Ramping It Up: Children w disabilities, opinions, books

Writing with Boxing Gloves On

Right now I should be standing, left foot forward, weight on the balls of my feet, guard up, in front of my punching bag. Ready to deal with some adrenalin and a raised heartrate - but I've opted to sit here, with adrenalin and a raised heartrate, doing some metaphorical boxing instead. Because I'm feeling anxious, flutter in stomach, emotions behind the eyes: for not particularly good reason. This is extraordinarily hard to admit. I've been getting bouts of anxiety ever since I went on LWOP. Nothing overwhelming, nothing clinical, but enough to not feel like myself, and enough to feel unproductive, immobilised, not engaged, and a bit dithery.

And I've never felt like this before, not really. 

So finally I admitted it to Abe last night, that I'd been feeling a bit anxious, and he briskly and sensibly said, You Need to Do Some Exercise. Get onto your punching bag. And then I admitted that I know I should, but feel anxious about the time it will take, all the things I need to get done, the very small amount of time I have to do things, and so on. And he wasn't being glib. Abe is very thoughtful about anxiety and depression and coping and what you need to do, and exercise - and creativity, pleasure, intelligent responses to problems etc - is part of it.

But I also know that words can land those punches too, sometimes, can allow the sweat to flick off your shoulders and make the mat under your feet slippery with exertion. And sometimes instead of a hsst-jab-jab-cross that's what I need. When time is short. When deadlines beckon. When Things to Do and Am I Wasting this Rare Opportunity looms.

But then I fear being as self-indulgent as an Elizabeth Gilbert, with all her eat-pray-love, meet-play-puke, cliche-food-guru carry on. Add Julia Roberts' toothiness to the mix and it all sounds like a vision of hell.

Because yes yes I know, some would say that a child with a disability means that it should be ok to whinge about your life sometimes, but really . . . is it? My girl is well and healthy at the moment; she ate her banana and yoghurt for breakfast; she's off being entertained by some fabulous people at childcare. Last week, on the other hand, my cousin's wife died, at the age of 48, of mesothelioma. I didn't know her, and my cousin was a presence and memory rather than someone I knew. Older than me, he was the handsome one from a family of close-knit brothers - one went to university; one still lives at home with his mother my aunt, and has no front teeth; another was working on the railways and fell out of a train and was smashed against a pole at the age of 17, and his liver was split, but her survived; and then the Handsome One went to live in Cobar and was a miner. Three daughters, and his wife - who never worked in the mines - got the miner's disease. A dreadful story. Too sad.

And within a few hours, miners in Chile will be brought up that impossible shaft, 700 metres, one at a time, into the light. I read this morning that Isabel Allende is there, along with families of the miners, unpaid clowns, politicians, engineers, the army, and a huge contingent of the world's media. Awaiting miners, some of them illiterate, who have forged a collective agreement about benefiting from their stories together. How they'll survive the experience of blinking into the light is anybody's guess.

These stories make me want to erase my first few paragraphs, as it has already worked. It's like pouring warm honey onto a spiky burnt thing, melting and soothing it. Being reminded I have nothing to fear. It's about words.

I'm also reading Barbara Kingsolver's Lacuna - and the power of words is central to it. Well, of course, it's a book. That's not what I mean, it's part of the plot. Her fictional writer is saved by his words, and he uses them in many different ways. He writes journals and reports; he builds a novel out of Mexico's history and a reflective, leftwing, nationalism. He's funny and secretive, as he describes the pale skin and smooth muscles of the Dutch man he lusts after. He's exuberant when he describes the marketplaces and foods he buys and cooks with. He's occasionally naive as he writes letters to Frida Kahlo, who admonishes and hectors him, and swears like a trooper. Frida Kahlo. In the 80s she was everywhere, but I only had a simplistic feminist notion of who she was. Her powerful, bold, not-really-narcissistic images were so very familiar, but her voice was not. In this novel at least - drawn apparently from her journals, and those of Diego Rivera - she's stroppy and powerful, opinionated and sexy, a force to be reckoned with. And she values words just as she values colour, images, politics, and making everything from her dress to her table to her house, artful. And she wasn't one of the world's whingers, despite the withered leg from polio, hidden under the swish of her skirts; despite the shattered pelvis, the lung diseases, the skin inflammations.

So, girlie, why the hell should you be feeling a little bit blah?

No reason at all, it turns out.

I also listened to an interview this morning with the artist Jutta Feddersen, whose story gives us the "other side" of the second world war narrative. She was a middle class child from an artistic family, in Germany, whose world was destroyed by the war. Camps, Russian soldiers, brutality. And she still looks for and exalts in beauty, partly as a way to deal with loss, and stories, and memories. I know her work, or bits of it, and she uses repetition and large scale installations, uses miniatures and the gigantic, shadows and juxtapositions of feathers, toys, dolls legs, eyes, and woven pieces of steel, to tell her stories. The interview left me feeling a little flayed, but not necessarily in a bad way.

It also reminded me of Rachael Sieffert's The Dark Room, which I also read recently, after avoiding it for a long time - for some reason. Three stories, connected without it being spelt out, about Germany's history and the impact of World War ll. It's also about photography, and writes about it beautifully. Like chess, photography is often overused as a metaphor. But this time, the photography has been used well - the f-stops are there for a reason, the description of red flags with swastika's glowing in a grey square are described so they send a shiver up your spine, as alive as a Leni Riefenstahl image; and the inability of photography to capture some events is also well done. Not to mention that I couldn't put it down, and read it balanced in one hand while doing other things; stayed up late; opted for words over sleep.

And there was Berlin, in part of the book, divided and marked. I've never been there, but not long after finishing the book I was talking to a friend who'd just returned, days before. She has an eye for a thoughtful detail, and for clever analysis, and so she saw the present and the history of the place at the same time. The bumps in the cobblestones, designed to trip you up with stories of the holocaust; the spiral staircase drawing you up and through the politics of the Reichstag; the museums. And the conversation helped me make a (screamingly obvious) connection I'd missed, when drawn in by China Mieville in his remarkable book, The City and The City. This is a noirish crime novel, that's also fantasy, that's also about two intertwined cities, circumscribed by rules of seeing and unseeing, where the two populations can't and won't and shouldn't either see each other or cross over into each other's territory. It's also a story of conspiracies and politics. And while it feels very Eastern European, in the slightly downtrodden feel of the city/ies, surely Berlin is - or was - the archetypal divided city.

China Mieville is one of the most dramatically inventive writers around, I think. He is so so so so very imaginative, in a way that can be surprising, and which also draws you in great detail into other worlds. If more fantasy writing was like this, I'd read more fantasy writing. Sure, some of his earlier books follow that silly fantasy convention of beginning with an obscure chapter that makes no sense at all until you've come to the end of the book, and which need not be there at all, but he's still remarkable. I did read his first book for all the very wrong reasons: fancying the pants off the bloke who recommended it to me (years ago, pre-Abe). But I read The Scar and was astonished.

Mieville's subconscious - or wherever he sources his imaginative worlds, given that he's a political activist as well - resonates with mine. One of his books features giant moths whose wings blur and oscillate with colours and shapes, that drive anyone mad or kills them, who looks directly at them. Unfortunately, that's a feature of my nightmares: insects and flowers that, if you look directly at them, kill you. If I'm very very stressed, I've been known to leap out of bed with a yell when they appear. A-hem. Not at that stage at the moment. 

But one of his other creatures, reminds me of that exposed spikiness that happens when you are outwardly calm and on top of things, but instead have a jagged armour that's ready to jump into place. There's a strange subplot in one of his novels - which will sound overly macho and aggressive, but here goes - in which these intelligent creatures are involved in prize fights, in which they slash their own arms and legs, and their blood spills to form a spiky armour that protects them. Stay with me, there's a motherish metaphor on its way. I imagine them greyish green and fierce.

