I’ve looked up the medical papers – let’s just say I’m worried sick

WRITING, even a slender column such as this, is both a dangerous and a wonderful thing. For writers that is, not the readers. Well, some who write. From being a little girl, I have ‘written out’ my problems, worries, troubled thoughts, though rarely my joys.

There is no need for those to seek form or shape, for they have them already, and there is no need of sense to be made.

But the others have been personal moments and attempts to make sense of the seemingly senseless. For me writing has always been the magic that does that.

As the sentences form so too does the clarity of the future or the realisation that a wrong move is about to be made.

Writing down is the key to all. I have suggested it as a process to others but most look at me blankly.

By now you’re wondering if I’m delirious after almost two months in my rehab bed.

I could be – after a day of temperatures hitting 32/33 degrees, it is 10.30pm and still 30 degrees, and only a single fan aimed at my face disturbs the sultry air.

My fingers don’t fly over the keyboard as one arm is still strapped day and night to my side. I pick out the letters with a so, so tired forefinger and occasionally a stray finger hits a key and wipes out half my copy and the night moves mercilessly on.

I do it because that’s what I do. I want to entertain you for that is what I’m here to do mainly although we all know this space has turned into much more than that. It’s become a conversation between friends – good friends.

Indeed, so intimate have we become, particularly since this fall and mental paralysis, it’s been simpler to direct friends to my columns than face the exhaustion of explanation again and again.

So, I’m asking you to indulge me once more in this strange period of fear and uncertainty we’re all living through as the world seems to turn on disease and hatred.

There is a madness abroad fuelled by cold, powerful men whose gods are control and money, and it is hard to keep a grip on hope as a virus prowls around us taking out the weakest.

I’m trying to keep a grip on mine for it keeps slipping out of my grasp. I need to be back with my dog, gazing out at my land, however restless it makes me.

I need to make an effort and reconnect with all those long-lost people I’ve let, like hope, slip from my grasp in my idleness. Need to fill my house with music and laughter once more.

But I fear that may take some time yet; and there are moments I fear I may never see home again.

I pray, really pray I’m being dramatic and can cry upwards and onwards again with strength and conviction.

The good news is that I walk further and further every day, the strange fear of falling receding and allowing my feet to unstick from the floor and judder forward with my crutch. It is not elegant but it’s movement – forward movement.

Someone still has to walk with me ready to catch me if I do fall; wash and dress me etc. I am trained by daily physio and a woman who teaches me to breathe through the stress exacerbated by my COPD.

Then there’s the dieticians, the psychologists and the nursing teams willing me on.

But just as I believed I was on the road to freedom….bang.

My body is not retaining salt – it is simply disappearing even with nightly drips and all seems to lead back to the COPD as they finally told me under questioning today.

I have to see a specialist and be scanned head and torso. I’ve looked up the medical papers on it and let’s just say I’m worried sick. Hence writing it all down.

Meanwhile I battle through this unforgiving heat trying to breathe.

Merde, what a pity fest this has turned into. God I’m sorry but, as always, the writing of it has helped me face what’s happening.

Helped me focus on the one thing I can still just control – the walking. I’ll at least aim to walk to the scanner; sit not lie before the specialist and control the panic which leaves me shaking from head to toe.

And I’ll try not to go down that side road of what ifs and the door marked coronavirus.

No, I’ll watch some silly television, guarding my remaining gigabytes carefully; focus some intense hatred on tosspot politicians and muse on their evil intentions; talk to God and my Guardian Angel a lot and man up.

Right, I’ve indulged me enough.

And, if you’re still there, so have you, you lovely, lovely people.

And writing it down really has helped. Oh, the broken shoulder?

It seems to have healed pretty well and the physio hurts nowhere as much as it did.

So, hurrah for that and ….bugger it…upwards and onwards.