Taking clothes off with one arm

I have always been hard wearing on my clothes - like most people I wear the same stuff over and over again.  Jeans and t shirts fall to pieces within 3 or 4 years.  Being able to use only my left arm means that the stress on clothes is quite specific.  My jumpers have little holes just below the label on the back where the threads have worn thin.  This is the place my left hand grabs to yank jumpers over my head.

Shirts and jumpers end up with a patch on the left elbow.  I often steady my hand by resting my elbow on flat surfaces.  The newest area of weakness is on the seam at the back of my knickers.  I had a look through my undies draw this morning and found 4 pairs had suffered the same fate.  The seam has detached itself from the rest of the material.  I thought it was a manufacturing fault until 10 minutes ago.  I stood up from the sofa and my jeans were sagging slightly so I hooked my fingers under the waist band at the small of my back and hitched them up.  This rather unsophisticated and slovenly adjustment was accompanied by the sound of ripping material.  Another pair bites the dust.

No hole too big or too small to emit stuff

The twins both have florid patches of weeping pox all over their perfect little bodies.  Twin1 was in our bed crying and and scratching all night.  The husband slept in twin1's bunk to tend to the equally itchy twin2.  Twin1 insisted on cuddling up close to me which meant poking and jabbing my bad arm to the state where it feels like a shredded flutter of palid, useless flesh held together by its hyper sensitive coating.

My parents have taken them out for a walk, tucked up in their pushchair so I can get some work done.  If my parents weren't a) here and b) as generous as they are, I'm sure my fingernails would be the only things keeping me attached to the crumbling cliff by now.  Since my return from the UK 3 weeks ago the children have lost liquid from orifices and pores in a steady stream of matter not suitable for print.  Their absence from kindy and the mess this stream produces would have sent me over the edge but ma and pa have hosted sleepovers, provided countless park and beach trips for the children and helped keep my house in some kind of order.  Grateful isn't the word.

This weekend lad turns 5.  I had a quick scan down the invitees to see who I need to call and tell of the girls' pox but all the children coming either have chicken pox at the moment or are recovering from it.  Perfect.  Let the games commence.

Happy clappy

Yesterday a friend and I sat on the beach while our children mauled us and demanded food. We chatted about being fulfilled and happy. Today I read this article on the same subject. Happiness is an enormously subjective emotion which can be dimmed or illuminated by time and perspective, and the mood in which you are reminiscing. When the twins were little babies I can remember saying to a couple of friends that I was really happy at that time. Looking back I think I was in a black pit of loneliness being away from my parents, brother, friends and home as well as struggling terribly with the children. My arm was particularly painful for a few months and I don't think I mentioned it much. The pain is quite depressive with its tendency to drag on and I started to have counselling for a few other things so God knows what I thought I was happy about.

Similarly, when I look back at my school days I smile dreamily in the warmth of the contentment of those years - smoking fags behind the Bull & Swan during lunch break, sneaking downstairs to the common room after lights out and watching a horror film then wrapping a blanket round all three of us and waddling back up to the dorm, scared out of our wits and giggling manically. If I closely examined the reality I'd probably recall the angst and paranoia of teenage years.

I like the feeling of saying 'I'm happy'. I'm happy at the moment. I wonder how I'll feel when I look back twenty years from now?

picture by http://www.qophotography.co.nz/

My list

Now and then I enjoy pondering on the way my crap arm has got me off the hook from doing jobs I dislike (read more here). A couple of days ago a friend asked me what my arm prevented me from doing. I dug around in the cavernous and echoing depths of my grey matter and found my 'list'. Here it is:

1. I am only able to skydive in tandem as both arms are needed to guide the parachute down to an allocated landing spot.

2. I can merely stand in awe as kiwi boys scoff at poncy bottle openers and pluck the lid off a bottle of beer using whatever comes to hand; a lighter, the previous bottle of beer, a coin and so on.

I am ecstatic to report that this list has been halved. Being cheered on enthusiastically by my great friend, I have learnt how to lever off the lid of a bottle of beer using a bizarre system involving my right knee, the heel of my right hand and my healthy left hand. If you would like me to demonstrate my newfound ability I advise you to place your order for your second beer just as you open your first. You should also be unfazed by blood blisters.

