{"id":1010,"date":"2013-09-01T13:45:34","date_gmt":"2013-09-01T12:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jordantheheadcase.wordpress.com\/?p=1010"},"modified":"2024-06-01T11:06:52","modified_gmt":"2024-06-01T11:06:52","slug":"im-forty-next-month-i-have-a-par-day-to-plan-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jordantheheadcase.com\/index.php\/2013\/09\/01\/im-forty-next-month-i-have-a-par-day-to-plan-help\/","title":{"rendered":"I’m Forty Next Month. I Have A Par-day To Plan. Help."},"content":{"rendered":"

Er, excuse me, where did the year just go??\u00a0 I am forty next month and I have not completed my F-List.\u00a0 This is not on.\u00a0 To make things worse, my shunt has decided to malfunction.\u00a0 Great timing, as always, Shunt!\u00a0 I had planned to go to Paris in September (it’s on my F-List) but now I can’t leave the house, let alone leave the country.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>
This is where I wanted to be on my fortieth. I love it here.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Maybe I’ll just have to be creative regarding that one. I have decided to start organising my fortieth birthday plans now.\u00a0 Because October is galloping up behind me at alarming speed and my gut is telling me that I am almost certainly heading for head surgery of some sort.\u00a0 So best to crack on with it now rather than wait and find myself in hospital, rather poorly and with no energy to organise a wash, let alone a party.\u00a0 I am now trying to decide what to do to celebrate what has turned out (rather surprisingly) to be an important birthday to me.\u00a0 Here\u2019s why it\u2019s important:<\/span><\/p>\n

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  • I\u2019m grateful to be able to celebrate a fortieth birthday. \u00a0Not that every time my shunt fails I think I\u2019m going to die \u2013 I don\u2019t.\u00a0 But in the last thirteen years I\u2019ve had nineteen troublesome brain and stomach surgeries, two shunt infections, a blockage, collapsed ventricles in the brain, my brain fluid leaking down my neck (it really shouldn\u2019t be on one\u2019s neck) and a couple of genuine moments where I did<\/i>, momentarily, find myself thinking; \u2018hmm, this feels dangerous.\u00a0 I wonder where this is going to end up?\u2019.\u00a0 Having genuine uncertainty, even if it\u2019s fleeting, as to whether you\u2019re still going to be alive in a couple of days is rather odd.\u00a0 Also, probably more obviously, the work I\u2019ve done on my shunt donation project has taught me that I am actually very, very, very lucky indeed.\u00a0 Life should be celebrated.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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    • \u00a0<\/span><\/span>I want to throw a nice party to thank my family and friends for helping over the years.\u00a0 I know what they\u2019d say to that; \u2018that\u2019s what we\u2019re here for!\u2019.\u00a0 Well, yes it kind of is.\u00a0 But that doesn\u2019t mean I take it for granted.\u00a0 The only way I can stay positive when I\u2019m very ill is because of them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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      • Last year\u2019s birthday was a washout.\u00a0 I was so ill, I couldn\u2019t even stay to my own party.\u00a0 I ended up in bed by 8.30pm.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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        • Although people may not see it this way, I\u2019ve had a cracking first 39 years.\u00a0 I had a wonderful childhood, a pretty normal teenage existence (stroppy, spotty, thought I knew everything but still secretly loved hanging out with my family even though it was criminal to admit that), some very blessed years in my twenties working at Nick\u2019s Music Studios which was the best job I ever could have asked for, and even though the years since then have been challenging, I\u2019ve learnt a lot.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t change a thing so far.\u00a0 Even the hydrocephalus bit.\u00a0 I have often said that if I were given the choice of going back to my life at 26, when I was diagnosed, and having the option of either NOT having hydrocephalus but staying in my life as it was at that time, with that boyfriend (we were about to sign a mortgage and probably would have got married), that job (before I worked at Nick\u2019s Studios) and that perfectly-fine-but-unremarkable existence OR having hydrocephalus and ending up where I am now (single, only able to work part-time, feeling physically rubbish much of the time), I would without hesitation choose the latter.\u00a0 I prefer who I am now.\u00a0 I\u2019m genuinely happy.\u00a0 Hydrocephalus and all.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

          So I feel I have lovely things to celebrate and lovely people to celebrate them with.\u00a0 But what to do?\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to plan a big party when you\u2019re feeling so ill you can\u2019t function after 2pm and your memory is like a colander.\u00a0 I have no idea of what is going to happen be done regarding my head; I know they want to do ICP monitoring but what comes after that is anyone\u2019s guess.\u00a0 I have pushed my party back to 10th<\/sup> November at the moment..I am hoping that if I do have to have a sizeable surgery, this will allow me to recover enough to attend my party!\u00a0 Here are the options I am considering:<\/p>\n

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          • Hiring a boat on the River Thames and having a floating party, with live music from my friends-in-various-bands.\u00a0 It would be a four-hour cruise past all the major sights and back again.\u00a0 It would also be pretty expensive.\u00a0 But fun.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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            • Hiring a venue down here (by \u2018here\u2019 I mean Brighton as that\u2019s the nearest large city to me and has the most options) with \u2013 again \u2013 live music and good food.\u00a0 It\u2019s cheaper and it\u2019s easier to accomplish if by any chance I am ill on the day.\u00a0 I could still go for a few hours whereas getting to London from here and then partying and then getting back when your head pressure is off is not really that enjoyable.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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              • A cocktail party at mine; it’s big enough and I have a 1950s cocktail bar that I bought on Ebay when I moved out here.\u00a0 The downside of this is that I cannot leave if I feel unwell and it’s a lot of organisation\/preparation\/clearing up, which isn’t easy when you’re ill.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

                I had wanted to spend my fortieth in Paris but that is now impossible.\u00a0 I wondered about having a Paris-themed party instead, with French food, French music and French decor.\u00a0 I need some suggestions if anyone has any.\u00a0 Please feel free to list them below!\u00a0 My aching head would be grateful for them.\u00a0 xx<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                Er, excuse me, where did the year just go??\u00a0 I am forty next month and I have not completed my F-List.\u00a0 This is not on.\u00a0 To make things worse, my shunt has decided to malfunction.\u00a0 Great timing, as always, Shunt!\u00a0 I had planned to go to Paris in September (it’s on my F-List) but now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[18,19,23,56,72,88,89],"class_list":["post-1010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-just-life","tag-birthday","tag-brain","tag-bucket-list","tag-health","tag-life","tag-paris","tag-party"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/jordantheheadcase.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/paris-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jordantheheadcase.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jordantheheadcase.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jordantheheadcase.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jordantheheadcase.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jordantheheadcase.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1010"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jordantheheadcase.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2310,"href":"https:\/\/jordantheheadcase.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions\/2310"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jordantheheadcase.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jordantheheadcase.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jordantheheadcase.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jordantheheadcase.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}