knives, chocolate cake and the zombie apocalypse.

There's a knife in my kitchen that scares me. I never use it and if I accidentally grab it out of the knife block, I very slowly and carefully place it back in it's spot and then take a deep breath. It's got teeth on it like a crosscut saw that are razor sharp and is easily a foot long. I've only used it twice and both times I almost severed a finger. It was a bloodbath. It came as part of a knife set and according to the information book it's supposedly a bread knife.

A BREAD knife!?!

All I can wonder is: what the hell kind of bread are they cutting over in Denmark that they need this monster??? I could be wrong here, but generally bread (even the crustiest of varieties) doesn't need a hacksaw to slice pieces off. Usually, I manage to cut through even week old stale Vienna bread which has started to morph into a bread shaped rock with just a regular bread knife.

How would you even eat such bread? Why would you want to? If your bread is that hard and tough that you need a serrated knife on steroids to cut it, it might be time to consider switching bakers.

There was a time at work when a colleague brought in a chocolate cake she'd baked herself to share for some poor bastards birthday. This thing was rock hard, it's quite possible she mixed up the icing sugar with concrete mix. I remember trying to cut it. I had to put my weight into it and it didn't so much cut as snap open. This knife would have been handy that day.

Hey Mick, that's not a knife! Forget the Ginsu crowd, if you were ever trapped under a vending machine and needed to saw through rubber tubes, a pair of leather shoes and an aluminium can in order to get out, this knife might just be your guy. In the Zombie Apocalypse, this would be handy to have in your backpack. If you wanted to do some impromptu tree lopping, you wouldn't go past this bloke.

For everyday kitchen usage, this knife is a ridiculous example of overkil. Even if you're incredibly coordinated, a master of the slice & dice and a knife wielding sensei, the use of this knife is only going to end in tears. Stories that involve dinner time rushes to the A&E dept and end with the phrase "and then they reattached it" start with this knife.

Tanty Time!

Today I chucked a tantrum at the dentist and walked out.

I should preface this by pointing out that I have a really high pain tolerance. I once hurt my wrist scaling a fence. I heard a crack and felt a harsh pain. I rubbed it better and went on my way not really giving it much more thought. A year later when getting x-rayed for some other reason (can't remember what) I was asked when I'd broken it. Huh? never. I was promptly shown the x-ray and the old fracture pointed out. I have a similar story with a bone in my foot. I'm sure Crohn's has helped my pain tolerance. Crohn's is a painful fucker, having a high tolerance is a survival mechanism!

But it's been a really shit week. Skin cancer involving painful biopsy, stitches and then burning with dry ice, sprained back muscle triggering sciatic nerve pain and involving instructions from the Chiro that I not lift anything (hello, I have a newborn!), sore foot which just aches all the time, tooth pain hurts on biting, sometimes it just throbs for the fun of it and to top it all off some Crohn's abdo pain. Seriously why does everything that goes wrong with me have to be physically painful???

So from the get-go I was not exactly fighting fit or in a great place. Just saying.

This morning the dermatologist convinced me to let her freeze the remaining skin cancer cells that hadn't been removed by the biopsy. I was obviously a little delirious from the collective pain. "You have a few choices, a chemotherapy cream with you rub on for a month or laser or cryotheraphy." Interesting selection Doc, lets burn my face with dry ice.

"Little sting" She whispered as she aimed the coffee machine type spout at me.

Little sting my arse. Seriously. I drove home, tears streaming down my face, wishing I'd chosen the cream. Sure it was going to leave a horrible sore on my cheek for a few weeks but it probably wouldn't have stung like this. It still hurts now, as I write this.

Next I had the dentist. I have a tooth which has been hurting for a long time. I first saw a dentist about it in April 2010. I've since seen five different dentists. They all say the same thing. The tooth is healthy. There's nothing obviously wrong. The tooth has had a root canal done on it many years ago and for some reason dentists refuse to accept that it could hurt. So I got all the usual questions: Are you sure it's that tooth? Not the one in front? Behind? Below? Yes. It's that tooth. How do you know? Er it friggen hurts when I push on it. Then to test the theory she decided to bash against it and the surrounding teeth with one of her dentist tools. I did mention it HURTS when I put pressure on it right? Satisfied that I was in pain but not convinced it could be coming from that particular tooth she pulled out the cold water spray.

