Month: August 2016

Baby/toddler-friendly places to have coffee in Stroud Green

THE PARK THEATRE

Not just a great theatre, this is a great space to hang out. Grab a coffee (with food or snacks as required) and head upstairs (don’t worry, there’s a lift for buggies) where there is lots of room and, basically, a wall of glass looking down onto the passing buses and people outside. My nearly-1-year-old entertained herself for ages standing against these massive windows and watching the outside world, while I actually had time to talk to my dad.

VAGABOND

Small but little-people-friendly and with an excellent selection of herbal teas for caffeine-dodgers like me. They have a cute suitcase filled with books and toddler-sized toys that should keep your little one entertained for at least the length of one coffee and chat.

THE OLD DAIRY

A family-friendly pub with lots of space inside for your little one to crawl or run around during the day, when the pub is not full of people having alcohol-infused fun. It’s easy to have lunch here with your baby or toddler too. They have plenty of high chairs and a simple kids menu. The portions are actually huge, though, so I usually regret not just sharing some of my own!

Half the mother I want to be

So… where do I go from here? I bit the bullet and decided to shell out for a private doctor. I live in London so I am fortunate to have a huge choice. I don’t have heaps of money but I do have a need to get back to work and so get diagnosed and treated asap. Sooner than the NHS will allow.

To cut a long story short the lovely urologist has all but confirmed my fears. He thinks it’s likely I have interstitial cystitis. I’ll be going for more tests next Monday but it seems a formality. But he was very positive and optimistic that he could help me so… fingers crossed, I guess.

As a mum – which is the focus of this blog, not illness – how does this make me feel?

First-of-all, overwhelming guilt. All I want now is to be the mother that my amazing daughter deserves. I want to go on adventures with her. Match her energy. Infuse her with positivity, confidence and joy. Right now I wake up every morning with a heavy heart. I’m not sleeping as well because I can’t make it through without going to the loo. So I feel guilt from the moment I look into her excited eyes in the morning. Because I can pretend most of these things but I cannot feel them right now.

I can’t travel further than the local park – because at least there are toilets there. I am struggling to feel optimistic because I have spent too much time scouring the internet about this condition and do not see many happy outcomes.

I feel regret; for the beautiful, carefree times with her that I am worried I have lost forever. Regret that my excitement for our future is being suffocated by almost overwhelming anxiety.

Because at the root of all this is one defining question: will this ever go away? Will I spend every day feeling as though my bladder is at bursting point; a physical feeling that distracts me from my daughter and intrudes on our time together? I have an image of a mother I never wanted to be. Always suffering. Always sad. Excluded from adventures and mayhem.

I hope, hope, hope that my consultant’s optimism is well-founded. That, despite the horrors filling the internet, he can return me to how I was before. That he can give me my life back as it was. It has only been gone for two-and-a-half weeks but, facing a diagnosis of a chronic condition, I am so afraid my life will never come back now and my beautiful daughter will lose out on the mother she was supposed to have.

One sick mutha

I’m a bit of a hypochondriac, although I wouldn’t admit this to my husband. And over the last couple of years I’ve had a bit of bad luck, being diagnosed with indeterminate colitis a couple of years ago. To be fair, after agonizing with Dr Google over the bleak future ahead of me, things have, so far, not been too bad.

Recently, I was struck with a bout of cystitis, something I suffer with fairly regularly. However, something is different this time. The antibiotics seemed to kick in immediately, as usual. But this time when I finished my course, I was still left with some symptoms and, one week later, they are still there.

So, having consulted Dr Google again, I have convinced myself I will be suffering these symptoms every day for the rest of my life. Everything I read online seems to back this up. The fact that I have IBD is apparently a risk factor. I have bought all the alternative remedies that are recommended by all and sundry and used them, so far to no avail. So now I’m terrified. But it’s for a different reason than it once would have been. Instead of just feeling self-pity, it’s the unbearable thought of being a sick and sub-par mother. I was afraid that colitis would do this to me and spent the first six months anticipating a terrible flare but it didn’t happen. Now, I imagine how I will give my daughter the attention, energy and play she needs if I spend every day with immense pressure in my bladder, feeling as though I have to pee every half hour. How will I take her places and give her experiences if I’m tied to the toilet?? I want to give her the best of me. I want her childhood to be full of happiness and laughter, not misery and depression. And now every unexplainable illness is a bit more terrifying than it was before, when it was just me.