Tigers Don't Cry

The Patient 

Years ago I went to a Chinese masseur in Joburg. As usual my back was a washboard of knots and it was  painful. As I cowered on the table the masseur said briskly to me  "Tigers Don't Cry" (my Chinese birth year) and it has sort of become my mantra since. I quite like the idea of being a tiger.

Tigers can however get a bit bored in bed especially when it's been almost a month. For the first two weeks I wasn't up to much as I was so ill,  but now that I'm slowly getting better I'm looking at ways to stay sane and productive, whilst remaining reclined.

Unfortunately my attention span is shot along with my central nervous system so I can only do things in small bite-sized chunks. I've watched vast amounts of daytime TV and read so much Daily Beast and Mail Online that I'm starting to think in the same ADDT kind of way (10 Reasons Why You Should Never Get Sick).

I know full well that this is dumbed-down schlebby journalism, but what the hell - it's about my level at the moment, so here are my '5 Ways To Remain Sane Whilst Recovering from GBS' which may come in handy one day, you never know:

Make sure you are well looked after

1. Pick the Right Medical Team

I have four gorgeous boys looking after me. I would have had to have been at deaths door to have gone to hospital and being at home amongst my own things and family has been my secret recovery weapon. Tyler gets to play Doctor Doctor too.

2. Get a VPN

We have a virtual private network account (with My Expat Network.Com) and we have downloaded the BBC iPlayer which means we can stream 'real' BBC all day long and watch as much Master Chef and Graham Norton as we like.

3. Start Pinning

Pinterest has to be the Platinum Award-winning Vaporizer of All-Time as well as a really sad way to live vicariously. Since I've needed to do both lately, I've indulged my vice with alacrity and have reinvented my wardrobes as well as designed and furnished new houses around the world and planned enough dinner parties to last us into the next millennium. Handy.

4. Write a book. In fact write three

I cannot make up my mind which one to start first, so I'm writing all three together. I am a tiger after all. So there's 'Family Food' the cookery book, 'The Bucket List' which is my Chic Lit potboiler which is going to make us our millions and an autobiography called "Baking in the Tropics". I hope to finish all three by Christmas. Ha ha. Anyone know any publishers?

5. Being Happy

Recuperation Chic

I've had a lot of time to think. Priorities have become priorities again. Therefore I've worked out that just about the only things we can control in life are (1) ones weight - so I'm going on a diet (2) fitness levels - so I'm taking up Pilates, Yoga, Running and now that I've seen that underwater iPods are available, swimming

Clearly recovery is also linked to emotional well-being and  I'm feeling strangely calm and quite happy really. I suspect it's all the rest.

I'd be even happier though if I could have a bed-jacket made out of pale pink ostrich feathers and some satin slippers.

A Teenager plus Zombie vs Anaconda

James, our eldest child has turned 13 today. He was the most beautiful baby (and I know we all say that, but he really was) but he also had ghastly colic and used to scream relentlessly between 2 and 4am every morning. Nothing would calm him down and so to prevent infanticide Tyler used to stick him in the car and drive round and round the block until he eventually fell asleep. 

Things have improved a bit since then and he's turned out to be a fine young man. He's an innate gentleman with a gentle sense of humour, but he's also fiercely competitive with a steely determination which will take him far. We're very proud of him.  

It's Easter weekend. We'll have a braai/barbecue tonight for James, some paschal lamb at some stage tomorrow and hopefully some warm sea and fun on Monday. We all need some lightness and air at the moment. It's been a tough few weeks.

I still remember the Christmas cards my mother used to order from the Foot & Mouth Artists every year. The inscriptions which accompanied the slightly garish paintings of poinsettia’s and nativity scenes always fascinated me as I marveled at how people had the fortitude to paint with their mouths and feet. My mother also never failed to remind me  'There By the Grace of God' and I always had a slight chill as I imagined it to be my worst nightmare.

So here I am with Guillain Barre Syndrome.  The acid test this week, to prevent the $24,000 (yes I havn't got a zero wrong) iv IG treatment, was whether I could walk across a room unassisted. I managed although I did look like a drunken Charlie Chaplin, thus saving the children's future school fees and putting me at the lower end of the GBS spectrum. 

I'm now into the first phase of recovery (hopefully) which is characterized by less pain but greater fatigue, as the body starts to repair the destroyed myelin sheaves around the nerve ends. I've basically spent most of the week either sleeping or navigating staircases, but have also enjoyed a good Jack Reacher novel and lots more Masterchef and Great British Menu. 

The medication I've been on is so strong that I've honestly felt like a Zombie wading through fog. I quietly stopped taking the Pregabilin to see what happened and after about 6 hours I felt like a big, fat Anaconda was slowly wrapping itself around my body and squeezing the hell out of me. Must have slithered up somewhere through the mists (POSTSCRIPT: The numbness had extended to my diaphragm after I started taking the painkillers, so I hadn't experienced it yet). However, apart from the Anaconda, the pain has receded dramatically - which is such a relief. The choice therefore of Zombie vs Anaconda is a no contest. Give me Anaconda anyday. The drugs have been chucked.