Happy Place, Happy Place, go to your Happy Place!

From there she decided that she needed to do a scale and clean. The assistant comes over with the cold air sucker that she insisted on holding towards the back of my throat which was stimulating my gag reflex. When I told her she nodded and then put it right back where it was. The dentist then attacked my teeth and gums (which are sensitive at the best of times) with both the cold water spray dodad and the scaler thingy on high.

"Now if you feel any discomfort, just raise your hand" Raised my hand three times before she'd even managed to get round the back of my top teeth. She acknowledged the discomfort and said she lower the setting. It didn't help. Then she did something that actually made me cry out.  Now on any other day I would have grimaced and bore (bared?) it. But not today. Today I hit the pain ceiling. I reached my pain tolerance threshold.

"Stop." I said with a mouth full of dentistry tools. They both pulled their respective crap out of my mouth. "That really hurt." She gave her assistant a look that indicated she thought I was being difficult. I lost it. I pulled the bib off, wiped my mouth and pushed the tray of tools away. Why the hell am I doing this to myself? This is just a clean and scale. It's not vital procedure. It's just one of those bullshit things dentists like to charge you half a fortune for every 6 months. Fuck it.

"Forget this." I said. "Life's too short to suffer through unnecessary pain. Shove your clean. I'll stick with my toothbrush." They exchanged looks again and I got a lecture about dental hygiene. Then she offered to do it under anaesthesia... for $1,149!!! I pretty much walked out at that point. I must've looked a picture storming down the street for the first block, red faced, muttering to myself. No wonder people were moving out of my way.

I have had some pretty painful experiences during procedures in my life. I've never walked out on one before and for a scale and clean too, it's a bit pathetic. I'm smiling to myself at the ridiculousness of it all (although that may be the floaty effect of the pain meds kicking in). I'm sure the dentist has made a little note in my file: "Patient is a wimp with no tolerance for discomfort. Pretend you're booked out next time."

Can't (hardly) Wait

The other day while rummaging around in a draw looking for something, I found my ‘Can’t Wait’ card. I was so excited to get this card when I first joined Crohn’s & Colitis Australia. It was one of the main reasons I first joined. I pretty much thought this card was going to save me from so many hassles and problems when I left the house.

That was before I realised that nobody has really heard of Crohn’s Disease, unless they either have it or know somebody who has it. The population at large generally have no idea and now the card lies abandoned in the bottom of the junk draw. I’m not sure I ever even used it.

For those of you unfamiliar, during a flare-up, trying to hold on for any amount of time results in agonising, doubled over, just fucking kill me, abdominal pain. Often, holding it in, is impossible. The ‘I hope I don’t crap my dacks in public’ anxiety attack is still one of the worst feelings in the world for me, hence the ‘Can’t Wait’ card. Developed for just these situations. In theory you would pull out the card in a busy shopping centre toilet and the crowd of understanding and sympathetic people part like the red sea to reveal a makeshift path to the shining porcelain oasis ahead. In theory.

Can you imagine...

I don’t know what the men’s are like, but the women’s toilets always seem to have a line of at least three people (denoted below by different colours).

Flashes card to a line of impatient people.

"I have a 'Can't Wait’ card. I'm sorry but I need to go next”
"You have a what now?"
"A 'Can't Wait' card. It means I'm physically unable to wait to go to the toilet."
"Why?"
"I have Crohn's Disease."
"What's that?"
"It's a type of inflammatory bowel disease. It means I can't hold it and I get massive pains in the stomach when I need to go."
"What? Like lactose intolerance"
"No. Sort of. Look, I've got to go. NOW"
“Yeah me too.”
First person heads into the toilet.
"Where'd you get that card anyway?"
"From the ACCA."
"Did you have to pay for it? How much was it?"
"I could use one of those. I don't like waiting in lines, especially at the Supermarket"
"What? No. It's for the toilet. And you have to have IBD."
"I have IBS. I gave up dairy. It's fine now."
"You should eat more fibre. That’ll make you regular as clockwork."
"I can't eat fibre..."
"Well that's your problem right there. Change your diet."
"What's it called when you can't eat bread?
"Celiac’s."
"Oh, my niece has that."
Toilet becomes available. I make my way to stall.
"HEY! I was before you."
"Yeah, no pushing in."