There are days when I emerge from the world in which I cope well and happily with Morgaine's level of disability, and find I have spouted from similar wounds, leaving similarly spiky jagged armour. At home, we can play and interact and bring out her best. Can put her in her supportive seating and let her reach things. Can take her to childcare where the inclusion support worker manages the interaction with other children, and she's part of it all. See, it's not so hard. See, other children do know how to interact with her. And then I'll take her out for a walk, to the playground, and see once again that she's excluded from most of the park, see other children ask their parents why M is "like that", while never talking to us; see the hammock she should in theory be able to go on completely covered with regular kids having a fabulous time, in a way that excludes her unless I chase them off and do a "disability" speech, which would defeat the purpose; or means I have to wheel her onto the one thing she can use, and have to explain that yes this is a wheelchair and yes this is what it's for. And I think we're calm and happy, and realise instead I've slashed something and spilt spikiness, am interacting in a defensive way, am presenting a brittle armour to the world.

But the knot has now dissolved, so I think it's time to take those damn gloves off. To wipe down the mat.

If I had to do a Productivity Commission assessment of my life . . .

I'm attempting to be brisk and organised and productive, while still feeling the impact of a medical procedure yesterday that required sedation. A non-glamorous, not at all worrying, spare everyone the details, type medical procedure. Suffice to say I had to fast for days, drink litre after litre of water, and miraculously gained a couple of kilos in the process. Bugger it.

So it's a quiet day of answering emails, sending off requests, trying to con a library into scanning my thesis into TROVE (I've had one of those inquiries from OS about it that's both exhilerating and exhausting, as I'd have to explain why I can't just send him off an article he can use because - well - didn't quite get around to publishing much of it etc etc), chasing up lost super (blah), finding medicare claims, chucking things out (maybe), and discovering - yet again - that disability services stuff crosses state and federal boundaries in annoying ways.

Miz M has a Qld Taxi Subsidy Scheme card, which only involved filling in 82 pages worth of forms and getting supporting documentation from two different places saying no, really, can't sit in a regular chair, yes uses a mobility device, no can't walk at all etc etc. From memory, that was the same week I filled in another set of forms for a "Companion Card", and yet another for a disabled parking permit. All done, all good, all being used. But we're going to Sydney in October, for a week, and will need to use accessible taxis all over the place. Not to mention reinventing the wheel(chair) once again with an airline; making requests about taking the chair to the door (again), getting lovely and positive responses from the "Special Handling" gang (again), while knowing that the people at check-in will be flummoxed, confused, unclear about the process, and we'll have to give her life story all over again while I try to keep my irritation and on-the-verge-of-tears response under control (again) while Abe tells me to stay calm (again).

Doesn't sound cynical, does it?

Anyway, realised that the Taxi Subsidy Scheme is state-based, so I have to put a request (in writing, here we go) for a book of vouchers to use interstate.

No big deal; no wish to whinge excessively; 2 minutes on the phone plus 2 minutes to write an email. (The email to the Special Handling section of the airline takes much longer, as I work out how to be charming but assertive at the same time. Crossing out all my "maybes" and "perhaps" es; replacing them with "we require" and "you will" and "as you know" etc.)

But why, the fuck, don't these systems cross state lines?

OK, it's about funding and jurisdiction and which things are dealt with by the states, which by the Commonwealth. So what it comes down to? Blame Henry Parkes and Alfred Deakin and George Reid and whatsit Griffiths? Blame the constitution and 1901? Who, I'm quite sure, gave not a thought to care of people with disabilities falling between cracks in the health and welfare system . . . although, as they stood around pompously in Melbourne in 1901, Deakin daydreaming about spiritualism and getting back into his cossies down the coast, and George Reid thinking up another bon mot, they may well have known people with disabilities. After all, there was a contingent or two off at the Boer War or in the Sudan. There were epidemics everywhere. There were rats in Sydney; there was polio, there was typhoid, there were children being blinded by measles. Still, they didn't really think the Commonwealth govt would have much to do; they didn't even think it'd have to be a full-time government.

So I'm not sure we can blame the constitution makers and 1901. (Although Bob Katter and George Reid would've enjoyed yelling at each other over free trade, protectionism and tariffs. Sugar and the north. City versus country.)

But hang on, people, we've had over a century to sort some of this stuff out.

The Productivity Commission is dealing with some of it right now. It was the week before the election, when the latest round of submissions into "Disability Care and Support" were due. Life was busy, of course, but I knew I wouldn't forgive myself if I didn't write something. So I wrote about our girl, about that Difficult First Year, about the lack of communication and knowledge between different sectors, about feeling set adrift when community health nurses shrugged their shoulders and said, basically, "we have no idea what to do next". About the need for investment in the communicaiton and knowledge economies. About the need for a National Disability Insurance Scheme. Tried to draw out the implications of our own very limited experience to a wider, systemic, problem. Tried to include personal stories as well as pleas for equality, rights, love, education, access, equipment, fairness. Then just stopped, after a while, because it became rather draining. Wanted to make an impact by telling a personal story then drawing out the implications, but made myself teary every time I reread the damn thing to edit it (still had a really stupid typo in the final version, that made at least one sentence completely nonsensical). Sent it off, on the very last day (of course), exactly one week before the election. Was sitting up here, sending off copies to every politician I could think of (state member, federal member, state minister for disabilities, fed parlt secretary, The Therapy Place, Miz M's school) when I didn't hear my mobile phone ring. New phone, dammit, my ear wasn't attuned. And what do you know, it was Bill Shorten, while he was still Parliamentary Secretary, with a warm and intelligent message. Damn, I wish I'd heard that phone and spoken to him instead. Clever politicing, too, I have to say, so close to an election. Haven't got a response at all from my state member, which still irritates me (what is the point of being a rusted on Labor supporter if they Disappoint You!!!!)

But Oh. My. Gawd. You should see the submissions to the inquiry. There are over 500 up there to look at, but I don't quite have the strength this morning to delve back into them. They can wrench your heart out; and can also make you sit up straighter for the strength of analysis and the power of the stories. for their politics. Some, of course, are less than fascinating. But most, holy shit, batman. There are individual submissions that have been written in a hurry by people with not much time, talking about decades of care for their children. People writing angrily and proudly and stroppily on their own behalf, about their lives and their rights. Organisations talking about what they do and how they do it. People whose stories make you want to weep, for the injustice of inadequate support, money, equipment and for being treated so badly. For lack of resources in rural Australia. For lack of support in the middle of cities. And then there are clever, analytical, proposals from women's organisations taking on the gendered aspects of care. And there are people and organisations whose solutions you can flat-out disagree with.

But the stories the stories. Such a reminder of the power of ordinary lives and experiences. And no, it's not all about tragedy and despair; but it's certainly about a lack of equality and a desparate need for change.

There are 537 submissions right here.

And if those commisisoners decide to look outside the submission, they'll find grist to their changing-the-system mill everywhere they look. They'd find it in Pen's stories who, with aplomb and warmth, finds herself travelling from Canberra to Sydney for her boy; they'd find it in the story of Moo's apparent invisibility, and the anger and vulnerability that exposed. They'd find many things to think about via Miz Lauredhel and the Hoyden's About Town, who will not be silenced thank you very much.

Writer in Residence at a Hospital

I'm no great fan of Alain de Botton, but when I heard him on the radio reading from his recent work that came from being a writer in residence at an airport, yes I was inspired. It wasn't the writing, so much as the idea. At an airport, of course, he got to see it all: drama, passion, reunions, farewells, lost luggage, bad behaviour, exemplary behaviour, all sorts of cultures and nationalities - and, perhaps, architecture and a space that's sometimes stateless sometimes all about citizenship, sometimes cozy sometimes cold, and frequently defined by ridiculously expensive mediocre coffee. But the thing that got me, was the idea of institutions and writers in residence.

Where else could you have writers in residence, and what would their stories be?

Of course, lost of institutions have already done this. Libraries. Schools. Prisons. Art Galleries. Universities. But imagine what would happen if you kept expanding it. Imagine the skills required: not just to write, but to listen, to elicit, to empathise, and maybe to confront. Writer in residence at a funeral home. Writer in residence at a laundromat. At a hardware store. At one of those dreadful baby shops full of cute furniture and anxious new parents. At a shoeshop. At an aged care facility. At a petrol station and roadhouse in the middle of nowhere.

At a hospital. At a children's hospital.

