UPDATE: Family and Health

The Good and the Bad

I hope, dear reader, you have been enjoying the few short stories I have managed to publish over the last couple of months. The fiction will flow again in due course.

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I have two big pieces of news to share, one family related and the other health related to follow up my previous update on why the fiction stopped flowing here on ROW.

First, the good news.

Family Update

In late August my wife gave birth to our first child, a baby girl, Zoe. As you can imagine this was somewhat disruptive to our lives in the best way possible. The last eleven weeks have been a wild ride and I found very little time to write between house work, caring for wife and child, and being chronically ill.

Zoe and the Leaf

Zoe is healthy and happy. She spent six weeks in a Pavlik Harness for a shallow hip which meant regular ultrasound scans and appointments with a specialist. She is now out of the harness and can once again move her legs as the hip is now as it should be. For the first month or so we also had regular visits from a health visitor (this is a service provided by the NHS to monitor early development and catch any serious issues). This was less helpful and far more stressful than it ought to have been as Zoe was not putting on weight as quickly as the midwives and health visitor would like (based on a baby growth chart). I have little patience for spreadsheets and statistics when they are imposed on reality, especially when it is done in vague and uncertain ways. Abstractions are fine but one must always remember they are not reality.

Zoe was growing slower than the graph said “she should” but she was doing all the other things she should have been, ergo I was not concerned. My wife, however, was significantly stressed by the visits and the constant push from the health professionals to introduce formula, feed every 2 hours (rather than when Zoe was hungry), and to pump between feeds (in order to introduce extra feeds from a bottle). This all left her exhausted and stressed, which led to Zoe growing even more slowly. Once we told the health visitor, and co., to leave us alone Zoe grew quicker as my wife’s stress faded. What made the growth charts frustrating, as compared to the shallow hip, was the lack of information or investigation into why she was slow growing or what it would lead to likely because Zoe was not underweight, but rather “not following the centile line”. The shallow hip was a straightforward this is why, this is what to do, and this is how long it should take, and if it doesn’t work this is the next step.

Besides all that know that the three of us are happy and mother and child are healthy and hale.

Now for the bad news.

Health Update

For those who missed the last update post, I have Crohn’s Disease, an auto-immune condition where the small bowel becomes inflamed (swollen) by an unknown cause. There is no medical cure and in those who have surgery to remove diseased parts of the bowel the disease comes back within a few years. Symptoms are severe abdominal pain, nausea, vomitting, inability to eat, and worse.

Almost every week since Zoe’s birth I have had days of excruciating pain, nausea, vomitting, and some of those I have been bed-bound with pain. Eight weeks ago I started an immunosuppresent treatment called Infliximab (Remicade in USA, I believe) which targets TNF-alpha with the aim of controlling inflammation. It has yet to work and could take until January to kick in. Alongside that I have, mostly, been on a low-fibre/low-residue diet, though for the past two weeks I am back on a liquid diet of Modulen in order to combat the symptoms and give a helping hand to the Infliximab. Hopefully when I return to eating solids again next week it will have enabled the drugs to work.

Chronic pain is exhausting and makes it difficult to do anything and the little time I have been well I have spent with Zoe, my wife, and wider family.

For the first time in nearly 7 years I have spent weeks not writing, this cannot continue. Fellow writers, and artists, will understand the pent up feeling that comes from not being creative. I imagine everyone feels this to some degree, the need to just do it, whether it be work or otherwise. The pressure becomes too much.

Unironically the best meme.

On the other hand not writing has led to an unexpected consequence, a massive reduction in ideas. To rectify this I am reading, a lot. Fiction. Non-fiction. Sci-Fi, fantasy, romance, health, history, theology, doesn’t really matter as ideas lurk everywhere ripe for the picking.

I aim to return to regular posting ASAP with weekly one shot short stories and to finish Famfrit’s Jewel. Beyond that I will leave to a further update evaluating the goals I set myself at the start of 2024, such as my ambitious plan to write 2000 words a day! I’m sure it’s possible but this was not the year for it. Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope this found you well.

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Thanks for reading. If you have yet to read the first 5 chapters of Famfrit’s Jewel, now is the time!

START HERE!