiful hot orange calla lilies and wild eryngiums, or thistles, creating new corners to excavate. And the garden needs excavation when I am fit again. For now, I just have to look at what I can’t do...

Surgery with MS is no simple thing. Even the medics were scared by my reaction, and I have a different diagnosis of intolerance no one predicted. Opioids are quite dangerous but for me they were a game changer. Never again! I have absolutely no tolerance for them and it nearly didn’t get sorted. Then in later discussion, you find a family intolerance and it all makes sense.

It’s two weeks now and it all still hurts but patience willing, recovery is going to happen. Summer holidays see the desertion of the UK for far-flung destinations. I wish that was us, but I’m being patient. The kids have been following a job chart so I’ll be broke by next week. My mum has been a star, feeding us and chivvying me into my new normality for now.

I forgot to say, the greenhouse was blown over, causing great consternation - largely missed by me - and the drought was followed by a day of rain, so much more like the summer holidays of old than the 32 degrees. We have to look at the garden again and think of how it can work. Not a quick fix, but a life work! Gulp!