It's not news that hospitals are full of dramas. ER. All Saints. Scrubs. General Hospital. Grey's Anatomy. But the delicacy of telling the real stories and being a writer whose job it is to gather those stories? How would you do it? And how on earth would you do it ethically? I can imagine the writer sitting for days by a bedside, needing to be part of the action, needing to feel the energy and flows and stories that swirl around. Feeling the anxiety and tears and warmth.

Because, OMG as they say, the stories.

Morgaine has been out of hospital now since 26 July. Not quite two months. And I've been off work on LWOP for most of that time - which seems odd, given that after the crazy six months of endless hospital admissions, she's fine now. For the moment. It's increased my anxiety and guilt in some ways, rather than lessened it, as I feel that I'm waiting for the next crisis. It may happen next week, or it may not happen until next year. Stasis. Limbo. But time to reflect.

Time to remember some of those many many hospital stays - and the people, and their stories. There was one particularly intense ten or twelve day period, when M was admitted under the neurology team, because as well as her usual respiratory distress, she'd had seizures as well. So we were in a different ward. The room wasn't particularly big, but there were six beds, and six recliner-chairs for the parents. All in a row, all right next to each other, with a strange intimacy and a carefully practiced set of rituals around listening and not-listening. We all made an effort to let the others be private, but were also ready to leap in when required. We couldn't help but know each other's stories.

The small boy in the next bed had a terminal cancer and a set of zippered-looking scars all over his head. They were on holidays from interstate, when he suddenly got very sick. The parents were delighted with the care and treatment he received at this hospital, the progress made, but there was an undercurrent between them. The father was utterly dedicated to his son, with an air of zealousness that I suspect we all get when our children have complex health problems and no easy answers. He'd latched onto an alternative food regime that he was convinced of, that meant this child was being fed only protein. Nothing else. The father made up all his food, and the mother was weary and resigned. The doctor's didn't think it was a good idea, and I don't think she did either. And the little boy was offered some toast one day, by one of the wardies, and the poor child was delighted. It was taken off him. Those wardies are the ones you might follow, if you were the writer in residence, as their everyday activities create the connections between people. Emptying the bins, collecting the trays, endlessly mopping the floors and saying hello to the crumpled, stiff necked, parents, and the wide-eyed children.

Across in the next corner was a 15 year old girl who'd had major brain surgery, and was peg fed. Her mother was constantly on call and never seemed able to even take a deep breath on her own. If she walked to the corner to rinse out the attachment for feeding, the girl would start calling out, anxious and demanding, peevish, annoyed. Where were you where were you I can't see you. Both had masses of dark wavy hair, but the girl's was shaved on one side. That woman was doing it tough. One day she called her ex, to explain yet more surgery, another procedure, another in a long list of dramas, and as we all pretended or tried to close our ears, there was clearly a complete meltdown going down on the other end of the phone, of the Why Didn't You tell Me I have a Right to Know. Just calm down, she kept saying, let me tell you, it happened so fast, just calm down. And on and on and on. She was curled in on herself, her and her child, didn't really speak to anyone else, and had a pretective air. She seemed so private I didn't speak to her when we finally left, a week later or however long it was, and then there she was, standing up in the corner, waving, wishing us all the best.

And right in the middle of another night, a thin woman came in from the Intensive Care Unit, with her 9 month old baby connected to more tubes and wires and shunts and ivs than I've ever seen. They had had to lift off the entire top of his skull, and cut open the bones which were fused together, not allowing space for his brain to grow. He had a helmet of bandages that made his head seem huge, and his eyes were black and swollen. She was breastfeeding him, and all he wanted was to be held, to feed, to be given pain relief. Her husband and two sons came down with a horrible flu and couldn't come in to see her, and they were from hundreds of kms away, staying in hospital accommodation. Then, within a day or two, this fragile child sat up, smiled, looked around, was ready to play.

Directly opposite, was a young Samoan girl, only about ten years old but looking older, which meant everyone thought she was able to cope more than she could. Her leg had been broken and reset with pins, and was now encased in a series of metal halos and wires, that meant she had to go through many complicated manouvres to get in and out of bed. To be hoisted into a wheelchair. To try to go to the loo. How do I put my undies on, she said to the nurses? A conversation about sewing and velcro ensued, and whether her nanna could maybe fix that for her. A young and utterly gorgeous mother, with another little baby, in and out by her bedside. Lots of visitors and laughing aunties and grandmothers. Then they all went out one night, and took longer to come back than she expected. Sobbing from her bed. I've never been on my own before, she said. So I called them up on my mobile, to find out where they were and when they'd be back. They thought I was a nurse so there was lots of confusion, and of course we were all best friends after that.

And in the other corner? A young Aboriginal woman with a tiny beautiful baby who was having breathing problems. Her team was by her side - literally her team, a whole group of young women in uniforms, with the Aboriginal flag and an air or protectiveness. Stories of custody and access. Lots of laughing. Conspiratorial intense phonecalls. Someone wasn't going to be let into the bedside.

Everyone offered each other fruit, or leftover sandwiches. Magazines full of mind-numbingly tedious glamourpusses in red dresses and push-up bras. I'm going down to the cafe do you want anything. Keeping track of the many teams of doctors who flitted in and out, never leaving any clear sign that they'd ever been there.

And sleeping in a reclining chair that doesn't quite recline properly, with a foot jammed against the bottom to stop yourself being concertina'd back like a cartoon cat in a booby-trapped house. Cameraderie and strangeness.

Then the boy with the protein was able to go home, and another woman came in. She had the final space, right next to the bin and the front door. There were visitors everywhere, and chaos. My girl was moaning a lot, less than a metre from her child'd bed. She rejected any overtures of friendliness. Her daughter had fallen off a piece of playground equipment and broke her arm - awful, of course, and distressing, but if there's a heirarchy of these things, it didn't really compare to the brain surgeries and terminal illnesses and touch-and-go situation of the rest of the room.

This woman looked around.

But We Are Private Patients, Don't We Get a Private Room?

This is a public hospital, m'dear, said the formidable nurse. In these situations, they're all Formidable. Beds are allocated according to need.

Her body language froze with distaste, and she then spent an entire night listening to my girl moan unhappily (a sure sign she was getting better, but not that much fun for everyone else), with lights flashing in her face from the nurse's station, and with the tap going off and on as everyone paid attention to best handwashing practices. Part of me wanted to laugh - this woman was getting the Public Hospital from Hell experience, just as she expected.

So if I was writer in residence for that ward, that'd be the comic relief.

Being a test case: Paediatricians, hospitals, and a Dysmorphic Appearance

Early last week, in an oddly calm moment, I went for a walk with Miz M to a nearby cafe, and counted up this year's hospital visits from my diary. Fifty one days over six admissions, including eleven days in Intensive Care. I didn't bother counting up the outpatient appointments, the visits to pick up equipment, the therapy appointments. Neither did I count the number of books I'd read at the bedside, the number of days of work I'd missed, the amount of guilt I'd dished up for myself, the number of nurses I'd spoken to, the posses of doctors I'd met, the emails I'd sent to friend. The number of times Clancy had wondered where I was, and where his sister had disappeared to. The litres of oxygen she'd been given.

The number of months that might be left in her little life.

Some things, even with a little red Moleskine diary, can't be easily quantified.

But I did the adding up the day after she last came out of hospital. Another twelve days in, including five days in Intensive Care. This, only two weeks after the last almost identical admission.

And then, being a sucker for punishment, five days later I was back there, voluntarily, spending a morning with Miz M being an examination subject for paediatric registrars who are on their way to being consultants. I knew the drill. For the last six months, whenever we've been on a ward, doctors pop in to ask if they can use her as a test case, for their practice. They scour admissions, looking for "interesting" cases. Oh, to be boring. What they want is the not easily categorised, the tricky, the multiple disabilities, the chronic and acute, the odd ones out. I've done many a "long case", which means I talk talk talk about the pregnancy the birth the early days; the signs something was "not quite right"; the tests, the lack of a diagnosis, the speculative diagnosis, the clinical presentations, the other tests, the waiting for results, the next tests, the referrals the therapy the eventual maybe that's a diagnosis. Then, after you're parched from talking and each and every one has said, "oh, do you have a medical background" (no, bugger off, I just pay attention in class), then they finally examine my girl. They then go off to write it up and present her to a panel. The good ones ask you new questions; the good ones give you something to think about. It was in this context I was first asked if we'd thought through our decisions on resuscitation. It's in this context they ask you about depression and your relationship and what next. 

