Diary of Covid-19 confinement, day ten

Ed and the car he can't drive

Two weeks clear

Although today is the tenth day of official lockdown here in France, it is actually two weeks since Adrian arrived back from working in the UK and Ed came home from uni, supposedly for a long weekend to have a last few driving lessons and then take his test. The lessons went ahead as planned, but in the 48 hours between his last lesson and the test, everything was shut down and cancelled. Poor Ed. We can’t even use this time of nothingness productively to go out and practice, as that isn’t classed as an essential need to leave home. It also brings back memories for me from a similar age. Aged 17, my driving lessons were going well, I had my driving test booked and then I suffered a seizure, the first in seven epilepsy-free years and a huge blow to my confidence and independence. It would be another two years before I had the opportunity to restart lessons and take my test. Fingers crossed Ed will be driving sooner than I was.

Two weeks in and miraculously we are still talking to each other and surviving our family lockdown. Given we haven’t spent this long living under the same roof for months, and then only during the summer holidays when everyone comes and goes as they please, it’s pretty good going. So far so good in terms of us all feeling fine and no one showing any symptoms, so let’s hope we were all virus free two weeks ago and have stayed that way. We are still in a fairly low risk area, but with a lack of testing here, as everywhere, and the advice to self-isolate if you do have any symptoms, I’m not sure figures can be believed anymore. Our local paper reported today that the hospital in Niort is preparing for a spike in hospitalised cases next week.

Curry, rice and homemade naan bread

A change to my cooking habits

I have to admit to being a lazy cook when there is just me to cook for. I will usually start the week making a huge batch of wholesome soup packed with as many vegetables as possible and lots of bone broth stock. Some batches will have lentils, some barley, some chickpeas, some beans and I have no problem with eating the same meal for as many days as it lasts. These last two weeks have shown that I’ve forgotten how to feed a family. It would seem not everyone is happy living off the porridge and soup diet, and now it’s not just me and my funny ways to cater for, it’s been quite a challenge to plan and cook something different every day. Thankfully the freezer threw up a few suggestions when we cleared it out at the weekend, but having used my last courgette yesterday and the last red pepper today, I’m running out of ideas and resources. I fear a shopping trip might have to happen in the next few days, but one of the things that feels the strangest is having Adrian home, and not being able to pop to the shops together as we always have.

Victoria sandwich cake

I’ve just made my third Victoria sandwich cake (see here for recipe) in two weeks and I can’t remember the last time I was organised enough to always have a homemade cake ready to eat in the kitchen. This is not a habit I will be continuing when it’s just me to feed as I’m not the biggest fan of carbs, unless I’m fuelling for a bike ride. Most days I am sat at the laptop all day or stuck with my head in a book, so I’m careful with my carb intake. It is all about balancing energy consumed with energy expended. 

#purpleday epilepsy.org.uk 

Purple Day

Today is also Purple Day, a day to get the world talking about Epilepsy and how it affects lives. Here is a handy guide from Epilepsy Action about what to do if you are confronted with someone having a seizure:

Do...

Protect the person from injury - (remove harmful objects from nearby)

Cushion their head

Look for an epilepsy identity card or identity jewellery

Aid breathing by gently placing them in the recovery position once the seizure has finished

Stay with the person until recovery is complete

Be calmly reassuring

Don't...

Restrain the person’s movements

Put anything in the person’s mouth

Try to move them unless they are in danger

Give them anything to eat or drink until they are fully recovered

Attempt to bring them round

Call for an ambulance if...

You know it is the person’s first seizure, or

The seizure continues for more than five minutes, or

One tonic-clonic seizure follows another without the person regaining consciousness between seizures, or

The person is injured during the seizure, or

You believe the person needs urgent medical attention

Please feel free to share this post with your friends. The more people who are aware of what to do and what not to do when someone is having a seizure, the better.

Lockdown Library

Today’s reading selection comes from Laurette Long whose French Summer novel series will whisk you away to Biarritz and the Pays Basque.

Stay indoors and stay safe.

Purple Day 2018 Talking About Epilepsy

Purple Day 2018 French Village Diaries talking about Epilepsy

Today, 26th March, is Purple Day 2018, a day to talk about epilepsy to raise awareness and understanding of the struggles people living with epilepsy go through.

Four years ago, almost to the day, I was elected onto our local council. This was a big thing for me, it gave me a feeling of being accepted into the community that I now call home, it would be a big step in terms of developing my French language and opened up the possibilities of new experiences for the future. I searched back through the blog, to remind myself what I’d written about it, but there was nothing there. Four years ago, I wasn’t in a particularly good place.