Since this is all going to take a rather long and tedious time to recover, I might as well embrace it all and order myself a chic walking stick for my upcoming birthday and start writing that book I've been thinking so long about. I'm also dabbling in expanding our website into more of an island foodie blog too, as well as starting the planning for our Christmas bakery and our upcoming Trans-Atlantic lives, leaving very little time to feel sorry for myself.

Plus we now have a teenager to contend with too.

Curved ball

I'm sitting here in bed two weeks after I wrote my last blog. In that short space of time, a lot has happened.

I'd already noticed that I had a numbness in my feet and hands even before the boys went away, which got progressively worse as the week wore on. I also noticed that I seemed to be walking peculiarly and every bone in my body ached, which frankly is no longer that unusual. 

The only thing that seemed to help the pain was to lie in a very hot bath, and so I spent 7 nights sleeping in the bath as I struggled to keep going with the bakery. By Thursday I had to concede that something was very wrong  and 'Googled' all my symptoms. I could immediately see that whatever I had was neurological, which in itself is pretty scary. By this stage the pain was phosphorescent and the numbness had become all encompassing and I was struggling to walk or lift my arms. Poor William the 8 year old, who was fortunately on holiday, was helping me up and down the stairs and doing all the cooking and Cessie the Wonder Woman was keeping me and the house going.

William and I snuggled up on the sofa and watched more television in those 3 days whilst we waited for the boys to come back, than we've done in the past 3 years. Thank goodness for our BBC iPlayer. I do think it kept me this side of sane, as my body burned up, turned to jelly and stopped moving. 

Long story short, after various trips to St Thomas, spinal taps and pints of blood removed - I've been diagnosed with Guillain - Barre Syndrome (GBS) which is a fairly rare autoimmune disorder in which the body's immune system attacks the peripheral nervous system. It certainly ain't a picnic, but it's curable and I start IV immoglobulin treatment next week. I'm already through the worst of it and plateauing out now, but recovery is a long process (months) and I'm left pretty weak and unable to walk unassisted although I'm getting quite good with a stick already. 

It's obviously a set-back but also life changing in a positive way, as I've been ordered to have 100% rest. "What's that?' I asked myself and nearly had to 'Google' that too.

Thing is that now that the pain is being managed with some Schedule A opiates and we have some sense of where we are going with this, I intend to make the most of all this mandatory rest. There's a lot I can do from our beautiful home here in Carrot Bay and I will slowly start picking up on my bakery work as I begin to feel stronger and get a bit more movement back. 

What a thing, eh?

Home Alone

Michaelhouse School, KwaZulu Natal - Orientation Weekend

It's been a pretty hard core week with the boys off-island, but after watching this video this morning (made by Michaelhouse boys for the new boys ) which required a second cup of coffee and a box of tissues, I felt like I could work 20 hour days or whatever it takes. I'm going to get me a bakery 'war cry' I think, to get me through the days ahead. William can be cheerleader.

I traveled a lot during my working career, usually at least half the month was spent away. My old colleagues still update their Facebook pages with statuses like"JFK-CDG" or "Beijing. Nairobi. Dubai. Home" etc. So this is a first for me, the one that stays behind.

The good part is that the house is spotless, but that's about it.

Tyler is still away for another week visiting family and stocking up on Easter eggs.

Next Week

Boys en route. Ferry Dock, Monday morning. 

I'm writing this on a Saturday evening. I usually write on a Sunday morning, but tomorrow we are spending the day packing to send off Tyler, James & Georgie back to South Africa, where the boys are undergoing assessments and orientation for their new schools.

William and I get to stay behind on the island to run the bakery for two weeks.

When you live on an island, even a semi-suburban one such as ours,  lists from the 'real world' ("off-island" as we say) can strike terror into the hearts of over- scheduled mothers such as I. "Bring sports equipment" says the list "such as cricket bats, hockey sticks etc". We don't have things like this. "Bring sleeping bags, pyjamas and slippers" the list continues. We don't have these either. "Bring costumes, towels and sunscreen". Phew - we have those, thank goodness.

Despite being a Girly-Girl, for some reason I have a deep love of reading about adventures and heroes. I'm a Everest Anorak, for example. Everyone rolls their eyes every time there is any documentary about climbers as I have to get out my National Geographic map of the mountains and follow it all - crevasse by crevasse. I've read every book there is about the South Pole and North Pole and every other adventure there is to be had. Tonight, serendipitously we watched the Bridge over the River Kwai - Top Gear style. I do love it all quite vicariously.

So I have every understanding that I'm sending my boys off on a big adventure. The boys are very excited and looking forward to it it too. My brain is crystal clear that this is the best thing to do but my heart is splintering  into a million shards at the thought of it all.