Somewhere, I imagine a group of examiners rolling their eyes. Here's Morgaine again. Haven't we already heard her story 8, ten, twelve times already?

And then there are the "short cases", in which the parent or carer is invisible - no context here, no storytelling, no asking questions - and it's "only" about examining the child. She usually lifts up her hand in her languid, soft way, and rests it on their hand or their stethoscope. Gives them a little pat. Giggles when they try to get her to follow a toy with her eyes.

And I figure it's a pay-off. It's a public hospital, they treat us very well, why not do what you can?

And I figure it's strategic. This way, they know her. This way, we might learn something.

So when they asked if we'd do a "real" exam with her, we said yes. When I say we, Abe rolled his eyes at the idea of another morning in the hospital, so I said I'd go.

And there we all were. Yet another community you never thought you'd be a part of. A group of people who may very well look Peculiar with a capital P to outsiders. Children with rare and unusual conditions, looking "different", requiring all sorts of aids and equipment, sitting around on chairs that are too small on a Saturday morning. I meet yet another woman who's on her own, and has had to leave her job, and who's coping with a child who has rages that last for an hour and a half. Who has what they call "challenging" behaviour. I meet a very poised girl of about twelve or thirteen, who seems relaxed about being examined and poked and prodded and asked questions about herself. A small boy who looks partly melted - not from burns, but rather as if while growing something simply slipped. He's a wizz on the computer, and uses makaton signs to signal his pleasure to everyone. Miz M just smiles happily.

We're on for a short case and, after a month or two in which we'd had our meeting and made our decisions about resuscitation etc; in a week in which we'd met with the non-cancer Palliative Care team, and acknowledged that what she has is a "Life Limiting Condition" (a new phrase for me, and oddly precise - not terminal, not in decline, but definitely "Life Limiting" given we don't know when the ultimate crisis will hit); in a time like that you think nothing else can be confronting. What's to think about?

But of course, a group of new doctors will examine her. Clinically. Of course. And I will keep it zipped, apart from saying, "she can roll" when I put her on the bed (oy, so don't let her fall of, right!); while they will hold forth and give their pronouncements. 

Here is a three year old girl, they say, who cannot walk. Examine her legs, from a neurological perspective, and give your findings.

Gawd: those poor people were so very very very nervous. Bells rang. There were masses of junior doctors around the place to help (and I recognised about 90% of them from the Emergency Dept and various ward rounds), and we had a Group of Three examiners, who put these doctors through their paces. As well as the usual range of tests and reflexes (none!), they all talked about her Dysmorphic Appearance. And here we have the confronting bit. Our usual doctors had been a bit shy about this. The neurologist suggested it; our regular paediatrician poo-poohed the idea. But there were four new doctors, and three examiners, all commenting on her "dysmorphic appearance".

Am I being too technical here? It means Funny Looking.

Apparently, when children are first born, doctors and nurses used to sometimes write "FLK" on the charts. It meant, Funny Looking Kid - because some conditions, especially chromosomal abnormalities, really do have distinct looks about them. (The most well-known, of course, Down Syndrome.) But just in case, they have a quick look at the parents, and sometimes they'd write "FLK/ KLM": Funny Looking Mother. Look no further. I gather this practice is now frowned upon. Hence, the Dysmorphic Appearance.

So. Her large head; the shape of her large beautiful blue eyes; the position of her ears; the space between her eyes. Another also suggested that her face wasn't as mobile as it might be - certainly, she smiles sweetly, but it is true she doesn't express the same range of emotions as her little brother, who has the toddler's tendency to Emote like Laurence Olivier at every turn. So every doctor had something to say about her look - although they also had a range of suggestions for what her condition might be and how you'd test for it and what you'd do next. As well as the hypotonic CP, they all suggested genetic caryotyping, which is only just happening for us now (no results yet), so clearly there are a few chromosomal disorders they have in mind. And only one who I think was way off the mark.

Interestingly, the last woman was the most nervous - which is saying something. You could have run a small car off the energy being generated in the department that morning. She was also the most dithery in her manner and presentation. And this is where I don't know whether my PC-antenna had been too finely tuned, but I got a distinct sense of impatience from one of the examiners, as soon as this woman walked in the room. Immediately. Was it the headscarf, the muslim attire, the long robes? I hope I was being overly sensitive.

And so I took my beautiful little FLK back home.

When the Wheel falls off the Wheelchair: Can you build a raft with a ramp?

I drove up to the Children's Hospital again this morning, but not for the usual reason. Morgaine is fine, and has been out of hospital for ten days now (twelve days in, five of them in Intensive Care) and was in the backseat giggling with her brother, who was wont to make a fuss. I was driving around in circles, trying to find a park near one of those places where parents from out of town can stay while their children are wrangled and poked and labelled and examined time and again. Finally, I just parked illegally and tried to make contact with this woman I'd never met before. A woman I had been put in contact with just last week, by The Therapy Place, as she was contemplating the same type of Special Needs Car Seat we have for Miz M. Fine, I said, give her my number; happy to talk. 

Happy may not be the right word for it. 

By the end of that phone conversation, I realised she needed something much more than I could provide. She needed a whole network and professional advice; she needed money; she needed decent equipment; she needed a partner who hadn't upped and left in the face of their daughter's disorder; she needed medical advice; she needed not to live so far away; she needed help with a child who makes M look strong in comparison. Miz M can now hold her head up for 15 seconds at a time sometimes. I'd been celebrating that, and then realised it was a tiny tiny incremental shift and still didn't compare with any usual range of "normal". Well, this girl can't hold her head up at all. So fragile; so lacking in strength; so terribly in need of modified equipment.

But I turned up, and showed her what we had and how it worked. The footpath was beginning to vibrate under my feet with her level of stress. It wasn't so much that she was about to cry - eyes fill with tears regularly in this world of ours - as that she was about to disintegrate before my eyes. Bits of her were spitting out and edging apart at the seams, for lack of knowing what to do next. She'd clearly pinned some hope on me turning up with a solution . . . but it's not quite right. I suggested she contact Technical Aid for the Disabled, to see if they could do the modifications for her, but the despair hardly allowed her to know where to begin. And she hadn't heard of many of the organisations or possibilities or lobbying or hustling out there.

And then one of the wheels fell off her daughter's wheelchair. She nearly lost it. What if we'd been going down that hill; why didn't they fix it yesterday; I'm going to raise hell with someone very soon. I hope she raises hell with the right place, rather than spitting fire indiscriminately.

This woman needs the National Disability Insurance Scheme - and, I'd suggest, a good organisational support structure that could ask some of the questions she doesn't yet know to ask.

And then here's my ethical dilemma: the question of breeching trust. I contacted the head of the social work section of the Therapy Place, and left a message saying that I thought this woman needed more help. Urgently. Partly, I know what she needs is a friend to debrief with, a person in a similar situation to talk to, and I don't think I can be that person. I don't want to be that person - there's the selfish bit. I recognise the jangly need; the awfulness of not getting answers; the perplexity of not knowing how to ask the right questions . . . but I know my strategies are different. But I also know I'm not alone the way she is. On any cold night, in any moment of frustration and fear and anger I not only have Abe who wraps himself around me, who I can and do turn to; I have a liferaft of friends. A liferaft, not just a raft. 

This woman needs a raft. With an outboard motor, and maybe a little house built on top of it, filled with cups of tea, books, and a computer filled with useful bookmarks. And either a how-to guide or a flat pack version of it, that she can build for herself. How's that for an overworked Ikea-ish metaphor.

Impossible Meetings With Doctors

On Monday we sat at a table in a conference room at the Children's Hospital opposite two extremely nice doctors, having a conversation about "end of life decisions" for our girl. About intubation, resuscitation, levels of intervention, and what it all means for quality of life; for being kind, for making sure she's not in pain or distress. This isn't because she's about to die, but because she could have died a week before this conversation, and a month before that, and a month earlier . . . and because it might happen next month, or maybe next year.

It looks rather bland when you write it down. As if it's straightforward.

