Step by step
Anyway, it really IS good to be back after taking last week off, simply because I was an absolute mess.
A few weeks ago I had an accident, really bashed my head and broke my nose. At first I was more concerned about the scars on my face, but make-up is a wonderful invention and hopefully they’ll fade in time anyway.
What I hadn’t banked on was the damage the collision caused inside my head. I was warned about postconcussion syndrome, but thought nothing of it. Pah! How bad could that possibly be?
REALLY bad, as it happens. Especially as I thought I was recovering well before it struck and dished out its creeping possession of my mind, which turned me into a jittery, anxious, constantly-on-theverge-of-tears shadow of my former self, with zero lust for life.
Each day for the last month or so I’ve dreaded waking up to the person I’ve
become. Very BTW, as he’s already not happy about being a certain age, I haven’t the heart to tell my beloved that I’m all in favour of Gwyneth Paltrow’s sensible arrangement with second husband Brad Falchuk. The newlywed pair have not moved in with each other because Gwynnie worries about being a good stepmother to her hubby’s two children. “With teenage kids you’ve got to tread lightly,” she says. “It’s pretty intense the teenage thing.” It certainly is. Pretty horrible sometimes, I’d say, and a recipe for constant conflicts, which newlyweds, especially, could really do without.
I’d be well up for a modified version of this couple’s arrangement: parents in one house, teens in another... craftily fitted with cameras. Poor me simply put – when your brain is bashed around in your skull, the chemicals that control your moods are whooshed about and, basically, discombobulated.
That’s what happened to me. My GP suggested antidepressants.
No thanks. Luckily, on one of my walks to try and get away from myself, I spotted a sign in the window of a local chemist declaring: “100% LEGAL – Cannabis Oil”.
I’d heard it was good for anxiety and depression, so I shiftily slunk in to the pharmacy and asked about it. The pharmacist quizzed me, after which I returned the favour and put my queries to him, tapped in my PIN and walked out clutching a tiny glass dropper bottle containing the magical potion.
It was expensive. But worth it. Just five drops under my tongue each morning and I’m so much nearer me again. Cannabis is natural. Medicinal cannabis oil (CBD) can relieve pain and lift depression, anxiety and insomnia. There are many other claims as to its benefits, including alleviating some of the effects of MS.
Thankfully, following the highprofile case of 12-year-old Billy Caldwell who has severe epilepsy, which appeared to be helped by cannabis oil, doctors can now prescribe it on the NHS. Call it by its humble plant name, hemp – because that’s what it is – and it doesn’t sound so controversial.
More worthy of controversy is the fact that last year British-based pharmaceutical giant GSK clocked up an unadjusted operating profit of £8billion largely based on prescription drugs that aren’t always effective. A thought that suddenly made me feel sick.
Ryanair worries me with its flouting casual of Civil Aviation rules, Authorit the latest of which compensate is refusing passengers whose flights disrupted by strikes.
Its gung-ho approach extremely to rules in gen worrying when you is to consider i SAFELY transport customers their destinations.
Concussion turned me into an anxious shadow of my former self