Seriously, you’d spend more time explaining why you have the card, it’d be easier and probably a whole lot quicker to either push in and risk being accosted by angry toilet goers or go somewhere else. Personally, I’ll use another toilet. Men’s. Women’s. Parent’s room. The Disabled. I’m not proud. If I’ve got to go, I’m going.

I think orange lady has something though; I wouldn’t mind a ‘Can’t Wait’ card for the supermarket. Or the petrol station. I hate that line the most. Those guys are relentless trying to sell you more stuff. No, I don’t want to buy 2 packs of mints for $7 to save 2 cents on my petrol.

Has anybody actually used their Can’t Wait card? I’d be interested in hearing what happened.

Phat Dinner

A curious thing happens when you cut fat out of your diet, you not only lose the taste for it, but you actually become intolerant of it. When you eat something fatty, like KFC for example, it gives you the shits and I don't mean in the pissed off sense. You can actually taste the grease and fat as a separate entity and It feels like a layer of grease is suddenly coating the inside of your throat and stomach. It's not pleasant.

I discovered a long time ago that my particular brand of Crohn's is much better controlled with a low fat, low fibre diet. I adjusted my cooking so that everything I made was the absolute lowest fat version of itself while still being tasty. There was a period of adjustment, I grew up with the understanding that the 'fat' was where all the flavour was. (It actually isn't I've learnt. Herbs, spices, things like garlic, lemon are where the flavour lies)

Last night we went out for dinner at the house of a friend of mine. They'd invited us over several times and for various reasons one of us had had to cancel so diner had been put off at least four times but last night the stars aligned and dinner happened. It's not often I pray before a meal, but when the plate was put before me my first thought was "Sweet Jesus"! My friend is well aware of my Crohn's and we often talked about our respective low fat diets. She'd told me many a time how she could no longer tolerate fat since she'd cut it out of her diet.

It seems that there are different ideas about what 'low fat' actually means.

Dinner was roast beef with baked potato, pumpkin and onion, cauliflower baked in cheese sause and gravy made from the meat juices. The vegetables were baked in a sea of oil and were actually soggy and almost transparent, the meat which had been cooking for 4 hours in too hot an oven was tough and grisly. As I looked down at my meal I could see the gravy had started to separate and a layer of oil was emerging around the edges of my plate. The meat had a thick edge of fat around it. Basically, not one Crohn's friendly component in sight. Too be honest, I'm a little scared to know what their meals looked like before she "cut the fat out of her diet".

I ate it, well most of it. I really didn't want to be rude or hurt her feelings. She was quite proud of the meal and her family all told her how delicious it was. I smiled and said it was lovely. About halfway through dinner the baby started to cry and I jumped up from the table to tend to her with more gratitude than she'll ever know. My friend said "You eat, I'll see to her." I smiled, "No, it's alright. I think she needs changing." No matter how much people love babies, nobody wants to do that particular job ;-p

I am really paying for dinner now. My stomach hurts and in the 12 hours since dinner I've been to the toilet at least 15 times. I'm pretty sure I've expelled my own body weight in crap. Seriously, (anyone whose ever had a bad case of gastro or food poisoning will be able to identify) where does it all come from? I was so nauseous in the few hours afterwards that I was sure I was going to throw it all up. Maybe if I had, I wouldn't be so sick now? Who knows. Even my partner was feeling a little ill last night.

This is pretty much why I'm not a fan of eating at other people's houses. At least at a restaurant there is bound to be one thing on the menu I can eat and if in the unlikely situation there isn't, I don't have to worry about offending anyone by not eating or only eating a small amount. Although there was this one time when the chef came out looking pissed off, sat down at the table and demanded to know what was wrong with the food. I tried to offer some constructive criticism which he argued and in the end I said "Look, I just didn't like it. Get over it, you can't please everyone" He went back to the kitchen in a hail of profanity, leaving the very embarrassed owner apologising profusely and offering us a free meal on our next visit. Thanks, but no.

It makes things a bit awkward really. How do you say to someone who thinks they're doing something nice for you that they are actually making you sick to your stomach? I can offer to have them over to my place for dinner but they'll want to repay the favour. I can suggest we go out to a restaurant but money can sometimes be an issue. Staying home isn't a very fun option and for normal people (eg. not me) having dinner at a friends house is actually quite a nice way to spend a saturday night.