In February 2014, epilepsy gate-crashed my life once again, after an absence of over twenty years, leaving my confidence levels at rock bottom. The future felt dark and bleak, and the excitement I should have been feeling for my new role was replaced with anxiety. I retreated within, not able to share what I was feeling inside. Time is a good healer and in 2016 I shared my epilepsy story on the blog and I know I am lucky, aside from a few wobbles, epilepsy has left me alone since then, but I now know it is not, and never will be, something I can ever put out of my mind.

I am once again on the brink of change and looking forward to the challenge of working in a fully French environment for 22 hours a week. It should not be a particularly stressful role and it won’t be too demanding physically, but I can’t pretend I’m not a little anxious of the challenge ahead. I am a worrier and having the shadow of epilepsy hanging over me doesn’t help when the what-ifs build inside my head. However, I’m also stubborn and refuse to sit at home and do nothing. Saying no to a dream job that found me, just in case I may have a problem is as daft as not ever getting out on my bike again. As with cycling, I won’t take any unnecessary risks and as it probably will be tiring, although more mentally than physically, I will make sure I don’t overdo things. I am slowly learning to channel the positivity of the what-if worries, without letting them take over – as long as they are there it does at least mean I will never drop my guard, take any risks or forget that epilepsy is there.

I am also very lucky to have a lot of support from my family and some good friends in the village. Chatting to my exercise buddy about epilepsy this morning, she thought talking about what to do if you are confronted by a seizure would be something worth mentioning today, so here is a handy guide, from the Epilepsy Action website.

Do...

Protect the person from injury - (remove harmful objects from nearby)

Cushion their head

Look for an epilepsy identity card or identity jewellery

Aid breathing by gently placing them in the recovery position once the seizure has finished

Stay with the person until recovery is complete

Be calmly reassuring

Don't...

Restrain the person’s movements

Put anything in the person’s mouth

Try to move them unless they are in danger

Give them anything to eat or drink until they are fully recovered

Attempt to bring them round

Call for an ambulance if...

You know it is the person’s first seizure, or

The seizure continues for more than five minutes, or

One tonic-clonic seizure follows another without the person regaining consciousness between seizures, or

The person is injured during the seizure, or

You believe the person needs urgent medical attention

Please feel free to share this post with your friends. The more people who are aware of what to do and what not to do when someone is having a seizure, the better.

You can read my full epilepsy story here.

Purple Day 2018 French Village Diaries talking about Epilepsy

Thank you, 578 times

Fund raising for Epilepsy Action

Thank You!

With a week to go until Adrian’s Ride London Surrey 100 challenge, our target of raising £500 for EpilepsyAction has been smashed, thanks to you. 

Some of you are family, some of you friends who live nearby, some of you we have know for years and some of you we might never meet because we live thousands of miles away, but thank you all. We are over the moon and when you add in the UK Gift Aid contribution the total raised of £578.78 becomes almost £650.

This was a real boost as it’s been a tough week for us that started with a swollen foot for me, following a nasty sting. The beastie left it’s weapon concealed in the liner of my gardening boot, so I never found out what type of sting it was, but it was bad enough to make wearing shoes difficult and wearing tight cycling shoes impossible. 

Last Sunday should have been my big summer challenge, cycling the Rapha Women’s 100, a 100 kilometres in a day on the bike, but temperatures of over 34 degrees that left the road surface melted and my swollen foot, meant a change of plan. We thought an early evening, gentle 25kms would be OK, until my bike had other ideas and my back wheel popped a spoke. We taped it up and bravely carried on, but soon discovered that just one spoke out is enough to make a wobbly wheel that rubs and catches on the frame. After 6.5kms we limped home and my Rapha Women’s 100 became a disappointing 13km.

My bed for the day

My painkillers

If this wasn’t enough, last Wednesday I experienced my first taste of hospital à la Française. It was a routine gynaecology procedure, in and out in a day, but still rather uncomfortable and I’ve spent a lot of my time in an armchair, surrounded by boxes of painkillers that have done a good job of keeping my mind off my bruises. The team of doctors and nurses at the hospital in Niort were fun, friendly and efficient and I’m grateful to them all. Tomorrow my stitches are coming out and then it's onwards and upwards, but no cycling for a week or so yet.

Cycling at sunrise

Adrian has clocked up over 430kms in training rides in just over a week, despite the weather being a big challenge. Three rides, including a 120km final push, had to be very early morning starts as temperatures soared to 38 degrees and one ride had to be aborted after a few kilometres when rain reduced visibility to zero. He has now serviced his bike and given it a clean and a polish, so it’s all ready for next week in London. We will be signing in on Saturday and on Sunday morning after waving him off, I’ll be spending my day volunteering in Piccadilly with the Epilepsy Action team where I’ll be helping to set up the venue for the finish celebration and looking forward to welcoming in the riders. Until then I’m taking it easy, but no one told the courgettes that.

