Birthday's and Spirited Away

So it was my birthday a couple of weeks ago and I did one of my favourite activities, eating ice cream! 🍨🍦🍨

We have a wonderful ice cream parlour, quite close to where we live called The Orange Elephant! When you drive along the dual carriageway, near to the turn off, there is an orange elephant statue with an ice cream in its trunk! Martin, my husband, and I have often commented on it in the past, never realising the significance of it 🤔 We only found out last year and it has become a place we like to visit on special occasions. 

What better place to go to on your birthday then?! 🍦🍨🍦

I have to admit I was a little worried about how I would be feeling over my birthday period because we had been to London just a couple of days before. We had been up to the London Colosseum to see the live action show Spirited Away. 

For anyone who doesn't know, Spirited Away is a Japanese animated film that was released in 2001. It was created by Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli and it is a most wonderful film. There have been many films released by Studio Ghibli and they are all beautiful but Spirited Away has always felt special to us. 

The Soot sprites! 

When Martin found out that they were bringing the live action show over to London from Japan, we were very excited and decided that we would try and get tickets, if we could. We found out that there was a dedicated phone number for disabled customers and we were ready to phone the minute the tickets went on sale! We thought we might have trouble getting through to someone but we were very lucky and got through quite quickly. 

We had bought our tickets, they were in a box as I knew I would need to go in my wheelchair but, I decided that I would transfer to my seat as I thought it might be more comfortable and convenient. 

We had booked tickets for a Wednesday matinee as we live such a long way from London. First of all we had thought that we would go up and back on that day but after thinking about it, it is about a four hour drive from where we are, we decided to book a Travelodge outside London so that it would break up the journey for Martin, who has to do all the driving. I haven't renewed my driving licence as I have to have a medical licence that only lasts for three years and as Martin loves driving, it's not a problem. 

We are both so happy that we got tickets for the show as it was amazing. It was beautifully done, using puppetry to bring some characters to life. That was so clever and I didn't look at the people operating the puppets, they were just so convincingly performed! 

Martin and I are both theatre nerds, as that is how we met, we were both performing, having trained in London! We also both worked in theatres in London before we moved down to where we are now, and it was only four years later that I had my diagnosis of MS. I'm so glad that we are living here and not in London because even though it is better, London is not disabled friendly 😔 But we were very lucky when we drove up because we managed, quite by accident, to get a disabled parking space just a couple of streets over from the theatre! We were right in the centre of London, so someone was watching over us that day! 

We had a wonderful time and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It was a great treat for us both and, as our birthdays are only eleven days apart, we bought it for ourselves as our birthday treat and what a treat it was ☺️ 

XxXxX 

As always, I will leave you with some special Rosie love! 😻

A special birthday gift! 😹

"Can I play with the wrapping please?!" 😹

Menieres disease and MS 😱

More than ten years ago now I was diagnosed with a rare ear condition called Menieres Disease - don't worry, I'd never heard of it either! 

It is a condition that can cause sudden attacks of vertigo and can affect your hearing. 

I would have these awful attacks of vertigo. It wasn't suddenly being afraid of heights but the feeling that the room was spinning, my balance wouldn't be good and I would feel, and sometimes be, horribly sick. For me, the only thing I could do would be to go to bed, close my eyes and try to sleep. Fingers crossed, when I woke up the attack would be gone. 

The trouble was, I had no warning of these attacks, it would happen completely randomly and out of the blue. It was one of the reasons that I stopped driving, I couldn't guarantee that it wouldn't happen while I was at the wheel and that was just too scary. 

It also caused real problems with the hearing in my left ear. I have been left with very little hearing and I have constant tinnitus but all just in my left ear. 

Tinnitus is the name for noises that don't come from any outside sources. You can hear noises such as whooshing, ringing, buzzing etc. and it can come and go or be permanent. My tinnitus is like hearing a waterfall in the background and was very off-putting to start with but I got used to it fairly quickly. 

I was given a hearing aid back then but eventually I stopped using it. I found it just made things harder to hear if I was in a crowded space and so I just adapted to my reduced hearing. 

Luckily after a few years, the vertigo attacks burnt out and that was such a relief. I haven't felt anything as awful as those attacks. The dizziness and feeling as though everything was whirling around me was just so unnerving and made me feel so poorly.

I have recently had a problem with my right ear, which took me straight back to those days and made me incredibly concerned that the Menieres was back but affecting my right ear now. Apparently, it's unusual, but it can affect both ears and the way my body challenges me, I wouldn't have been surprised if that was the outcome. 

I had experienced a very short vertigo attack several weeks before but it wasn't very dramatic and only lasted about ten seconds. That was quite unnerving too as I thought I was done with that. It didn't continue though so I didn't think much of it. 

Then last week I woke up with the same reduced hearing and tinnitus in my right ear. I really did start to panic as, to me, this was typical Menieres. 

Martin, my wonderful hubby, firmly encouraged me to contact the doctors and after getting in to see a nurse, she ensured me that it was almost certainly an issue with inflammation in my ears inner tubes and she prescribed an anti inflammatory spray. She told me it could take up to six to eight weeks to clear but it would probably be sooner, I had my fingers crossed that it would be. 

I am now about two weeks on from waking up with muffled hearing in my right ear and I'm pleased to say that it has almost cleared and the hearing has vastly improved. I am so relieved because it really did challenge me. The tinnitus and lack of hearing is still there in my left ear but after so many years having that, I am so used to it now and I can manage on a daily basis, but having the right ear affected too was really unpleasant so I'm glad that it has returned to almost normality, well normal for my body anyway! 😂

May is birthday month in our household with all three of us having been born in May, so we are sending out much love to all those who are also celebrating a May birthday! 🎂🥳🎉

XxXxX 💕

As always here is some special Rosie love for you all 😻