Virtual Doctor (or how my baby got leprosy)

Some time ago whilst searching in google for my GP's phone number (yes, I am THAT disorganised that I actually lost my doctors contact details and I was seeing this doctor weekly for methatrexate injections... but I digress) I came across WebMD's symptom checker. The symptom checker is a virtual doctor. You simply enter in all your symptoms and it tells you whats wrong with you.Virtual doctor is everything you need, that is, if diagnosis is all you're after. Treatment still requires a visit to the actual doctor. I love this site. I'm a little bit addicted to it. I like to punch in my symptoms and see what weird and wonderful diseases I might have. My actual doctor is pretty boring on this front. She's always flu this or virus that. Virtual doctor on the other hand has way more imagination than that. One time it told me I had Rabies, pretty impressive considering Rabies doesn't exist in Australia and I've never been to a country where it does exist.

It's hours of fun for the whole family (assuming your family is as weird as me) As long as you don't actually rely on the information for any kind of medical treatment. I would probably never mention any health theories you've obtained from this site to your doctor either. In fact, just deny any knowledge of it altogether. Some of my favorite diagnoses have been Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome (early pregnancy symptoms), Poison Ivy (my late pregnancy symptoms), Mono (flu), Gangrene (stubbed toe) and my absolute favorite Creutzfeldt-Jakob Syndrome... mad cow... ok, that's probably a fair call considering!

Now that I have a little person, it's even more fun. I punched in some of the baby's symptoms, she has a skin rash (probably milk pimples, but I'm not a doctor), muscle weakness (she can't even stand), short sightedness (I doubt she can even see 2 foot in front of her), mood swings (screaming blue murder to content and back again in under 5 seconds), poor motor skills and judging by the amount of time she spends crying, I'm going to guess that she's either in a lot of pain or just really unhappy. To be safe I better use them both.

And the mystery disease? It wasn't 'being a baby' as you might expect but Leprosy! Awesome. Imagine running to your family doctor with that pearl of medical wisdom! My baby is a leper put her on the next plane to Kalaupapa, Hawaii and resurrect that colony. Stat! Another interesting diagnosis was intoxication. As I looked over at the baby who appeared to have totally passed out after her bottle I wondered how far off the mark that one was. She's on the nod, milk induced coma.

Interestingly, virtual doctor has never diagnosed me with Crohn's Disease. Maybe all the doctors I've ever seen have been completely wrong. Maybe I really do have (quickly checks WebMD) a fractured coccyx. It's possible, stranger things have happened.

Slutwalk Melbourne

Boys will be boys.
She was asking for it.
She knew what she was doing.
She went back to his room for more than just milo.
What was she thinking wearing that?

We live in a rape culture. A society that blames the victim and makes excuses for the perpetrator. The law is pretty cut and dry on the subject of rape. If a woman does not consent to sex and the man has sex with her anyway it's rape. It doesn't matter if she's drunk, scantily clad and up in his apartment at 2am, unless she consents to sex, it's rape. It's rape if she's unconscious and he has sex with her anyway.

Plying her with alcohol and dropping something in her drink so she passes out and can't say no is rape. If she can't say no, she can't say yes and you are a scumbag who should be in prison where no doubt you'll get a graphic illustration of the difference between consensual and non-consensual sex.

If I don't pay a prostitue is it rape or shoplifting? If I hit you in the face with a shovel for telling this "joke" is it assault or a public service?

Not so long ago a couple of high profile football players were accused of sexually assaulting a woman who went back to their hotel room. They were all drunk, it's alleged that there were illicit drugs involved. A friend of mine stated that she should never have gone back to the hotel room, what was she thinking? I took a deep breath and then launched into a rebuttal.

I don't care if she was naked with a mattress strapped to her back, she has the right to say no. I don't care if she went up to that hotel room with the intension of having sex with one or all of them, she has the right to change her mind and say no. I don't care if they are half way through doing it, she has the right to say stop, I don't want to do this anymore.

Seriously, are we as a society saying that men do not possess the ability to control themselves? Is it our contention that men are incapable of keeping their member in their pants? That they do not possess a basic level of comprehension to recognise a yes from a no? That a man who has sex with a woman who did not consent is not responsible because he's a man and boys will be boys but that she is responsible because she was wearing a low cut top and had a drink?