It can even look cold, or uncaring, or too clinical.

Oh, hardly.

Two weeks ago today Miz M really wasn't well when she woke up, even though she'd been fine the night before. Laboured breathing; very tired; working hard. Luckily, our fabulous physio and speechy were coming over that morning for an appointment, which meant they took one look and said, hmmmmm, something is not right here. A respiratory rate of 60+ (about twice what it should be for a 3 year old). Meanwhile, the airconditioning had broken, so I was having conversations about pieces of machinery that were broken, while awaiting the young woman who comes to give us respite for 6 hours a week, so I could break the rules and ask her to mind Clancy while I took M into Emergency. Aaaaah, she had a gastro thing and couldn't make it.

So, off to Emergency with a sicker and sicker Morgaine, and a rambuctious 20 month old. Cue, temperature (39.5); cue, low SAT levels (82); cue, mucho oxygen. And thankfully, a rather nice young doctor who found a portable DVD player and the Wiggles for Mr Can't Sit Still.

And by now, the doctors all say -- but weren't you? But didn't I? And I say yep, we were in here a month ago, and two weeks before that, and a month before that.

Four major admissions since the beginning of the year.

And for some reason, we always end up in the same cubicle, right opposite the doctor's station, where once she's been whipped in to be seen to (no waiting around for us! Ever! nothing like a crisis response to let you avoid a drama filled waiting room) then I can watch them. The large, comforting doctor who always introduces himself and shakes your hand, and you'd follow him anywhere he seems so kind. The blond nurse with messy hair who just screams competence, is in five places at once, and acted so quickly the time before last when M had a seizure and suddenly lost oxygen in Emergency. She's also a paramedic, it turns out. The Baby Doctors, who veer between anxious and arrogant depending on (ahem) gender (who said that?).

I even read exactly the same magazine two admission in a row. There were weeks between admissions, but the same 6 year old magazine was there, boring me to sobs. Always always always have a novel, pen and paper, a spare pare of undies and a toothbrush. And a toddler, with plenty of snacks. Abe had a meeting he couldn't get out of a fortnight ago, but Clancy was pretty fabulous really.

Oh, and M also has hyponaetremia (spelling?) - low sodium, due to SIADH - so I now know to say, no, not just a chest X-Ray and NPA (snot test), please take venous blood asap. Really. And when you get the terminology right, and can remember the names of half the nurses, they tend to believe you. Although they have such a horrible time getting bloods, that I almost always watch 3, 4, 5 different doctors try before they get it done.

That night, after Abe and Clancy had gone home, and we were still in Emergency, M's breathing suddenly looked odd. Can you check this, I said to one of those eternally calm, unflappable, older nurses - who then told me she'd been worried and had just gone to get the head doctor to look at her. Respiratory Rate over 80 per minute. Not so good. So we end up on the ward, for two nights and a day.

It looks like aspiration pneumonia this time (as opposed to Human Meta Pneumo Virus and RSV and an unknown wacky virus the other times this year).

The first night, I sleep on the ward - after hearty greetings of "Oh, we know this child, and we know this mother!" Yep, been to this ward, before, thank you! Even been to this room. We get up there late, it's almost midnight, and there's one other woman and her child in there. Large and cheerful, introduces herself. The next day, slowly, we exchange stories. This one's a bit more Suburban Gothic than most: dreadful parents-in-law who've accused her of faking her child's illness (endless 5 minute long seizures, that'd take some coaching); break up with her husband; baptist-home-schooling stories; best friend whose husband was abusing the kids. Aaaaaaargh. Makes me feel shockingly middle class and happy. Mind you, she was quite nice; while I kept bumping into others and having bizarre conversations with people filed under P for Peculiar in Hospital Central Casting. Oi oi oi.

The next night, I go home. After so many weeks with our girl in hospital, poor Clancy is starting to notice. A mother who completely disappears? Not fair, really. And he seems fine, then gets a bit stroppy and overly emotional. So with a whole overcoat of guilt on, I head home. And was about to go back in the next morning, when the hospital calls to say, she's suddenly a lot worse. Oh, and they've put her up to 16 Litres of Oxygen (what? she was on 6 when I left) which is as much as they can give her on the ward. I go in, and the nurses won't leave her side. There's a flurry of doctors, of all varieties. Meanwhile, I had agreed to participate in a practice exam for one of the Registrars (I've done about four practice "long cases" this year, and any number of practice examinations - it kills time, and tends to be pretty interesting). So, we're going to transfer her to Intensive Care. Fine, I say, to the young doctor, I'll do the case with you as long as you don't mind that there's stuff going on at the same time. It's a way to slow my heartrate, but not, I suspect, his.

Six days in ICU. She was within a hair's breadth of intubation. They used BiPAP instead (where the machine breathes for you), then CPAP (a different type of pressure), before a transfer back to the ward for another - oh, I don't know - four days.

Thirteen days.

And last Friday, the neurologist came around, to say that he thought there was something else going on. Something besides the Hypotonic Cerebral Palsy, something that he can't quite get to the bottom of. I think he has a few ideas, but can't get him to really spell them out. It's because of the low sodium; it's because she's so very disabled. It's because she has no myelin at all in her brain. So he's ordered genetic karyotyping, and a "CGH Array", which is all about genome mapping and a possible chromosomal abnormality - of the rare and "interesting" variety. Demyelination. Leukodystrophies.

You know, he says, her prognosis is not very good.

Well, slowly, I had come to realise that. Maybe that's why I haven't been so good at writing here -- much as I really needed to.

Abe already knew. He knew before I did. And a few months ago we'd forced ourselves to confront that, and did it very badly at first. I began to work out how to ask the right questions, and found the research on Life Expectancy for children with CP when they have M's level of disability. Such limited mobility, being non verbal, peg feeding, little head control, having been born full term, tended to mean a 40 % chance of living to be ten, for example. But that's probably way outside what we can think of. Especially because there's something else gong on.

And poor Abe. My unthinking optimism made it very hard for him to say, look, her quality of life isn't very good. It silenced his despair. It didn't give him space to say, actually, this is pretty fucking heartbreaking. 

So I'd celebrate a smile - we both did - and a tiny tiny improvement, and he'd also be terribly sad about all the things she couldn't do. It took a really difficult conversation, months ago, to realise that our perspective on things needed to come closer together, or at least, needed to acknowledge each other better.

So I'd be worried about how vulnerable she'd be as a teenager or a young woman; and he'd tell me to live in the moment (which was fabulous), while really knowing that it wasn't something we were ever going to be dealing with.

And slowly, the question of how you deal with hospital and medical systems in a type of real crisis had come to the fore. A year ago, standing by a hospital bed while on holiday in Proserpine, a nurse asked us if we'd made decisions about resuscitation. It jolted me like the lightning that struck the character in Tracey Chevalier's latest book. We were completely unprepared then; not much better recently. What, exactly, does it mean, and in what circumstances?

So for the last month or two we'd started to talk about it. I thought Abe might know, as a medical person, but he wasn't sure how these decisions come about either, in light of a general duty of care and doctor's ethics, and how anybody can sensible respond to what you've decided. It's different if you're an adult, making your own Advanced Care Directive. It was on my agenda for an appointment with the paediatrician that was going to happen tomorrow. 

Then, after that conversation with the neurologist, I decided to contact the Social Work Dept at the hospital, and asked if they had any guidelines or reading or advice. What we really needed, was some terminology and a framework. Of course, it's bread and butter to them. It shows the ways in which these large institutions really are compassionate, and complex, and subtle. They deal with this type of thing all the time. A Family Conference, she said, that's what you do, with the doctors, and an advocate, and a social worker, and you go through in detail if this, then this; if this, then this; and it's in the Chart, and you can have a copy yourselves, and you can change your mind at any time.

Oh.

So suddenly, it happened. Just the two of us, and these two rather wonderful women doctors, having an impossible meeting.

Falling off the blogosphere: And Gastrostomy insertion

I seem to have fallen off the blogosphere recently for no very good reason, although it includes an overdeveloped sense of guilt. Am struggling with the fact I have a work meeting this morning that means I'll leave from home, so have decided that the 20 minutes before 9 am can be used for "me", but no more.

