Life was going grand, and then I must have got too complacent? Too happy?
My brother lost his sight very suddenly in one eye just over a week ago. He was sent to hospital straight from A&E. And so we waited, fearing the worst. A scan quickly revealed there weren’t any tumours present. We breathed a sigh of relief but more tests needed to be done. Matt overhead one of the surgeons suggesting he be tested for optical neuritis.
As is the deal with the modern age, Jo and I were straight onto Google searching for descriptions of this condition. We didn’t like what we saw. We bypassed Wikipedia and the blogs and chat rooms and went straight for the medical articles. These didn’t allay our fears.
We stopped ourselves from looking any further and told each other to lighten up. This was ridiculous. He wasn’t even diagnosed with optical neuritis and here we were scaring ourselves silly about what conditions can cause optical neuritis.
We kept our discoveries to ourselves and waited. Matt’s MRI was late Thursday afternoon.
My phone rang after 6 while I was out walking the dogs. Aaron answered. I returned to the house and that which Jo and I had feared had become reality.
The family gathered in the hospital with Matt, each dealing with the shock of the diagnosis.
I stood at the kitchen bench and cried. Why Matt? Why my brother? And selfishly I wondered why my family has to deal with this and not some other family.
And then I did the one thing I could do, got on the Internet and start researching. What the hell was Multiple Sclerosis and what did it mean for Matt, for Bron, for the family?
It’s not a death sentence but it is a life sentence. It has the potential to be a series of minor inconveniences or a lifetime of frustration and pain. There is no diagnosing which of the 4 types of MS Matt will end up with. There is no cure. Matt’s life is now a wait and see game. He can either let this knowledge swallow him up and drag him down or he can just get on with it and face whatever life has to throw at him when the time comes.
I don’t actually know what type of person Matt is. Is he the former or the latter? I know I am the former.
I lay awake all Thursday night thinking about it. I arrived at work Friday and did nothing but scour the Internet for information. I could feel myself bobbing along on emotional waves as I read the good and the bad.
Calls bounced back and forth between myself and mum and Jo and by lunchtime I was an emotional wreck. I debated whether to travel to Auckland or not. What was the point? I could offer nothing, and did Matt really want the family hanging around while he himself came to terms with the diagnosis? If it was me I’d want space and time to digest. I went home and stayed there.
After 3 days of steroids Matt regained most of his sight. It was a fast recovery. A Friday meeting with the neurologist confirmed he is at the very early stages of the condition and he sent Matt away feeling reasonably positive.
Matt and Bron’s initial decision has been to just get on with life and not dwell on what might be. It’s a good decision to make. After all, he’s in top health with plenty of good things to look forward to.
And I have quickly learnt that MS is a very common condition. People I know have it and other people I know have family members with it. In a strange way this helps.
And bizarrely enough it’s brought back flashbacks of memory from my days at Northcote College, when we were bussed off to different parts of Auckland to sell Four Leaf Clover tickets to raise funds for the Multiple Sclerosis Society.
And the song came back into my head “Turn a new leaf over and buy a four leaf clover”. And I remember thinking at the time how much I hated being made to stand outside a shop trying to make people buy a lucky ticket. I had no idea what MS was, it didn’t affect me or anyone I knew. I recall seeing a picture of a person in a wheelchair and feeling absolutely no connection to the cause. I begrudged having to sell them and felt embarrassed at the thought of conning people out of money for what would no doubt inevitably be a non-winning ticket.
As a young teenager with wildly swinging hormones and moods I had enough of my own problems to contend with.
And so 25 years later I now find myself grateful that there were others at the time that cared more than I.
Something To Celebrate
It was Aaron’s birthday on Saturday and instead of swapping presents we go out to dinner. Aaron had suggested just going to the local pizza restaurant in Kaiwaka. It’s nothing flash but it’s close to home so I agreed. Aaron rang Marty and asked if he wanted to join us. He said yes.
Saturday evening we got ready and Marty turned up at the door with Amy and Russell. It was a pleasant surprise. Suddenly it was more like a party than just a dinner out.
