Things to Be Grateful For

Julie has become very literal: it has always been something I was aware of, but it has become a lot more marked recently. This week she became very agitated to find me in the midst of feeding the cake for Christmas - because this operation does not, for sure, involve any actual food!  She was sure I had got it wrong: feeding is not mentioned in the recipe I used to bake the cake.  I tried in vain to explain that the recipe I use does not mention feeding the cake because it happens to be one I picked up from our village Methodist chapel. Besides which, feeding the cake is a tradition that does not need writing down in a recipe: it is a part of our European culture, steeped as it is in as much alcohol as my cake will be! It is a deeply satisfying ritual; I am not a great drinker of alcohol, but I do enjoy feeding the cake, just as my grandmother did, savouring its increasingly rich and complex smell, a promise of Christmas to come. But I did forget to put a five penny piece in the mix before I baked it, which I am sorry about, though it will probably save someone a broken tooth.

Since it is Thanksgiving in America, I thought I might compile a list of things for which I felt grateful this week. It hasn't been an easy week, but here are the things that really helped.

Warning: there may be self-harm triggers in what follows.

1.  Although she cut herself badly on the leg again on Monday, Julie did ask for my help afterwards. I wish she could ask for help before she resorts to cutting so that we could avoid going through that, but at least she does ask for help afterwards.  It would be much harder if she refused help or tried to hide her injuries. I am glad that we have a good enough relationship that we can get through the whole circus of cleaning up after the self-harm and then the trip to accident and emergency without ever having so much as a cross word between us.
2. Thank goodness for modern dressings and Steri-strips, which can be bought at any chemist and allow even someone like me, without any medical training, to close up a wound sufficiently to allow us to get to hospital in one piece without too much mess. And of course not to forget modern washing machines which make short shift of cleaning cloths and towels, the odd soaked sock or a pair of trousers, quietly and efficiently while I get on with the trip to hospital.
3.  I am hugely grateful for the skill and patience of the staff at accident and emergency. It is not an easy environment to work in, but this week our doctor was incredibly reassuring, gentle and professional. And he could multi-task: cheerfully suturing the wound while we swapped notes on the characters in the Big Bang Theory (to distract Julie who was a little distressed).
4. Thank goodness it is still only soft tissue, and that she has not (yet) damaged tendons or nerves or hit an artery. It will scar, said the doctor ruefully, but there are so many scars now that we will lose no sleep over another.
5. Modern food technology, packaging and distribution means that with just ten minutes to spare I can run down to the shop at the front of the hospital and be confident that I can bring back a lunch for Julie and me that is healthy, familiar and palatable.
6. And how would I manage without modern communications? From my mobile phone, I can leave messages to cancel all my appointments for the day, warn the school not to expect Julie, let Joe know what is happening, and check on Julie's brother, Duncan, when he gets home from school. (The fact that I have to stand outside the door of the hospital, waving my phone in the air to get a signal, is a relatively minor indignity!). With my tablet I have my newspaper, several magazines and a book to read in the waiting room, plus as many games as Julie and I need to while away the hours.
7. The bonds that have slowly built up between Julie and the staff at the specialist unit where she is (sometimes) a day-patient mean that she can talk over an incident like this with someone she knows and trusts. To my relief, this week they had spare capacity and were happy to take her in straight after she had been patched up at accident and emergency; they sent me home while they talked to her, and they phoned me later to discuss the situation and arrange for her transport home again. It gave me a much-needed few hours to spend with Duncan, and began the process of turning round the crisis. Someone even kindly helped Julie wash her hair and tidy herself up. But perhaps the thing I am most grateful for was that they made no attempt to keep her in once she had made it clear that she wanted to go home at the end of the day. This is markedly different from last year when any self-harm incident was likely to lead to her being held in the unit for another week or month, starting off a whole cycle of disruption, chaos and alienation all over again.
8. I can never thank my boss enough for his support for me working from home and his unflappable acceptance when I have to bail out without a moment's warning. This week we had just begun a work meeting when Julie yelled out from the bathroom for help, and I had to leave the call immediately. If I could not work at home, and I could not be there when she needed help, it would be impossible for me to carry on in paid employment. (Sadly, being British, it is quite impossible for me to thank my boss in person without both of us dying from embarrassment!)
9. Joe has been wonderful, collecting Julie from the unit later on the same day, picking up the shopping, running Duncan to scouts. This time he has been so much more restrained, not as emotional about the disruption and the injury in front of Julie. I knew she was really afraid of how he would react, and it was such a relief to see that the two of them remained relaxed and carried on talking to one another afterwards as if nothing much had happened. It gives Julie the signal she needs that we can move on from this and that the world does not end.
10. There are small glimmers of hope: I heard her laugh at something on TV the other day.  Even the worst moments do pass eventually.