A Tale of Two Vans

Photo on the right is an iconic Tumblr/Pinterest favourite of Les Petit Francois Boulangerie. So cute. Photo on the left is a baker on a small island who has just had to stuff 1500 pounds of flour into a very small  Suzuki because his truck has broken down and it is still not fixed after 4 very long weeks.  So cute. Not.

I'm still working in the bakery shop. I still have not really got any better at it. William was home for the week with a viral flu. He literally does not stop chirriping away for one second, so when I was trying to catch up on the accounts in the 5 minutes of down time we had during the day, he was busy reading me sections out of his little book that he found hilarious and I did not. Poor little thing got shouted at quite a bit. It was a long week but we got through it. The flour arrived. We even got to dress up for a glam 50th Birthday party and I managed to find some sparkly high-heeled shoes. The bakery was also gratifyingly busy.

We did however have a few ominously hot days to remind us that 'Le Brutal Ete' is just around the corner.

I bet you Le Petit Boulanger-person on the right also had a grumpy wife with sick kids stuck up in a garret in the 6th Arrondisement also carping on to her ami's about the stupid van and her swollen feet at the end of the day and the price of packaging.

Any chance photo of the baker's van on the left going viral on Pinterest?

Whoosh. That was the week

Empty Bakery, Saturday 8 March at 2;30pm

It's been a very long, short week, mainly because I've been working in the shop and those of you who know me well, will agree that I'm much better behind a computer than behind the counter. My skills lie elsewhere, as they say.

On Saturday's we're busy from 6:30am onwards as desperado jetlagged visitors wander around looking for coffee. No amount of politely pointing out that we only open at 8am makes the slightest bit of difference -especially when the smell of freshly-baked bread and sizzling bacon is overwhelming. So it's a short,sharp start and a rollercoaster ride until Noon, with mayham peaking around 11am.

Yesterday had us hopping as we were crazy-slammed. Our little shop is tiny and gets  packed with more than about four people in it. The kitchen is also right there, as in swanky restaurants, but without the glass wall to prevent the customers from hearing the chef swear at the commis or seeing the choc chip cookies being burnt.

I have to tread carefully here, because as you know half the island reads this blog and some are our customers too, but sometimes it can feel a bit like 'Till TV' as we play out a fraught scene, quite normal for peak service anywhere, right in front of an audience of bemused customers. I suspect that I may provide the most amount of entertainment too.

The most frequent question asked in the One Pound shops apparently is "howmuch does this cost?" Our most frequent question in the bakery, with the bread constantly coming out of the oven in front of everyone, seems to be  "is your bread fresh?"  I  point out the oven and explain that everything is done everyday from scratch. For some reason many people don't seem to believe this, so they switch attack and ask "what is the hottest thing you have?" This can felicitate a slightly snappy answer from me as I windmill my arms around the bakery saying, through gritted teeth, that " It's all Fresh. Hot out of the Oven. Today".  Yesterday I had someone refuse to wait for the couple of minutes for the kettle to boil  for tea as she wanted it immediately ("you mean it's not like coffee?"No, it's tea". "Oh forget it then, just gimme a muffin") but my absolute favourite is the 'Protracted Phone Call" :

In the midst of a packed and fully stocked shop with a gazillion things going on, queues backed up to Locker 5, orders being shouted, fans whirring, AC blasting and Tony's iPod squaking out gangsta reggae the phone rings (as it does non-stop):

Customer: "Ur, do you have any, ur, like bread?"
Me: (a tad brittle) Yes, we're a bakery. We have lots of bread"
Customer: "Ur, like what kind of bread?"
Me: (whilst trying to wrangle a large foccacia into a small bag, ring up the till, check the order book, wave  hello to someone and frantically catch Tyler's attention) "All kinds - multigrain loaves, sourdoughs, foccacias etc. Why don't you pop into the bakery and have a look "
Customer: "Ur, like are they like ur, sliced?"
Me (notably irritated) "We can slice most of the breads for you, no problem"
Customer: "Can you tell me the list of breads again"
Me: (becoming sharp now) "We're very busy at the moment, so can I call you back or can you come into the bakery maybe?"
Customer (taking offense) "Ok, don't worry, I was just, like, trying to see what you like, got." Puts phone down. Score zero for customer relations. Sigh.

Even banking is preferable, to me I must be honest.  Don't get me wrong, I think front-of-house is an incredibly important job, which requires grace and oodles of patience, which I clearly don't have. Anyway luckily I'm just a Temp, so we'll soon be back to normal.

It's another long weekend but this time with a few sick children and quite a bit of bakery work to catch up on  (due to above). We've got in the essential supplies (wine, chocolate, DVD's) and I hope not to leave our beautiful compound until Tuesday morning or if sick children recover sufficiently, we may adventure out to go zip-lining on Monday.

Our first direct shipment of stuff should be arriving on Wednesday which is a  game changer for us. Now we just need to fix two cars and one truck, pay a few bills, get 3 boys to SA in 3 weeks time, buy a house and start sorting out Christmas. All do-able.