The dinner was good, the company great and Russell very kindly and quite unexpectedly paid for dinner.
We went back to ours and while everyone stayed up until some time after 2am I went to bed early so I could get up and feed out.
You Are What You Eat
While out at dinner on Saturday Marty asked us if we wanted to go to Matakana with him and Amy on Sunday. Marty had farming mates entering the ‘Shear a sheep, eat a pie, down a pint’ challenge and after that they were going to the movies to see a documentary film called ‘Food Inc’.
And so the animals all got dinner at lunchtime and then the 4 of us headed into Matakana. We grabbed lunch from the local bakery, went across the road to the pub to watch some sheep shearing and then went to the movies.
I almost choked at the $15 admission fee but what the hell, we never go to the movies and we hadn’t paid for dinner.
The Matakana movie theatre is very cool. It’s very cosy, with big armchairs and a very warm, relaxed ambience. Who knows, we may just go again some day.
The movie started and for the next 2 hours we were continually shocked, horrified, sickened and completely riveted. All 4 of us came out of the theatre looking slightly tortured.
Aaron and I had considered ourselves fairly clued up consumers but our appalling ignorance was now only too obvious. I was too scared to look in the pantry when I got home. Aaron and I talked about the movie and our food choices. I tossed and turned all night as I thought about how much I was going to have to change, not only as a consumer but also as the grocery buyer of the household.
Suddenly it was no longer just about money and trying to eat healthy but now I had to consider ethics, sustainability, genetic modification, organics, and both animal and human welfare. I felt both enlightened and overwhelmed.
Monday I looked in the pantry and started reading labels. I was mentally compiling a list of don’t buys and it was getting beyond a joke.
This is where it gets tricky. I have to make a decision as to which category each item of food should fall under.
Meat we’ve got sussed. It’s free range and happy or not at all.
Fruit and veg is also easy, if it’s not NZ grown I’m not buying it and if we grow it ourselves it’s organically raised.
Fast food is easy. At the moment it might be once or twice a year and now it’s never.
Fish – it has to be wild and sustainable
Cereals – no genetic modification and only grains grown in NZ or Australia
Hot drinks – organic, fair trade
Baking products – flour, sugar, fruit, nuts and seeds – I can’t get my head around this one. I don’t buy ready made baked goods but I do lots of baking. Organics is a great idea but I’m not yet sure we can sustain the cost.
Dairy – We’ll cut back even more but let’s face it, Aaron works at a cheese factory, cutting out cheese isn’t going to happen. I’m not convinced cheese is all that bad anyway. It’s milk, yoghurt, and cream related products that worry me. I know they’re full of antibiotics. I’ve already cut back majorly on them in the last few years but I think I need to be far more disciplined now. It’ll have to be a treat and it’ll have to be organic.
Soy – My beloved soy milk and soy related products are on the hit list. The product itself doesn’t need to be organic but the soy beans must be non-gm and organic.
Bread, Pasta and Rice – Well it has to be organic really but it isn’t going to happen overnight. We’re big consumers of all 3 so I’m going to have to convert in stages as finance and access allows.
Cleaning Products – Easy! We had to convert to eco-friendly anyway as soon as we moved to the country
Cosmetics – I’ve been thinking about this one for a while. I just need to find a good local, natural brand and make the change
Wednesday I went to the supermarket with some fear and trepidation. It wasn’t without basis.
Although I was pleasantly surprised at how many items are now on the shelf which fit my shopping criteria, I also spent an extra hour reading every label until quite frankly all the words became a blur. I got to the tinned tomatoes and couldn’t find the country of origin on any of them. What to do? What to do? I grabbed 3 tins that looked like they’d be safe. Of course as soon as I got home Aaron read the label, and there, very clearly it read Product of the US. Ahhhhhh!
So my 90 minute trip around the supermarket yielded only ½ a trolley load, a pounding headache and the realisation that until I compile a list of “safe” products supermarket shopping is going to be a mission.