A couple of days of pickings

Reaching the fundraising target certainly gave Adrian the encouragement needed to keep the training up this week as it all had to be fitted in around my hospital trip, and with me out of action Ed and Adrian have also found themselves performing odd tasks, like hanging out washing, ironing, cooking, floor sweeping and spiralising courgettes.

A healthy spiralled courgette salad

The Just Giving page is still open, so if you would like to donate please see here. You can read my story about living with epilepsy here. 

My Epilepsy Action Cycling Hero

Epilepsy Action Hero

We have reached July. A month dedicated to cycling, well for us anyway. 

My Tour de France yellow jersey

The Tour de France has begun, I’ve dug out my yellow T-shirt and our evenings are spent glued to the TV where the familiar faces of Gary Imlach, Chris Boardman, Ned Boulting and David Millar relay the day’s events; their words as entertaining as they are informative. We shouted ‘YES’ in unison as Mark Cavendish crossed the line on day 1 to take the yellow jersey for the first time, despite nearly 30 stage wins in the Tour over the last ten years. We’ve toured Normandy, the Loire, Poitou-Charentes and the Limousin (or should that be Nouvelle Aquitaine?) with them, many places we have visited with our bikes in recent years and we are looking forward to the action and stunning scenery to come in the mountain stages. It is a moment of normality and excitement in what are otherwise dark and stressful days following the Brexit referendum.

Cycle themed decorations

Next week our neighbouring village will host the arrival of the final day of the Tour des Deux Sèvres. Not quite in the same league as the Tour de France, but that hasn’t stopped them erecting cycle themed decorations in the village, or organising a day of celebrations and entertainments. We will be there, getting our fix of live cycling action, as this year I’m not sure we will make it to any of the Tour de France stages.

Adrian has been spending as much time as possible training for his Prudential Ride London Surrey 100 event on 31^st July. Cycling 160km (100miles) in one day is rather daunting and hasn’t been easy to train for, as time and weather have been against him. He did manage an 80km ride last weekend at 28km/h with no stops. He left after morning coffee and returned for a late lunch, feeling (justifiably) pleased with his performance. He will be increasing his training rides to 100km and 120km once he is back from working in UK, but it is unlikely he will have time to attempt 160km before the day itself. We are also planning a 100km ride together (at a much slower pace) as part of the Rapha Women's 100 on 17^th July. This will be my last big ride for a few weeks, as a small gynea op will keep me off my bike for a while.

Adrian at the Ardechoise event

A real boost to Adrian’s confidence came from our trip to the Ardeche at the end of June. Here he completed an 85km cycling event in three hours 45 minutes and got a real taste for climbing proper hills and riding in a large group event. He loved it, his pre-event nerves were soon replaced with excitement and adrenalin, and each update I received from him was more animated. His only regret was signing up for the 85km rather than the 125km event, but he is already making plans for next year. I was really proud of him and thought he looked pretty damned good in his Ardechoise jersey. See here for a full update on the Ardechoise.

Epilepsy Action Hero

He is getting quite a collection of cycling jerseys this summer as his Epilepsy Action Hero jersey has arrived for the Prudential Ride London Surrey 100. Epilepsy is a difficult condition to live with. It may not show itself very often (if you are lucky like me) but it is always there, lurking in the background. I can’t forget about it, go out without my sunglasses on, or overdo things in the garden, as that is when it will strike. When it does, it’s not pleasant. It’s scary for those around who find you flat out and unresponsive. It’s exhausting and painful for me, every muscle spasms, then aches for days, the bruises where I hit the deck and the bite marks in my mouth, I could go on. I do know I am very lucky to have an amazing husband, who I trust with my life and he truly is my Epilepsy Action hero. Not only has he had to pick me up (literally) after a seizure, but his strong arms have held me tight when the visual wobbles have reared up and despite us both feeling my body twitching, he kept a full seizure away.

In the UK alone 600,000 people suffer from epilepsy and Epilepsy Action are there to help them and their families, providing support in person and online. I understand more about my epilepsy now than I did when it struck at 17 as there is so much more information available on the internet. If you want to know more about the work Epilepsy Action do you can visit their website here.

Adrian is fit (the French health service has confirmed) and has quite a few kilometres under his belt, but this event will still be a challenge and the longest day on the bike he has ever done. If you would like to help by virtually cheering him on, please donate to his Just Giving Page. Every small amount will help make a difference to the lives of people living with epilepsy, please click here. We are very close to raising £500 and would love to reach that target.

£10 could give 50 people information about first aid for seizures – helping people with epilepsy be safe in public.

£20 could equip a new volunteer with resources to raise awareness of epilepsy in their local community.

£30 could help the Epilepsy Action experts support five people newly diagnosed with epilepsy, providing one-to-one advice when it’s needed most.

Thank you.

May the wheels of our bikes continue to turn, even if the wheels of politics seem to have buckled.