Epilepsy - I shouldn't care but I do!

As far as most things go The Boy just gets on and does them. There has never been a need to keep a special eye on things. Just a general awareness helps, for you never know when he's going to have a "Blank" as we call them. A moment when he is just not there.

However, as he gets older there are some things that we cannot be blase about and one of them is contact sports. Up until now it's not really been a problem apart from the time he whacked a friend in the mouth with his hockey stick and broke said friend's tooth in half. However, looking at them all galivanting on the pitch the other day, I'd say that  it wouldn't be unusual for any of them to do that sort of thing. I put it down to "could have hapened to anyone" rather than blaming it on The Boy's Absence Seizures.

Now  there is a problem for next term he's going to start playing Rugby. I like Rugby, it's a great game but for a 7 year old to be playing it as a contact sport rather than doing the Tag or Touch versions, they and their teachers will really need to be on the ball.

I have visions of the poor little mite having a blank in the middle of the game and stopping effectively becoming a static target for all and sundry to leap upon; it's not a pretty image but one that could so easily happen for it already does on the Hockey pitch. However on the hockey pitch the most that happens is he loses the ball but on the Rugby field - well, I've already said. 

So decisions have been made and he won't be playing Rugby next term. And although he seems fine with it I am not. I hate the idea that he suddenly can't do something because his epilepsy has yet to be controlled. And I am so cross that it is taking so long to sort him out. He has never been able to rid himself of the seizures, not one day goes by when he can concentrate properly. I am amazed at how well he copes and how it seems to affect him so little in himself but I know it is holding him back in school work, playing with friends and now on the sports field. I want him to be rid of it, I want him to have all the opportunites open to him, it's such a little thing isn't it. I mean it's not the end of the world if he doesn't play Rugby...

My mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun…a St Valentine's Eve lament

My mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun...Well, at least that’s what I think he thinks. To be honest I wouldn’t have a clue he’s not one for romantic eloquence. The best I get is a grunt, when prompted, which I like to think means: “That’s nice Darling!”

He forgot my Birthday last year, actually I didn’t remind him, perhaps that was a bit masochistic of me as I know he’s not that good on dates unless it’s for things like the Six Nations.

But it’s not as if he doesn’t buy me things, I am very lucky. He has bought me little bon motes over the years when prompted or when I say he has. It’s got to the stage when on Christmas Day I exclaim over a beautiful cashmere scarf: “Darling how wonderful just what I always wanted!” You should have seen his face it was a picture as he’d never seen the aforementioned scarf in his life but knowing he’s sort of forgotten he had to pretend he had – Mum and my sister think he has exquisite taste.

And as for Valentines Day? Well I don’t hold my breath -although this year owing to the fact that I let him forget my Birthday I am not feeling Laissez faire about the whole thing.

Actually in normal circumstances I feel the St Valentine’s Day thing is a bit of a rip off.

However, he DID forget my birthday…

So ever since they started the M&S St Valentine’s Day Eat in for £20 that’s what I’ve been nudging him to do and I only mentioned my Birthday once.

Of course in true husband/wife form I can’t actually tell him outright can I?

“Darling I want to you to take me out/make me supper on Valentine’s Day.”

That would be letting the side down I think. I need him to feel well bewildered, slightly uneasy. I need to see him actually using his brains trying to work out what has got into me, his normally perfectly unprepossessing wife.

The slight unbalance in his usually straightforward life will do him the world of good. It might even make him actually pay attention – to ME!

Because come on that’s all I really want just a little bit of attention, a little bit of thought. I don’t want a great deal really…

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun (Sonnet 130)

By William Shakespeare

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
     And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
     As any she belied with false compare.

Picture shows: Jamie Roberts (Wales) fighting off the Scots in the Wales vs Scotland RBS 6 Nations Rugby match on Saturday 13th February. It was a Welsh Victory (31-24)