Leg Up

Today

Up, for the first time in a week, following a rather nasty cellulitits attack because of my Milroy's Disease. I was away at a singing week in the Cotswolds when it struck, and we had to leave. Since then, I've had the usual high temperature, sore leg etc.

Am now able to eat again after several days in which nibbling on half a Rich Tea was the best I could do.

In My Day

The condition's a hereditary one and Daddy had a severe case of it. As the disease carries with it the risk of streptococcal infection and antibiotics weren't invented until Daddy was in his 40s there were times when his life was despaired of.

We became accustomed to Daddy's "attacks". It meant that he would be in bed, moaning and shivering with the high temperature (I don't know why it seems to help to moan loudly when your temperature's up, but it does), and out of action for about a week.

I remember one such occasion when I was about 18. Daddy had been ill for about 2 days. I'd been to my youth drama club and the group leader, whom I rather fancied, had offered me a lift home. (What was his name? oh, yes, Noel) I was wondering how to orchestrate asking him in for coffee, when he suffered a minor injury from something sparking from the dashboard of his ancient wreck of a car (it wasn't only Paul who drove appalling old bangers in those days). Easy! he needed minor medical attention so I asked him in.

Mamma, as usual, was all gracious attention, supplying gauze, antiseptic and coffee.

We were just getting past the social niceties when there was a strange "woofing" sound from outside the door, accompanied by scratching. Mamma went over. It was Daddy, on his hands and knees, with his pyjamas nearly at his ankles. "I'm a little dog," he said. "Can I come in?"

Bored with lying in bed and unable to walk, he'd crawled the whole way down the passage from the bedroom. Not only had he ignored the fact that said passage was communal and therefore he could easily be seen by our upstairs tenants, he had clearly not considered the possibility of visitors. We hustled him back to bed.

Noel, in the meantime, fled, never to enter our house again. He avoided me at Young Players meetings after that.

It's an ill-wind, however, and one good side effect of this week has been that I've lost 9lbs.