1993 - 2018: 25 Years

In 1993…

• Jurassic Park was released
• I’d Do Anything For Love topped the charts
• Super Mario All Stars was released on Nintendo 
• Stephen Lawrence was murdered
• Princess Diana separated from Prince Charles
• British Airways ran a ‘dirty tricks’ campaign against Virgin Atlantic
• Jamie Bulger was murdered
• The IRA bombed Warrington & the City of London
• Buckingham Palace announced it was opening to the public
• UKIP was formed
• The World Wide Web was developed in Switzerland*
• The World Trade Centre was bombed
• QVC launched in the UK
• Yasser Arafat visited the UK
• The ATF raided the Branch Davidians compound in Waco Texas 
• Microsoft started manufacturing Windows NT operating systems
• None of the girls I currently work with have been born yet…

*The World Wide Web was developed in Switzerland. The actual internet was invented!

**THE INTERNET WAS INVENTED**

Yep, young folks, we haven’t always had Google and her pals. We used to have Encyclopaedia Brittanica and a man in a suit would walk around housing estates selling ‘a book/letter a week’. EB was Pippa Dee for boffins and wannabe boffins. I think we got up to ’N’.

In 1993 I was an 18-year-old young carer.  I could change a catheter with my eyes shut, could lift my 200lb Dad from one commode to another and could administer morphine. I was also sitting my Highers, avoiding my rapist and planning for my future. In 1993 my world tipped on its arse when my Dad died. It was my 19th birthday. Shittest present ever.

1993 was 25 years ago - how the hell has that happened? Where did 25 years go? I remember it like it was yesterday, but sometimes it feels millions of years away. That’s the thing with grief and loss and death. They creep up on you when you least expect it. 

I was talking to a lady on the phone yesterday who at 80+ had just lost her husband and we were talking about his funeral. She said ‘well he was in the Royal Navy for 12 years and wanted Eternal Father as part of the service even though it’s to be a humanist affair with no hymns’. I filled up and started blubbing in the car in the middle of Govan. Govan for fuck sake!

It’s been 25 years since I saw my Dad’s face, I shouldn’t still get emotional surely? Fuck that. I cry at the drop of a hat these days. If you have a feeling LET IT OUT. I kept my rape secret for so long that I was stunted in what I let out, for years, for fear of ‘people finding out’. But hey, people know now. I cry at films, I cry at Facebook videos, I cry at posters, I cry during phone conversations, I cry when I stub my toe (whilst swearing like a cunt), I scream ‘fuck you’ when my printer stops working and I punch a cushion when people annoy me. I need to buy a new cushion cos this one is goosed. 

It’s healthy to let this shit out. I am a badass woman who has been through the equivalent of 15 ‘swamps of sadness’ and I am still here. Mainly cos I punch cushions and swear like a fuck.

My family and my best pals have helped me continue to be the ‘still breathing’ mental case I am today and I love them to Govan and back (6.1 miles).

Papa Raw - I’m your Tuppence, always and forever xxx

1993 - 2018

Going Blind

This article inspired this post.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5556695/Blind-man-reduced-tears-stands-London-Tube.html#article-5556695

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I’m going blind.  

And yes, my family and my besties know, hence me blogging.

• 1995: both retinas detached (I was 21)

• I had invasive surgery on my right eye, laser surgery on my left eye

• Plastic ‘hold it all together’ buckles were fitted to the back of both eyes

• 95% peripheral vision loss in right eye

• 15% peripheral vision loss in left eye

• 2005:  I had surgery to remove the buckles as they had caused so much scar tissue to both eyes and were causing more problems than they initially solved

• 2010: passed DVLA checks

• 2012: As the scar tissue continued to develop, I was diagnosed with posterior sub-capsular cataracts (just after my divorce (joy) and just before I started Uni)

• 2014: passed DVLA checks

• 2018: diagnosed with macular degeneration in my right eye, caused by the years of scar tissue

• Meeting with consultant incoming…

I remember them saying back in 1995 that I should get a good 20 - 30 years before my eyesight would start to cause me real problems and would need to be addressed. Holy shit, those 23 years have gone quick!

