The Contingency Plan

I mentally created this list tonight while patiently waiting (50 mins) for Hugo to sleep... And yes, this post will fit into the 'too much information' box in some parts so beware....

5. I was never an adventurous girl. Despite my parents giving me a farm load of pets (rabbits, dog, cat, sheep and goat), I never really bonded with animals, feared water until I was eight and was a little apprehensive when I received my first pair of rollerskates a year later. Nevertheless I tried them out and was soon found skating up and down our road in matching pink and white outfits. That is, until I fell and cracked a bone in my arm. I went crying to my mother, who offered no sympathy and told me to suck it up. She did this for three days and later cried when the doctor gave her my x-ray results. Yes, I was a poster-child for child neglect.

4. Although the drive from our home to my high school took five minutes, my parents refused to take me so I walked every morning for thirty minutes instead. One day while crossing a quiet street, I slipped on the curb and cracked my ankle. Two hours later had a plaster cast up to my thigh and was thoroughly unimpressed as our year picture was to be taken the next week. I'd like to say the miracle happened as a result of ridiculously standing out in the first row of students but two weeks later I was walking on my cast. Don't ask me how, but I was somehow misdiagnosed. And still made to walk to school.

3. Before giving birth I had a strong sense of body privacy. I'd never been treated in hospital and the worst medical prodding was a routine pap smear, which is nothing really to complain about. But the whole experience of child birth shattered this. Beyond the usual hangups, I completely lost bladder control. Make me laugh and I would uncontrollably pee myself. So dignified. And then I lost the sense of when I needed to poo, but I think the icing on the cake was when a nurse had to consequently administer a rectal examination. A student nurse. Luc was outside of the curtain shamelessly cracking jokes and before long the three of us were laughing loudly, which helped the situation at the time but made the nurse's actions a little jerky. I consequently got hemmoroids.

2. Sydney is swarmed with bugs in summer. And some areas are worse than others. I'm particularly picky about where I live because old homes are often plagued with cockroaches or other unidentified flying objects that are a pest to control/kill. One night when I was 12, I was asleep in bed when I heard the most shattering sound in my right ear drum. I was screaming with pain and my parents rushed me to the local medical centre where a doctor examined my ear. He filled it up with a warm oil-like liquid, washed it out and then sent me home. But the problem persisted. I found it hard to hear and the pain was still there so a week later my parents took me to my regular doctor who examined my ear and quickly washed it out again. And the result is something only my family knows of...... because out washed a tiny cockroach and an egg. Yes, a small flying cockroach had crawled into my ear, layed an egg in there, died when the first doctor poured oil in there and then stayed there for a whole freaking week before being removed. I can't begin to describe how dirty that still makes me feel. I slept with cotton wool in my ears for years after that.

1. I couldn't really think of another one and wanted five so this is one I've stolen from my brother Harry. When Harry was completing his final year of high school he had a very extreme reaction to stress (or something else) and half of his face stopped moving. He didn't think much of it and didn't tell Mum for weeks. In fact, I was the one who told her. It was so bad that if he smiled only half of his face would light up, you could literally draw a line down the middle. Only half of his mouth would curl up, only one cheek would rise and only one eye would squint. I would deliberately make him laugh just to see it. It was totally trippy. I can't remember all the details, but it eventually went away, much to Harry's relief.

Ooh, I knew where the roach story was going. Yuck. Sounds like you've had your share on injuries in childhood. Hope adulthood is treating you a little better.

Oh Kazumi. The roach story makes me want to hug 12 year old you. Poor little kid!

Thanks Junebee. I've thankfully been free of casts and cockroaches since then.

I took a few days off school during the cockroach saga and after reading the three page explanation from my father, my roll call teacher hugged me too... it's such a grose story....