Food nostalgia (or, the strange things that cross your mind when you are old, ill, or both at once)

When you are ill, or old, or incapacitated in a way that leaves you with time on your hands and a need not to think too hard about the present, your thoughts begin to wander in unexpected directions. Memories suddenly appear unbidden: a surprising number of them are about food, perhaps because you no longer have much control over what you are being given to eat. I have had sudden cravings for things which I only occasionally ate before being ill; I have wanted to try both new things and things from the past which I haven't had for a long time (perhaps there's an element of a food bucket list in this!); I have longed for dishes I used to cook a lot but can no longer do, things which were not available in hospital and are not part of the repertoire of the rest of my family; I now look obsessively at food blogs and recipes and I still keep up my recipe notes in the hope that one day, perhaps, I will be able to do some of it again.

One memory which floated back was of my grandfather, who, becoming seriously ill with a degenerative disease in his 60s, badly wanted the tripe and onions of his childhood again. Bleurgh. (My grandmother couldn't locate any in the small southern English town they had moved to - he might have had a better chance in the various cities they had lived in). I have also read somewhere that, along with working more generally on memories with older people (particularly those with dementia), someone has had the idea of researching what food was popular in their childhood and giving them that.

You can't over-generalise, of course. Some people's memories, not just about food, are not good. Tread carefully! Asking an old lady about her deceased husband might produce a lovely romantic story, or it might draw out of her a tale of broken fingers and how he only saw the baby once and pushed off and was never seen again and left her destitute. As for food, if I am ever in a position where somebody thinks it would make my day to return to the cuisine of the 1960s and 1970s, I think I would like the chance to veto some of it!

On having a chronic cough (1: On the buses)

It is said that many of us have the power to make someone look up or look in our direction by focusing intently on the one whose attention we want to attract. I am quite good at it though I don't claim to have extraordinary powers of telepathy. Perhaps there is a latent instinct in us all which kicks in (how do we explain it otherwise?).

I have had a persistent and unlovely cough for over 8 years. It is an anti-social thing, tiring and unpleasant for me and not very nice for anyone around me. It is the most obvious symptom of one of my chronic conditions. One day, travelling to work on a Cardiff bus, I became aware that someone somewhere on the bus was doing the telepathic stare thing in my direction. Once you become aware of it it startles you into looking up, and in this case it felt full of malice and ill-will. Sure enough, there was a youngish man glaring at me with hatred in his eyes and heart, clutching a scarf across his mouth.

I have got so used to the cough by now that I forget that in the world of normality someone coughing on public transport means one thing and one thing only: an irresponsible person with an infectious condition has deliberately set out to pass it on to everyone else and make them all ill too. Every now and then people on social media shout out (presumably in lieu of actually shouting on their train or bus, or doing the glare thing) that people with coughs should STAY AT HOME and STAY AWAY FROM WORK.

Here, just for a bit of balance, is a list of some of the reasons why people might be coughing but are not a danger to you:

allergies
asthma
bronchiectasis
COPD
cystic fibrosis
idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis
lung cancer

They might also have a legacy cough from a previous illness such as flu, pneumonia, or a collapsed lung. This list is of course not complete.

You are not going to catch any of these, worriers on social media and the hater on the bus. I understand the anxiety, of course, but the concern of others, especially when it centres however politely on suggesting I should be out of sight and hearing of the rest of society, is quite stressful, and one does wish to delay being housebound, unemployed and socially isolated for as long as possible. A chronic cough is for life.

Get well soon!

I have in the past been as guilty as anyone else of sending people cards with this message without knowing whether it is appropriate or not. Obviously when someone first becomes ill they and their friends and family all hope that this is a temporary state of affairs. You go the doctor, or the hospital, you are treated, the nasty thing goes away and you are back where you were.

Chronic illness doesn't work like that, unfortunately. You are not going back to normal, although you might be one of the lucky ones whose disease has been found early enough for a bit of improvement, or at least for you not to get any worse in the near future, and for it to be managed successfully. That wouldn't have quite the same snappy impact as a greetings card offering, of course - "Don't get any worse" wouldn't get a lot of custom, I suspect.

As time goes on it may be more apparent that it is not the right message. A chronic illness is very often progressive, even with periods of remission and allowing that some of these conditions can keep you in their grip for a long time (years in some cases). After a while, the expectations of friends and family can be a bit oppressive, and the message, however well meant, can imply that it is up to you not to be ill - go on, get well! Behind this lies bafflement at coming to terms with the idea that this might not happen ("nonsense, they wouldn't let you out of hospital if you weren't getting better") and perhaps some confusion over the difference between having an incurable disease and having a terminal diagnosis (not necessarily the same thing - although this might seem a rather moot point).

There is also a bit of finger-pointing at the sick and the disabled in society at large which basically seems to suggest that our fate is entirely in our hands. Gaining weight? You are eating too much fat and sugar and not exercising enough. Losing weight? You are not eating properly/enough. There can be serious medical causes for both weight loss and gain which have nothing to do with diet and exercise, and this constant background noise of blame is unhelpful and can distract from addressing the actual causes, which may not be in our own hands at all. This is, of course, a scary thought for everyone.

A change of direction?

Dedicated followers will have noticed that things have been rather quiet here recently.  I have been preoccupied with health issues ("slowing down" might be a polite way of putting it!) and wondering whether I might turn in the direction of considering those. After all, the blog is called "Too much information", and readers might soon feel that that is what they are getting! So, due warning: this might become a bit more of a patient's blog, but only in a fairly nebulous way, as the intricacies of the rather complicated clinical picture would probably not be that helpful to others. There are some general points to be made about chronic illness which might be relevant to a wider group of people (and I certainly have plenty of time for reflection, after all).
Watch this space...