Miz Morganise finally had her gastrostomy/ PEG insertion two weeks ago today. As always, it took considerably hustling and being a pain-in-the-arse to the hospital, all of which paid off. Whiel being determindedly "Lovely", I kept calling to see if they'd scheduled the operation, as I knew she'd been categorised as urgent in late November, but there'd been a hiaitus over Christmas. So by presenting myself as persistent but friendly, and ever so slightly implacable, meant that when other people cancelled, we got a last-minute "how about next week" call.

So, to recap: a gastrostomy is a tube and "button" that goes directly into the stomach and means M can be administered food or fluids more easily. We'd spent six months putting a naso-gastric tube down every morning, to give her water, as her "delayed swallow" and low strength means that ordinary water moves too fast in her mouth, with a risk of aspiration, and drinking thickened water is a slow process. This way, she was properly hydrated - happier - and a bit stronger. But sticking an NG tube down your child's throat is no fun. It's also not as hideously hard as it sounds either, or not with a child as easy going and low-tone as Miz M, but it's no picnic. It makes my nostrils twitch just thinking about it.

So the PEG will be a great long-term solution, although again any visit to the Children's Hospital, with a General Anaesthetic and post-operative pain is a bit of a trial. And the fasting, with a wee girl who simply cannot understand why she's not being fed: aaargh! And then in finding the right position for the PEG, they had to have two gos, so there was an extra puncture mark, and they had to hold off feeding her for another 24 hours. Thirty six hours without food and drink, when you're not quite three, don't know what's going on, and have pain in your tummy from an op . . . had me reaching for all the platitudes. If only I could take the pain and deal with it myself. If only I could somehow transfer and absorb it.

Then again, as always, the Children's hospital is an extended exercise in being grateful, lucky, and sobered by events. The baby screaming in the middle of the night. The pre-raphaelite beauty in the next bed, only 11 years old, with a mystery infection that had her pale and limp, but with a raging tempreature, and a whole "barrage of tests" as they say. And very nice parents, who'd spent a week livng and sleepign by her side. Luckily, it was sorted while I was there.

So M came home with her new PEG, but with a long tube attached, which'll be replaced in 3 months time with the permanent, discreet version. Meanwhile, ther's a rosette of plastic and a 30 cm tube poking out from just under her ribs, requiring ingenuity and the sewing of buttons and loops of elastic to her clothes. And just when Clancy had worked out how to sit and roll on top of her like a puppy, without biting, in a way that made her laugh with pleasure. So now we're having to keep them apart in case he pulls at the tube, which worries me in terms of the message we're giving both of them. But hey, it'll all be fine.

The odd thing about the hospital visit though, was the combination of being bored and distracted that happens. I took along the Peter Carey novel, Parrot and Olivier in America, which I know I'll just love. It seems to be a bit more like Illywacker in style, which is my fave of his. But no, I couldn't immerse myself in it as machines beeped etc. So just in case, I took along my cheapo, lolly-pink, portable DVD player I'd bought in the hope of doing more yoga and boxing workouts in the shed (which I've managed about 5 times so far, but here's hoping), and a set of the HBO series "True Blood" that I'd been given for Christmas. Well. My oh my. Funny and clever and just the ticket, although sitting by your sleeping child's bedside holding her hand while watching an erotic and explicit, blood filled scene of vampire sex, when a nurse comes up behind you to ask some question or other that I missed because of earphones, is a bit bizarre.

Oh look, four minutes to go before I switch to conscienscious mode, so what else: still reading Hilary Mantel's Place of Greater Safety on the French Revolution, which I'm loving but is taking me forever; read 2/3 of Mary Beard's Don's Life (in book form, not the blog) last night, and was completely engaged; just loved Colm McCann's Let the Great World Spin, but perhaps I already mentioned that.

And am also in a dilemma about an elderly neighbour who I've befriended and/or adopted. She's Italian, and her English is very bad. She's desparately lonely, so I was happy to invite her in and chat to her, and in some ways she's pretty easy going. But she's started to come around every day, and it's a bit exhausting. Even more, she frames her life entirely in terms of hardship, negativity, work and thigns being difficult. I'm not suggesting it hasn't been tough, but the answer to everything is "ver hard, work very hard", not just about herself but about me. If I say what I've done, she'll say, "Oooh, it's so hard for Mama", and I simply cannot and will not frame my life as a negative grind or a tragedy. So I worry that it's just the lefty soft part of me that's doing this, and wonder whether I'd be quite as forgiving if she was an old Anglo woman. Am I being suckered into the Romance of the Migrant Story? But there are also things I quite like about it, and I'm more than happy to explain why the letter she got from the govt is ok, and doesn't mean she's in trouble, to pick up things for her, to give her a glass of wine on the lounge. But I'm goign to ask some Italian speaking friends for some words to throw into the conversation, to try to explain why I need to be strong, resilient, positive, happy. I tried to ask her yesterday when she'd been most happy in her life, what made her happy, and she just said, "I no ounderstand", and I don't think it was just the language. A reminder, instead, about the different way lives are lived and understood.

Ooops, two minutes past 9, the guilt clock is ticking. Better go.

Your Daughter? That's My Worst Nightmare

If only I could write like Hilary Mantel - whose wrenching, angry, memoir Giving Up the Ghost made me laugh out loud, or snort and snuffle into the lounge to the surprise of both Abe and Clancy. Because she's intelligent, because she's a good researcher, because she's articulate, doctors spent a lot of time being surprised by her and, because it's the late 1960s and early 1970s, they pathologise her rigour and turn it into psychosis. One doctor tells her she's conscienscious, with a mind for detail, in a mildly accusatory way. She was studying law, and so goes on to say, "I tried to imagine the other kind of law student, the kind who favoured the broad-brush approach, who took on the law of trusts, for example, with a grand generalist's sweep and dash." Well, it made me laugh.

I also loved this, when being treated appallingly by dickhead lecturers at university, who couldn't see why a woman should be studying law at all: "Some people have forgetten, or never known, why we needed the feminist movement so badly. This was why: so that some talentless prat in a nylon shirt couldn't patronise you, while around you the spotty boys smirked and giggled, trying to worm into his favour . . . It was assumed that marriage was the beginning of a woman's affective life, and the end of her mental life." (pp 160-161) And goes on to describe how, in job interviews, you were grilled about marriage, intentions, when you were going to "start a family", by "some grizzled ringmaster, shifty and semi-embarrassed as he asked a girl half his age to tell him about her sex life and account for her next ovulation." But really, it's  one of the best descriptions of pain and illness and misdiagnosis I've ever read. I had thought that both Joan Didion and Susan Sontag, even David Rieff, talked about illness and hospitals and the medical system well but, really, Mantel takes the cake by describing this ostensibly sweet self who was raging and railing and almost screaming with frustration inside a body that was going out of control. But then again, maybe I only think that because I finished reading it in the last few days, so it has inhabited my imagination.

That, and Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin - vibrant, clever, convoluted, sad, utterly gripping. In some ways, a novel about grief (I wept through one entire chapter; then was buoyed up the hard edge and street rhythm of the next, which left me surprised at the left-over sniffling); in others it has the euphoric poetry of Philippe Pettit's tightrope walk between the Twin Towers balanced over everything, turning your eyes and the character's eyes up and up. Then some cringeworthy moments of race politics where you can hardly look at the page. Still, it helps to have seen the doco Man on Wire, about that tightrope walk, to give you Pettit's arrogance and his poetic hopes, given that he walks in and out of the novel. Must go and find some more words by McCann, because this Irish-American storytelling was really something.

And on the whole entertainment thing, I've also managed to see two films (ta-da) and start a few other novels. Saw Jane Campion's Bright Star which was so beautifully framed and gorgeous to look at, and wasn't Abby Cornish fabulous, sweetie? And the opening scene, full of laundry and washing lines, like elegant birds in the landscape, made it a very domesticated, women's film, without being a conventional Chick Flick (which is a dopey term, but hey). For a story about a relationship with a male poet, it was so covered in cloth and held together by handstitching, with views below stairs and in the kitchen, so that the work of capital-R romance was on display. No "Elven Grot" for Keats' rather more earthy Lady of Shallot, rather a house that had to be rented and walls that were a little thin. Given that nothing much happened, it still held me . . . and of course, wept through the last bit, and emerged from the cinema with mad hair and a red nose, in the middle of a hot sunny day, and had to slink down the street without a tissue, feeling rather tenderised.

