SELFLESS ROOFTOPS

This morning I went to my cranial osteopath.
There are those who think it’s a waste of space and too woo-woo to heal anybody. I’ve been seeing Stuart Korth for 38 years. he treated the dawter from her tiny baby body to now. He is 83 and comes from a family of helpers. He has the hair of a lion and the heart of the brave.
He is slender and in tact and his intention is to administer cranial osteopathy until he’s 100.
I went with a back that has given way. My body is straining under the dialysis. I get sick after a treatment. So bad I can’t drive, or walk or breathe or imagine life without a machine pumping my blood round my body. Yesterday I got home and the old git brought me two walking sticks to assist me to the front door. A mere 50 paces. I made three steps and slid down onto an empty green bottle crate. I sat in the snowy sunshine. The cold air calming me down. I took Carbo Veg, a homeopathic remedy for bringing the dead back to life!
I took a remedy ten minutes apart. I could just about make 20 paces to the kitchen.
I’ve been advised to do the couch to 5k NHS app.
Do it slowly said Korth.
‘Keep moving.’ he said.
I can’t.
‘Keep mobile.’
I’ll try.
I’m on his urgent waiting list and I fully intend to get better even though the struggle is up hill covered in broken glass and dimly lit.
Each session costs me more than I can afford but it’s worth missing out on a couple of breakfasts to get my sense of self back.
Being selfless is not an option when health is a challenge. Being responsible for the ‘self’ is the only way forward.
Being self-ish is necessary. Being self-less is bad for recovery.
Taking control may feel like self indulgence but it is the only ally you’ve got – as well as a bunch of brilliant neighbours.
I attacked the pub in my last blog and Paul defended it. So a big apology to Megan and the locals who are keeping me upright.

I’ve only been on dialysis for a year, others have been kidnified for upwards of 17 years, so I cannot dismiss it at all. But I have to get it regulated.
I write about this to remind people that the spark of life doesn’t give up on us we give up on it. I’m grabbing it back.
Now here’s the thing trying to be selfless with no kidneys ain’t easy. Trying to think about others when the main topic is your own survival is hard.
But Stuart Korth gave me my will back. I could feel warmth in my feet. I could feel a little tension going. When I got into the car I balled my eyes out, Howling, tears rolling down my face, using up two tissues. Crying so hard, I matched the rain, Korth had released something.
For the past year my co passenger, sitting next to me on this strange journey, is fear. The kidneys rule fear, I am frightened all the time. Whether I’m doing it right or wrong.
The food.
The drink.
The exercising.
The future.
The past.
The whole damn shebang every day is a pas de deux, my partner not Nureyev but fucking Worzel Gummidge on crack.

When my treatment had finished I was told to relax so Stuart could get me off the bed.
‘Don’t help’ he said ‘trust me.’
He pulled me to the right. My body went with him.
‘Don’t help me. Just relax.’ He insisted.
So I did.
He pulled me one way. Pushed me another then rolled me over.
‘This’ll hurt’ he said.
And it did as he sat me up my legs dangling over the side of the bed.
Then this 83-year-old man took my trainers and pulled the laces loose. He put my left foot in my tattered old shoe.
Then pulled the laces loose on the right trainer and struggled to get it on to my foot, he managed it.
This kind octogenarian tied my shoe laces and stood me up. I waited till I got into the car before I let the tears come. It’s been a long time since a man has kneeled at my feet but this divine being did.
My back pain has diminished and I can feel the embers of my life force sparking.
The drive home was a Pathetic Fallacy – A cinematic device that lets the weather set the mood. As I drove home the dark grey clouds and constant drizzle, was a scene out of a Walt Disney cartoon.
The roof tops black against a grey sky. The chimney pots in bold relief against driving rain.
I’ve always had an ambiguous relation to Mr.Disney, who it has been said was Antisemitic, but as a gal I wanted to be Snow White, with a flawless complexion and shiny hair. I achieved it by the time I reached 23. With the help of makeup artists and Harrods. Their salon provided whale blubber hair masks that had me turning heads on Sloane Square tube my hair was as shiny as Snow whites. And then I got woke and gave up the blubber and went to Trevor Sorbie instead.

But it was Walts rooftops that grabbed me. Cartoon chimneys of perfection, with perfect smoke curling up from perfectly drawn houses.
Driving back through Tunbridge Wells there were those perfectly fashioned chimney pots on top of perfectly fashioned houses, and my mood lifted.
As I sit now, nearly midnight, the rain is still pouring down. Sid is sitting on the table on my scarf, guarding me against my demons.
One of my neighbours is collecting me at 7.46 to drive me to the dry cleaners. A woman who has no need to help me out but is. A neighbour that has no reason to get up at 7.00 but will collect me so I don’t kill myself on the way home.
A selfless act for a selfish woman.
We both win don’t we?