I have no eye-dea (‘see’ what I did there) how many full ‘seeing eye’ years I have left. 

This is why I try to cram as much into my life as I can. I knew this was on the cards.

It’s how I manage to fit 28 hours into a 24 hour day. 

It’s how I know I can manage to study 2 Animal Behaviour Diplomas at the same time and crack them both in a year whilst working a full-time job. 

It's because I know that one day soon my LIFE will be changed DRASTICALLY.

What I also know is that if anyone sees me with a guide dog, eyepatch and/or white stick and doesn’t have the presence of mind to step aside or give up a seat, I WILL find out who they are and I WILL end them.

I will likely end up Blindy McBlinderson but I can still ensure your body will never be found.

My guide dog will love me unconditionally.

43:19:93

On 29th May 1974, I was born at 9.25pm after a hideous and drawn-out forceps birth. 

Today I turn 43.

On 29th May 1993, my Dad died at 9.25am, on my 19th birthday, after a hideous and drawn-out cancer ridden illness. 

He was 43.

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I am now the age my Dad was when he died. I have no idea how to feel about this except for having ALL of the feels:

• I'm upset
• I'm angry
• I'm annoyed
• I'm pissed off
• I'm sad
• I'm devasted
• I'm thankful
• I'm pleased
• I'm motivated
• I'm depressed
• I'm thinking 'fuck you world'
• I'm thinking 'holy fuck world wahoo I'm still here'
• I'm happy
• I can't believe it
• I'm saying 'WTF' and 'WOW'
• at the same time. 

Maybe I'm just being a normal complex human. I maybe thought that I'd die at 43 so didn't give a fuck - which has now left me fat and annoyed and ALIVE!! 'Sake.

Or maybe I'm just trying to process the sheer devastation of losing a parent to a hideous illness before having had a chance to process becoming an adult myself. 

I was raped when I was 17, just as Dad was diagnosed terminal, and I wasn't really sure what an adult was or did but I was forced to become acquainted pretty fucking quick! I made sure my Mum, Dad and Sis never knew what had happened to me. I thought it would break them to have to deal with this too so it was best to keep it to myself. I also thought it would take attention away from Dad and he was actually dying. I was not dying!

I became a young carer and helped my amazing #MamaRaw as much as I could. I learned to empty catheters, administer morphine and transport a 200lb man, in a plastic carry harness, from a commode into a stairlift and then into another commode. Me and #MamaRaw definitely didn't ever drop Dad cos of laughing too much and needing to piss. Definitely not. We also never, ever, caught his balls on the plastic 'lifting harness', nope not at all, definitely not. 

I had no idea how young '43' was when I was 19.

I organised a lot of the funeral arrangements - #MamaRaw had lost her soulmate, and my wee sis had lost her best pal and partner in crime. It was the least I could do. I took over as 'protector' and 'person to phone'. It was cathartic for me as I felt I had a job, a reason for being and could actually 'DO' something to detract from everything else. I continued in this role for quite some time. Although I'm the drama queen of the family, I'm a fucking good shout in an emergency, FYI!

I supported Baby Raw and Mama Raw back then and they held me up when I went through my marriage collapse, breakdown and bankruptcy years later. That's what amazing and close families do and I'm so lucky to be part of one. When one is strong they hold up the others. The roles just keep switching as time goes on.

Papa Raw left many legacies/shitaches:

• Never trust a fart
• Always get a full bottle of whisky before agreeing to fix a bread bin 
• A cunt will always be a cunt  
• If asked to behave at an event, don't
• If asked to not embarrass a child at any time, do 
• Support the ladder you built into the loft so folks don't fall 
• Tell people, asking stupid questions that make no sense, to fuck off 
• Follow the instructions when building the 'twatting' Sindy House 
• 'but Dad, he says I'm a mong and ugly' 'tell him to fuck off and give him my phone number'  
• 'Dad, please don't pick me up outside the venue, park round the corner' OKAY 'picks up outside of venue, right outside, wearing deer stalker hat and superman cape

My Dad was mostly a cunt and he was fucking ace. 

43:19:93