And then saw Avatar in 3D (on the "now for something completely different" stakes). It was so completely and utterly "filmic": a huge spectacle, roaring over your head and leaping right into your face. And yes, some ooga-booga spirituality and none-too-subtle colonialism versus the pure indigenous hearts and minds. But what a beautifully imagined world, with lovely detail. Am still wondering, though, what to make of the soldier with a disability at the centre of it: there he is, being self-sufficient and capable, and seems to have enough ramps and access points to get around in; yes, we see him being discriminated against by some macho marine pratts, but he doesn't give a shit; and the promise is held out to him that, if he could afford it, he could get working legs back again. So, is this the future? And then there's the project he's working on, where he has a "conventional/ unconventional" body by inhabiting this alien avatar. He first disappears into this pod, this terrible claustrophobic space that keeps him still and make him terribly vulnerable (exposing both him, and a central plot problem; that, and what happens when his alien self is asleep. Lucky there weren't any little alien babies nearby or he would have been in big trouble for sleeping through). His broken/ disabled body is left behind; he stands up and walks and runs and exalts in the physicality of his new alien body, that can not only stand up, it can leap, almost fly. He's remembering old sensations. Get up out of your wheelchair, my child, and walk. What if he'd been a kid who never could walk, who had to learn afresh: would he have enjoyed it as much? Must the disabled body always be positioned as something that's "wrong", so that even living virtually, while isolated in a pod, where "at least" he can walk is better than living in a new way in his own body. With all that military technology, you'd think he could have a pretty fine chair. I really want to know what the properly thought through disability activists and theorists think of this one. I don't really know what to think. A few links here, including a man who says hey, we don't all necessarily long to be "fixed".

But here's the link back to a non-alien, non-green-and-scaley skinned ordinary life. What if the person in the wheelchair is imagined not as a person - or a child - but rather as the worst possible scenario, the "nightmare"?

We live next door to a very nice, very social, couple. Two women who talk and laugh loudly, and know how to throw a generous party, with a bottle of champagne or 50, and everyone invited. So just before Christmas, I wandered over, leaving Abe (who wasn't in the mood) at home with the babes. There were lots of people who I'd seen in the street but not properly met. Often glimpsed as we all head off to work, or wrestle stuff into cars, or chase dogs down the street, or do 85 point turns (me) in a very narrow street with bugger-all parking. A young couple were there, pregnant with their first child. Young Professionals, who I didn't find wildly interesting, but I threw back too many glasses of sharp cold white wine and became all wide-eyed and overly-enthusiastic about everything (sigh, must grow out of that). So we talked about the baby, and the guy said things about how they were having one who'd be all dressed in frills and pink, making me grind my teeth with irritation, but really - perfectly nice, all very bland and middle class, everyone well educated and had read the right books on pregnancy and health. I'm not into giving out unwanted advice, or pretending I know how to do things. I did say they should yell if feeling overwhelmed, just on the basis that the snot/ green baby shit/ weird behavious might be reassuringly familiar.

So we talked about pregnancy, and health, and labour, and I did say that yes, with Miz M, it was a healthy pregnancy, full term baby, no known problems, and yet yes the mysterious, severe, disability happened anyway, and here's our lovely girl, likely to never walk or sit, may or may not ever talk, will need us forever.

Disability.

"That's my worst nightmare", he said. I was a little bit pissed so didn't get at all offended or upset, and just did my usual, "Oh well, you just cope with what you cope with, don't you" routine. But really, my daughter is your worst nightmare? Full marks on the subtlety stakes, I say.

And it had been a week of it. Not long before that, Abe and I had actually managed An Event without children. We organised a babysitter, and went out to a Christmas drinks thing for Abe's work, full of medicos and scientists and heirarchies like I'm not at all used to. Standing around on a lovely verandah with a view over the city and (again) very nice wine, and met some interesting and not so interesting people. A fabulous young woman who was a paediatrician and very funny, who pointed out a very senior guy she worked with, and that she'd always thought he looked as though he should be wearing a puffy shirt and being one of the three musketeers. It was D'Artagnan at thirty paces from then on. A man who ran a branch of an airline, but clearly didn't read the papers, which was odd. And a woman who told me she was a physiotherapists before she retired, and worked with people with disabilities. "Physios are terrific," I said, startling her with my conviction. So I had to explain why, and told her about Miz M's work with therapists . . . and then, in another act of great subtlety, she told me how her children used to be mortified when she'd be out with them and she'd see a client and go to say hello. "Mum", her kids would say, "why do you always have to go talk to the people in wheelchairs with pasta stuck to their foreheads". Oh ho ho ho and Merry Christmas to you, too, good to see there's a laugh to be had there too . . .

Wheelchairs on TV - and other representational bits and pieces

I've spent years attuned to the way women and girls are represented in popular culture - decoding it and recoding it, approving or being outraged, reading and watching and responding. But like the freshly converted, am astonished at what  I'm seeing,  that I've found with this newly acquired quivering antena in relation to disability and popular culture. (Cut away to the eye rolling from people who've been thinking about this for decades - and yes, fair enough.) It's not that I was entirely clueless before, but the urgency increases when it's your girl who's one of the "crippled kiddies", whose image is most often seen in news stories about charity and "gratefuness", in subplots about pity, in asides about hardship, as shorthand for difficult lives, or in tabloid newscaff programs as a way to represent a split or problem or crisis in a relationship.

And then there's the "good" stuff.

I've learnt to whip my head around and pay attention when I notice a fluffy critter in a children's show who's propelling themselves along in a wheelchair. To wonder what Miz M will think when she's old enough to notice, that there's a song-and-dance routine in wheelchairs on Glee; to hope that the irreverance in Malcolm in the Middle might continue. To be pleased at the way the woman in the BBC show about the choir is an attractice, feisty, character with a platinum bob and a tendency to be hilariously blunt FIRST, and a Little Person second, that's in All the Small Things. Wondering if the new drama, Cast-Offs, on BBC 4 will make it to Oz, given that the six leads happen to have a disability, rather than it being about disability. To seek out children's books that deal with disability, like "Rolling Along with Goldilocks and the Three Bears", which is currently one-year-old Clancy's favourite. To talk to a friend whose a children's book author about whether and how disability might be inlcuded, withOUT a preachy, didactic, moralistic tone to the book. Finding a whole project about this in the UK, "putting disabled children in the picture", complete with illustrations ready to be used.

Discovering that there's a whole program on the BBC that uses Makaton signing and is not only about disability, but also acknowledges communication and developmental delay. Something Special.

Begin to seek out dancers and performers with a difference; to see their performances online.

Wonder what it means that Sam Worthington plays a soldier with a disability in Avatar. What exactly is going on that he then "escapes" his disability, and is re-embodied in a colonial type myth and a functioning, alien body? (Really have no idea what to think about that one, although it does make me remember a great blog I read from a woman who found the use of Wii-fit liberating, as it allowed her to "play" sport, to use her body's strength in ways she found fun and inclusive.) But cyborgs and avatars? Is that about embracing bodily difference, or wanting to "fix" it? I bet other people who actually know stuff have talked that one through, and I'm not just thinking Donna Haraway either.

And then am pulled up by realising how much I hadn't thought through, how complex the issues are, and that "representation" in and of itself may not be everything. Read an opinion piece arguing that actors with disabilities should be used to play characters with disabilities, written by the v interesting writer Lennard Davis. Although, as often happens in these debates, the vitriol behind some of the responses isn't that attractive.

So, it gets back to the old questions of what, and whether, and how, and controlled by whom, do images or stories "just like me" mean. Which, when I put it in such a convoluted way, doesn't look like anybody's "old question" at all. Hmmmm.

Hormones, uncertainty, work and friends

Blogging is like exercise - you stop, and then it's hard to get back into it properly. The intoxicating smell of sweat just smells like sweat. Can't find the hand-wraps. Don't want to write a whinge-post. It's too hot to get the heart rate up. Your observations seem lame. Every time you put on the t-shirt and cotton pants, a child wakes up and needs something. And. So. Boringly. On.