Being let off the worst job in the world

The pressure of looking after, lifting and being bashed by children is taking its toll on my useless right arm. There are three main areas of pain which are ever present. The first is the hypersensitivity of the skin from the neck all the way down to the fingertips. The second type of pain is a deep muscular ache in my neck, scapula and back on the right side all up in the shoulder area and stretching down the side. The third and most vicious type is the nerve pain inside my arm which pans from the neck down to the finger tips. The injury I sustained in the motorbike accident nine years ago affected my right brachial plexus. This is the trunk of nerves which extends from your spine and services the muscles throughout your arm. I think the medical term for mine was 'fucked'. A month after the accident I had new surgery (only 15 or 20 years old at the time - before that they just lopped the offending limb off) to take the sural nerves from both my legs, leaving me a fishnet stockings style scar from the back of my knee to the heel on both legs, and use these nerves to create pathways for the 12 damaged nerves sitting in my neck where the brachial plexus had been yanked from its cosy home in my spine as a result of landing on my head and shoulder from some height. Some of the nerves regrew over the period of seven years or so, some didn't. As a result of all this, the nerve pain inside my arm is ever present. The pain is unlike any other I have experienced. The bones in my hand and forearm can feel like they are being gripped by freezing cold, metal pliers and twisted in directions they shouldn't be going even though the hand is resting comfortably on my lap. As bizarre as it may sound though the pain has become my companion. I can't imagine anymore what it must feel like to have 'silence' inside your body. There has been a constant thrum inside mine for so long. It's a bit like listening to white noise. Not entirely unpleasant but you'd probably quite like to find the source and flick the switch off.

It's not all doom and gloom though. There is one enormous benefit of having a dodgy arm and it's this - I absolutely can't stand moving boxes round and carrying stuff up and down stairs so I have been generously let off this irksome task by the universe and those who make these kinds of decisions. Pickfords Removal Man has never been on my list of dream jobs. Just lugging stuff around irritates the living daylights out of me. Ever since I was young I have liked to travel extremely light. It must be genetic as my brother is the same. I recall at the age of 16 my bro and I landed in Kuala Lumpur, home from school for the summer holidays. My mother was horrified to learn that my brother had only hand luggage with him to last the following 7 weeks but not quite as horrified as when she realised that all he had in his hand luggage was a trumpet. Until my littlies arrived on the scene I had never owned a handbag or a wallet. All I used to take out was a credit card, mobile phone and a house key round my neck. In fact I clearly remember all those years ago when I was told by the consultant in gentle tones that my arm would remain fairly useless thinking "fucking wicked I never have to pick up another box again". I think at this point I should thank my lovely friends who have had to move my crap around London between flats and to my lovely husband who has had to move our crap all the way round the world.

I am against change, even if it is for the better

"I am opposed to change, even if it is for the better". The octogenarian, blazer wearing, moustache toting chap who exclaimed this to cheers of "hear, hear" at a dinner for a gentleman's club one of my friends belongs to clearly has no experience (or maybe memory) of raising a little tribe of children. This week I have banished all bottles from the house - not those containing such elixirs as wine and beer but rather those fiddly, hard to wash and put together ones into which you are constantly sloshing milk. Luckily the twins are only 15 months old so have barely registered their absence. The lad however has become something of a milk fiend over the past year or so sending our dairy bill sky high so he hasn't been quite so enamoured with this particular change. I have other motives for getting rid of the things too. When the twins start toilet training in a year or so it will be I hope a faster process as they won't be drinking half a pint of liquid before they go to sleep each night. For a year I was changing three sets of nappies. Now I'm down to just two I'm keen to make it none. The early years of your children's lives are deeply precious and I feel strange at cheering on these miniscule movements towards the blessed day that they can all walk on their own (I gaze open mouthed in envy at people walking down the street with their children easily keeping the same pace beside them and with no double Mountain Buggy carving the way). I'm also aware though that I will look back at changing their nappies and sitting down three times a day to feed them all with nostalgia and winsome fondness and possible even miss pushing the chariot around which, rather impressively takes all three of the children (twins in the pushchair and the lad sitting on the foot bar).

