Nectarine blossom September 2020
Well, if nothing else this year has proven to be always eventful, challenging and more recently, downright overwhelming.
It seems a lifetime ago now that I was hoping to fill my days in isolation with gardening, watching films, reading, music and writing. That was back in March.
Since then, I’ve had to sit quietly and watch while the world changed irrevocably. There have been illnesses, deaths, joys and triumphs – but above all things, hundreds of films to keep me going.
In June, I decided to take the plunge and sign up for a postgraduate course at my alma mater, Griffith University. I could do it part-time, fully online and there was enough interest from Screen Studies academics on staff to make me feel confident in my choices and less like an imposter.
Then in July my ex-husband died. This unleashed a torrent of conflicting emotions which I won’t go into here, but suffice it to say it was a very difficult time.
A few weeks ago, I started to notice unusual and frequent pain in my hands and fingers. I wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary, so put it down to a Spring flare up. (Those of you with autoimmune and/or arthritic conditions will understand!) But it didn’t get any better, and by last week I couldn’t type, hold heavy objects or really do anything that required strength in my fingers. I was devastated.
Yesterday I went to my GP and I’ve started new anti-inflammatory drugs. Today I had x-rays taken of my hands and I started wearing compression gloves. Tomorrow it’s blood tests to determine if I have rheumatoid arthritis, which both my parents suffered from. Currently, the smart money is on psoriatic arthritis but we’ll have to wait and see. Meanwhile, I do what I can to keep everything moving, including some gardening, household/urban farming chores and patting the cat – who is purring next to me at the moment. I am eternally grateful for the support I have here at home, I really am a very lucky woman!
I’ve also made an investment in my future and bought voice recognition software – and that’s how I’m typing (or rather not typing) this post.
Hopefully, this will enable me to fulfil my uni requirements without causing undue pain and encourage me to write/dictate more blog posts, training this new software along the way.
I think I’ll call him Jarvis 🙂
Debra Manskey 