Ascot and all things lovely

The last few days have really made me realise that life is odd (wow – the revelation!).  How do I explain this?  Today I am shattered after a particularly exciting few days and my brain isn’t well engaged in the vocabulary department.

Yesterday I went to Royal Ascot Ladies Day.  For those who have lived in another planet for the last oh so many years, Royal Ascot is an event held at Ascot Race course, a course owned by Her Majesty The Queen, every year for five days.  The Thursday of this event is traditionally known as Ladies Day and is when ladies are expected to turn out in their finest, and often most outrageous, attire for a day of gambling, champagne guzzling frivolity (in other words, they dress in a nice outfit and hat, lose a load of cash and get pissed – very pissed in many cases!).

I bought myself and my Mum a ticket to celebrate my recovery and my Mum’s 50th Birthday.  Preparing for yesterday has been so exciting over the last few weeks.  I put A LOT of thought and time into my outfit and enjoyed every last second of it – to be honest, it was worth buying the tickets to just prepare for the event – attending it was not nearly as exciting as choosing my dress 😀

We had such a lovely day.  It was amazing people watching and watching racing is always fun when you have a bet on – albeit a small bet in my case.  I lost all of my money but my Mum doubled up so it worked out well:-)

Two things struck me this day.  Firstly, I walked around a happy, healthy lady in my best frock and received numerous lovely compliments about how I looked.  Secondly, I felt well, really, really well.  My legs didn’t ache (although I did develop blisters from the seriously high – and very gorgeous shoes I tottered around on), my head was clear, and most remarkably to me I could cope absolutely fine with the huge crowds of people, something pre surgery I found very difficult, I think it must have been because of low concentration and tiredness. Thirdly, and most significantly, the fact that I was there at all.  That I had been able to book tickets months in advance and actually make it to the event.  The fact that in less than a year I have had my bowel removed and life has moved on to such a point as I can now wear fancy clothes with no hindrances (i.e. bag, self esteem, fear of accident, lack of energy) and feel great.

Unfortunately one thing hadn’t changed – I still made acquaintance with every toilet block in the place, and there were many! My damn bladder is still ensuring that I need to visit the loo often, however, I realised that I have become an excellent toilet hunter, tracking down the best loo with the least queues and with plenty of loo roll – I laughed!  I didn’t queue once, but I did have my poor Mum following me around the place from toilet to toilet 🙂

An amazing day.

Re my continued love for toilets, I have an appointment with an Urologist in two weeks time. I have to keep a chart of my urinating which includes peeing into a jug and monitoring amounts and frequency.  Damn bladder! Least it’s note Damn UC though 🙂

Some photos of me in my outfit – taken by my amazing husband:

The Dress!

The price of having UC….on a plane

Just heard on BBC Breakfast that in an effort to increase profits Ryanair are taking out three of their four loos on their Boeing 347s (?) and replacing them with six seats. They will then charge £1 per visit to the loo – seriously!!! That’s the end of people with IBD using Ryanair (if they actually managed to travel in the first place).

Also the end of me using them. They found last week that my bladder isn’t emptying properly. Not sure what they can do about it but about to be referred to a consultant. My love affair with bathrooms continues…

Good Times

The last ten days can be rated as overall ‘loverly!’.  The weekend before last N and I had an amazing weekend together with no kids.  We spent the Friday night dancing West Coast Swing at one of our favourite freestyles until the early hours and then headed off to London early on the Saturday.  We spent the Saturday wondering around Covent Garden (where I chose a pair of lush sunglasses from Oakley as my good friend gets a very healthy discount!).  It was so nice wondering around London together as it is something we haven’t done since we lived there and it reminded us of that long ago pre-children era. We  then spent the evening watching Eric Clapton at the Royal Albert Hall.  He was amazing!  His guitar playing is just mind bogglingly awesome and his voice is so unique.  My smooth husband played Eric Clapton in the background to our first date, dinner at his house, back when I was a tiddler of a 21 year old.  At that time I had never heard of Eric Clapton but I was educated and now love his music, particularly when acoustic.  It was a great night.

On our return home we had my three nephews to stay.  This was the first time we have had all three of them at once and it was busy – very busy!  We had five children under the age of seven and chaos is not the word for it.  Fortunately they were all brilliantly behaved and had a great time.  I can’t say I enjoyed it but I enjoyed the fact that they did.  We had the boys for two nights and then spent the next three days child free whilst my boys were at their usual childminders on the Wednesday and then at their cousins until Saturday.  I haven’t ever had so much child free time when healthy before – it was weird,I felt a bit lost.  Still, it was lovely having the evenings with N and we definitely made the most of them.  On Friday night we went out drinking in town for the first time together.  It was a merry (!) old evening spent with my friend (who is also my childminder) and her partner, we had a good giggle.

Throughout this amazing half term it was never far from my mind that this was a first.  To have got through two consecutive nights out and a day in London would have been impossible before my Op.  If I could ever go anywhere for a day or more I always had to factor in a long afternoon sleep and an early night.  It was like I had been given new Duracell batteries.  Nearly a year post op and this still amazes me and feels brilliant.  At more whimsical times it makes me sad that I tolerated not feeling that way for so long but heh ho, onwards and upwards!

I have come down with a little bit of a bump this week as for the last 48hours my little man has been ill with D&V – never a fun time! However, the amazing sunshine we are having at the moment, the memories of a fabulous week and the anticipation of mine and N’s birthday week (we have birthdays on 8th and 10th June), is enough to keep me happy, happy

PS – We got the NACC chosen as N’s company group monthly mufti day charity.  They raised £162 which is another step towards ur £2k target.  We are well chuffed with this

PPS – I couldn’t find a Burlesque course close enough to me to try the basics so I have found a lady to come to me.  I am now taking bookings from 20 ladies to join me on the course 🙂 It’s proving very popular!!!