Fuck me. (no, that wasn't an invitation)

By saying boys will be boys we are saying to men that it's ok to have sex with a woman when she has not consented. We are saying it's all just a bit of fun and shouldn't be taken to seriously. That, 50% of society, is not to be taken seriously. That women are less than men.

By blaming the victim, we are taking the focus off the perpetrator. Any focus on her dress or how much she had to drink or where she was walking at what time is attention that is not on the sexual offender and it's the sexual offender and ONLY the sexual offender who needs to explain his behaviour. I wonder how many sexual offenders target a particular type of woman knowing that they wont get charged or they'll probably get off because the focus will be on her behaviour and not on his? I wonder how many sexual offenders actually think her behaviour excuses his?

The fact of the matter is a man ALWAYS has the ability to keep his penis in his pants. He just choses not to and as a society we choose to make excuses for him. It's fucked and we need to stop.

What has all this got to do with Crohn's Disease? Nothing. I just thought it needed to be said.

Melbourne Slutwalk: May 28, 1pm, State Library.

A river in Egypt

I'm always surprised when my Crohn's flares up. I don't now why I'm surprised since obviously it's the kind of disease that will do that and my Crohn's monster is a temperamental beast that has flared up for no reason on a pretty regular basis since taking up residence in my intestines. Sometimes it flares because I've eaten something I shouldn't have, sometimes it flares in protest to antibiotics and sometimes it flares for no discernible reason at all because frankly, it's a bit of an arse.

I could recite what a flare up looks like without really even thinking about it. I know my Crohn's disease like the back of my hand. Yet, somehow flare up's manage to sneak up on me almost every time and I find myself standing in the middle of it looking bewildered and thinking where did that come from? Granted, sometimes I go from perfectly fine to full flare in the space of meal, but often there are some precursors or a build up that should tip me off to the impending flare. More often than not, I completely miss these (Er more likely, ignore them, pretend they aren't happening, dismiss them as something else) yeah ok, we get the picture.

I enjoyed a delightful nine months of remission during my recent pregnancy. I knew (academically) that pregnancy is often protective and can result in spontaneous remission. I knew (academically) that post pregnancy could mean the end of the period of remission and a return to normal disease activity. Normal disease activity in my case means, sadly, endlessly flaring Crohn's but I got used to remission. It was lovely not having to worry about where the nearest toilet is and being able to eat 3 meals a day without feeling bloated and sore and nauseas. Nine months is long enough to develop a false sense of security and I knew (denial?) I'd be ok afterwards.

Pffft.

My Crohn's started to flare up within days of giving birth. Embracing the last point of good toilet posture (Allow yourself time, do not rush) is easier said than done when there's a little person screaming blue murder in the next (and often, the same room). Think a baby's urgent cries are loud under normal circumstances, try being in a bathroom with those cries echoing and bouncing off every wall! Anyway, there was a slight delay in getting my Infliximab transfusion and after several frantic phone calls, some moments of panic and a fair amount of swearing the transfusion occurred just before Easter. Once I had that, everything would go back to normal, normal being remission, not pre-pregnancy normal, yeah?

er, no.

So the flare continued for a couple of weeks. I was pretty sure I had some sort of virus or bug, all the symptoms fit: fatigue, nausea, loss of appetite, stomach pain, fever, diarrhoea. Of course those are all the normal symptoms of a flare too, but it couldn't be that, I'd had the transfusion. I even went to see my GP who told me that it probably was a bug and it would pass without the need for any medical intervention. See, I was right, I had caught a bug. Never mind the fact that bugs are contagious and nobody else, least of all the baby with virtually no immune system, was even remotely sick. Never mind the fact that bugs usually only last a few days to a week. I got a bit worse followed by a bit better, then a bit worse again. Two steps forward, one step backwards. Another fairly typical sign of my Crohn's flare ups.

Eventually it dawned on me that this weren't no bug. The unhappy realisation occurred at 4am whilst on the toilet (where else would a Crohn's related moment of enlightenment happen?) I'd had to stop feeding the baby midway through and race to the loo. Whilst sitting there I conceded defeat.

All hands to report to battle stations, Crohn's, my old frenemy, is back.