The children's independence will, I hope, mark a period of less pain in my arm. Because of the nerve damage in my arm it is painful all the time. As this has been a constant for nine years now, the pain registers in my brain as more of a 'different' sensation rather than anything which makes me feel uncomfortable. Having children and especially twins has exacerbated the pain as the lad either slings his arms round my neck (where the nerve damage starts - the trunk of nerves called the brachial plexus comes from the spine and splits up to feed various muscles in the arm and hand) or as I try to use my hand on the bad side to do jobs it really can't do while I'm lugging a baby round on my hip. The worst thing about the state of my arm is the way it affects the children. Because of the pain and also frustration I feel at my ineffectiveness at some tasks, I get irritable and snappy. The inevitable result being that my special little children bare the brunt of it. This upsets me terribly and I try hard to keep it in check.

Because of this and so much more, I can say I am happily pro change, whatever the reason.

This one works but the other doesn't

Just recently my son (3) has started to notice that one of my arms doesn't work. As I fought the daily battle of buckling him and his sisters into the car he chirruped " this arm works Mummy but the other one doesn't."
I was quite surprised. Although our family talk easily about my arm being buggered and the reason why (that's a whole new post but the shortened version is I was riding pillion on a mororbike, we collided head on with another bike and both drivers lost their lives) this is the first time he has ever really mentioned it.
This evening when he got out of the shower, he complained of a scratch on his hand and then told me had had done it in a motorbike accident.
Clearly there are a few discussions ahead. The strange thing is that I rarely think about my arm but a week on Monday sees the 9th anniversary of the death of my lovely friend who was riding the motorbike. This time of year is quite heavy with nostalgia. He would have been 28 years old. That's an adult by anyone's standards. He may have had children. He may have travelled the world. He would certainly have laughed an awful lot. He would certainly have had lots of friends.
Everyone who knows someone who died young says they were special and kind but really, really there was none kinder, more special, more cheeky and full of deeply auspicious promise than my friend.

This afternoon was the kind of afternoon that makes me so grateful for our life here at the beach in New Zealand. By 5pm four of us were sitting my kitchen guzzling Sauvignon Blanc and eating crisps. Our 10 children leapt off the sofa, watched Kung Fu Panda, jumped on the trampoline and popped in and out of the kitchen to top up with crisps. I find Mums fascinating conversationalists. They can tell extremely funny stories about the vile things their children get up to, happily gossip and have clever fingers on all sorts of pulses.
There's a freedom about New Zealand which is so liberating and happy. Roll on tomorrow for more of the same I say.

One arm or two?

As the procession of children and all the stuff that goes with them was being loaded into the car by the husband this morning, I started thinking about how much longer it takes me to do anything using one arm as opposed to two.

Because I know it takes me longer to accomplish most tasks (such as ferrying 2 crawling babies and a toddler down 16 steps from the front door to the car), I wonder if I have become quicker and more able in other ways. Working out the most efficient way to complete tasks has become a common exercise in my little pea brain. Would this have happened anyway as the metamorphosis from drunken, irresponsible, single trader in the city to drunken, less irresponsible mother of three and housewife took place? Everybody changes as they get older and it's impossible to attribute any new behaviour to a particular event or change which happened along the way. Obviously I am more dextrous and able with my left arm than I ever was when I could use both and my right arm was the leading arm. Would I be a different mum if I could use both arms? Would I be better? I'm not sure.

Most people with small children acknowledge that their early years are a strain on your life. The added strain of daily pain which increases in relation to the amount of added pressure on my arm surely adds to this strain.
But, and I feel it's a big but, we have a house big enough to comfortably hold our family, a garden, a garage, a beach down the road...it's a list of things which massively alleviates the strain of having children.

Everyone has their problems don't they? Mine are minimal compared to most. Thinking about my arm doesn't take up much space in the daily ebb and flow of my grey matter but whilst writing this blog I'd like to record some more thoughts on the matter.