a twist in the tale of two teratomas

Try saying that 10 times as fast as you can.

This is one of those weird stories you might read about in the side column of the ninemsn page or perthnow. Like the story of the unidentified animal that washed up under the Brooklyn Bridge that sort of looks like the spawn of satan.

                                                            spawn of satan article

About 2 weeks before christmas in 2005 i discovered i had a teratoma (or mature dermoid tumour) on my right ovary. These are the types of tumours that they probably based the 'Alien' films on. Enormous things that contain hair, teeth, bone, and the occasional fetus.

                                                                  'alien' teratoma

Even though the odds of getting one are more than 100,000 to 1, over the last 6 years i have met 3 other people who have had one. The first 2 were children who had much smaller versions of them in their brain, but the third one was discovered while having coffee with one of the mums from school. Hers is the most unusual story i have heard involving a teratoma. She had a 3kg whopper (which was also weird because mine weighed 3kgs) on her lung when she was 19. Imagine the pain and discomfort of having something like that on place that you are supposed to use to breath. Then having it happen when you really should be out partying and giving your parents something else to worry about.

It was bad enough imagining my operation, with my intestines sitting on the outside of my body while the surgeons unravelled that grotesque monster of a thing that had wound it's way around my organs. This poor girl had to have all her ribs broken to get hers out and then months of pain and physio to put her back together again. Humpty Dumpty has got nothing on her.

Now i'm not a betting woman, but i would never put money on the odds of two women meeting at their daughters school, then getting on well enough to start going for coffee, then bringing up in conversation the term 'teratoma', only to find out that they had both had one that weighed the same amount when it was removed. Spooky!

Not Guilty

What are your thoughts on 'catholic guilt'? It's probably a concept that recent generations are blissfully unaware of. Thank goodness!

My parents were 'faux catholics', which is sort of like faux fur, but instead of wearing synthetics, you send your children to a catholic school, but don't go to church, which was the done thing in the 70's. Therefore i was educated at an all girls catholic convent school for 12 long years. Until the age of about 12 that meant a large percentage of my education was carried out by nuns. Then after primary school the nuns started to thin out and were really only present in low numbers for their fear inducing qualities.

                                                                           
                                                       the nuns at my school were 'serious'

One thing the nuns were big on was promoting guilt. The type of guilt that stays with you forever. The type of guilt that seeps into your bones and oozes out when you least expect it. I am blood type 'guilt' if anybody needs a transfusion.

Now i am a 'mostly' rational, intelligent and grounded human being, so why do i carry this around? I'm not catholic. Well, i was told from the age of 5 that i was born with guilt, the guilt of a man's death. Surely this irrational guilt should pass with time? But it hasn't, because i also suffer from second generation guilt, an extremely potent type of guilt that is resistant to all medications excluding wine.The nuns and to a certain extent, my mother, were just passing on what they thought they knew and felt, what haunted their dreams, what limited them. I still to this day retain my ecclesiastic guilt. Did you know that if i do the wrong thing the world will come to an end? I'm sure I'm not alone in my age group, carrying around such a heavy load every day. No wonder my back and shoulders are always sore!

It's hard to explain this disease, and it is like a disease. The closest i can come to it is the feeling of when i was abused once as a child. I felt guilty for being at the abusers house in the first place. Guilt made me a victim twice.

I haven't managed to exorcise the nuns of school days past, but i do moderate them by exploring other aspects of myself when guilt attacks. Hence, the name of my blog, "guilt and whimsy". My whimsy gives me freedom and i worship my freedom. Guilt cannot exist on a whim. The other inspiration for the title of my blog was one of my favourite reads, "The Book of Qualities", by J Ruth Gendler.

                                                                 beautiful Whimsy

                                                                        the book


She gives qualities a relationship, they are a family and they interact like one. Every time i read the book i am drawn to a different member of the family. Check it out and see which one draws you in. Today, for me, it's 'Intuition', tomorrow it may be 'Forgiveness', hope it's not 'Guilt' again!

Where did the last 60 years go?

I got my hair cut last week.
I do it every year or two, going from long to short, a major change.
This time it's a very short concave bob. A bit 80's esque. And i love it, it's very me.

But yesterday i was catapulted back about 60 years.
I don't expect everybody, or anybody in fact, to love it like i do. (even though it is a bit fab). But in my 40's i didn't expect one comment to slap me square in my feminist face.

"What does your husband think? I bet he prefers it long. My husband would divorce me if i cut my hair short. Don't get me wrong, i think it's nice."

"Who gives a shit what my husband thinks." (and your husband should divorce you for using his brain instead of your own in conversations he is not involved in.)

I said the first part, not the second to her.

suffragettes

Then all of a sudden i found myself wondering whether it was her or me that had been living in a cave my entire life. Is she oblivious to the equality of the sexes and freedom of expression or am i blind to the struggle to keep these issues relevant.

Maybe it isn't a question of feminism, maybe it is just me.

I have always just done what i want, when i want, when it comes to the way i express myself. I don't feel a need to consult with anyone else on that front, and i encourage others to do the same.

Isn't that what so many have struggled for, for so many years. So that i don't have to worry/think about that. So that being myself is a given.

enjoying a good bra burn

Maybe it's time i stopped sitting back and enjoying the achievements of my bra burning sisters and get back in the fight, because this week i learned that it is far from over.

Things to do while watching TV...

I don't mind a bit of crochet every now and again. Not necessarily to produce cute 'stuff', more for relaxation. I also have this 'thing' that i can't just solely sit and watch TV, i have to do something else at the same time (i wonder what that means?). It can be reading, writing, cooking, work, and crochet fits nicely into that catagory. Here is my most recent completed work,

a grey, organic bamboo/cotton shawly poncho whatsit.

I've also added a recycled brooch to it. It just needed 'something', and i had some little dolls from a childs broken necklace, so i popped them onto an old brooch back with a couple of old sleepers (the kind you put in your ears).

Now i just have to wait for the weather to let me wear it. In Perth that will probably be sometime around mid August!