And like the warm-up stretches, the burn-out kicks and combinations you need to get started kickboxing, the blog begins with a warm-up series of apologies, excuses, guilt, and a quick one-two to your own head. Ah, the sporting analogy: I shoulda been a politician. Erk, no, the old "fit for office" crap of Howard-the-daily-walker, Abbott-in-his-cossies, Turnbull-skipping-with-his-wit or Rudd-stretching-his-piousness-to-the-limit makes me want to gag. Although the way they're all turning to religion is getting up my nose even more. Sure, watching the sectarian politics of the 1950s through the prism of history is interesting; hearing Sebastian Barry talking about the drama and tragedy of families divided by it in Ireland is utterly entrancing, although that could just be him; seeing the occasional Druid striding through the Parliament of Religions on the news is hilarious . . . but in a Prime Minister? Leader of the opposition? New Premier of NSW? Bugger off.

But, as it's the time of year when lipstick slides off your face and I find myself, mid conversation, distracted by the line of sweat moving down the back of my lef and dripping off my calf - then of course, I'm more than a little distracted by Christmas, logisitics, going to the Post Office, soaking fruit for Chrissie cakes, and by the enduring myth that things wind down at the end of the year. Instead, things ramp up. Deadlines loom. People I'm trying to line up for work become more and more elusive. And I try desparately hard not to be rattled by not knowing exactly what I'll be doing for work next year. Each week, for the last 6 weeks, I've had a conversation about how we've almost-sorta-kinda-nailed down the exact job. Can't complain, even, as I do have an ongoing position in a wildly interesting cultural organisation, surrounded by clever, sparky, opinionated, good people. But detail detail detail. And I've tried so damn hard to be flexible and accommodating and understanding and to proclaim to all and sundry that I'm Fine With That that I have, as usual, been in denial about the impact of uncertainty.

In other words, while making fruitcake, have been behaving, behind the scenes, like a bit of a fruitcake myself.

What Abe would call, in his gorgeously matter-of-fact medical manner, "emotionally labile".

Which is another reason to avoid blogging, because the world needs more whingers like it needs an unresolved, messy, disorganised, Climate Change Summit. Oh, that's right . . .

And on the subject of denial, I'm not prepared to blame feeling occasionally wobbly on my life. But I'm quite happy to blame hormones - while reserving the right to slag off biological determinists left, right, and centre. (Ah, the pleasure of contradiction.) But really, have been on the mini-pill for the last six months, and I never respond that well to fake hormones. I remember being on the capital-P pill when I was 18,19, 20 and it left me feeling all over the place. Not logically depressed, because let's face it there are logical reasons to be depressed, about everything from sexism and inequality to being broken hearted or whatever. And then there are the times it feels bit unhinged and cwazy. And I'm not prepared to be depressed about having a daughter with a disability because really and truly and ruly I don't find that depressing. Oh ok, I do get a little wistful and pissed off in children's playgrounds when there's nothing she can play on, when inclusiveness seems deliberately mitigated against, when the social-medical-financial-cultural systems seem so damn unhelpful, but on a personal level? Nuh. So, time to rethink the whole contraception thing.

Might be time to "get me tubes tied", which instantly catapults me into childhood, overhearing mysterious conversations between mum and her friends. Mum was in her early-mid-40s, just like me, when she went to the family doctor to talk about getting her tubes tied. Unlike me, at exactly the same age she already had seven children. Seven. Did I say seven? More than six but less than eight. More than my two, that's for sure. I was one of the Small Fry, as we were called, the babies. So the doctor looked at her and said, "Mother, but you're a young woman!" Did I say seven? Bloody hell.

(And yes, I know vasectomy is another good option, but poor Abe has been both done and undone, so his Bits deserve a break.)

And when you're 17, 25, 32, and you're obsessed with not getting pregnant; then you're 40, and obsessed with getting pregnant, it can seem endless. This thinking about ovulation. Conception. Terminations. Pregnancy.

Which leads me, of course, to my usual thinking too much into the future. Thinking about my girl, and her life, and her future, and what her relationship to her own body will be. What autonomy she'll have. I was listening just this week to a terribly moving radio doco about disability and sexuality. About the need and pleasure in being touched. And of course, I don't want to be weird about this, as Morgaine isn't even three, and I'm not launching into sexualising her, but they are big, important, issues. She's a very affectionate, physical wee girl. This morning, I popped her into our bed, and she loved the feel of the sheets and being in a different space. She kicked her legs and wiggled on her back. She rolled over to look me in the face. I traced my finger down her nose and across her jawline, which made her giggle like mad. At this age, as a child, she can easily get all the affection and physical warmth she likes. What happens when she's an adult? How long will we still be around to easily hold her hand and let her stroke our arms as we talk to her?

Because in my darker moments, I worry about her vulnerability. Of course. That's the thing about her condition. She has - and I was just reading one of the supporting documents we have - "severe weakness from birth". She will "require ongoing hands on support for all activities of daily life" forever. Which means she can accept your help, but she can't tell you to go away. When Clancy sinks his teeth into her soft buttery skin, as he's taken to lately, she can't push him away or make him stop. She can make a noise, but she can't make that all important sound, that feminist tool, that intervention, that statement of self: she can't say, "No!"

Will she ever be able to? That's what we have to work on. Communication, if not speech. And after trying and absorbing the Hanen Method, thinking about (but not properly applying) Makaton, we're now moving intoa picture recognition system, that will require a lot of intensive work. Of course, it's likely that what will work will be a combination of all these things.

And my hope rises, yet again, as I hear M making different types of sounds. They're Almost Consonents. This is a new category of sound I'd never been attuned to before, the Almost Consonent. Gradations. Her vowels are well and truly there, but the mouth control that goes into consonents are lacking. And so I hear what could almost-kinda-maybe be an M. A glotal stop that could be moving towards a G. Well, at least we're not native speakers of the Click Language. (I really did meet someone once, who spoke that language. She was here for a conference on rivers and land and the meaning of place - or was it of deserts or mountains? - and she explained her conneciton to that place in her own language, before translating it for us. Magic. One of those moments when a person speaks with their face and whole body.)

And oddly, there are no sounds but the whirr of a fan; the ka-thunk of building work next door; and that endless nagging of crows. Because Clancy decided to fall asleep just as I had managed to get all the Christmas presents bundled up and ready to post off; and M's respite carer is here, and has exhausted her with some four-point-kneeling over a footstool (which, given the effort she has to make to raise her head even a little bit, even when you're holding her forehead, is fair enough). So my biggest complaint of the last 2 months has been answered (can I not get two-and-a-half-minutes of uninterrupted time to do something, anything??)

And meanwhile, in the last very little while, an email came in confirming what I'd be doing next year. It means a change of focus, and bigger ideas, sustained ideas, meatier research. Which is great, but I need that reflective space to find and pursue and pitch some of those ideas. All at two-and-a-half-days per week. Time to turn into Eddie from Absolutely Fabulous: Ideas ideas ideas, sweeetie! Ooooh, look, Bolly.

And so, with the bubbles, the attention returns to Christmas. Which, as an atheist, is a completely family-and-friends celebration thing for me, which I do enjoy. I don't mind creating our own rituals, either, even if they are secular. Hell, especially if they're secular. But part of that tradition, for me, is noise and chaos, endless cooking, and going to the beach in the afternoon. Lots of sisters and neices and nephews. But this year, for the first time ever, it's "just us". Helllooooooo Nuclear Family, oh where did your picket fence go, et cetera. Which is a little disconcerting. So I'm trying to remember all the things that exasperate me about a noisy, chaotic, huge, messy Christmas, as there's no excuse not to do the things that just don't work with a huge gathering of coeliacs and vegetarians and 14 year olds and 9 yr olds and 50 year old brother in law who tells the same stories every single year. So I dream of elegant, funky, warm, delicious, relaxing, energising, fun, memorable (ie completely impossible) days of wine and roses. Huh!

But at least I've baked a damn Christmas cake. Gluten free and soaked in brandy. A ring of almonds on top that isn't too wonky.

The ritually flustered and stressful visit to the post office, of course, has yet to happen.