The one label I'm proud to wear is that of 'geek'. It's a badge I wear with pride cultivated through obsessively watching the likes of Tales From The Crypt, Fringe and the X-Files, and basically doing a Cathy Bates over anything and everything that sparked my imagination.
To further evidence my claim - I will confess to possessing a 'wall of weird' growing up that wasn't all too dissimilar to Carrie Matheson's (Homeland) pinned maps when she was off her meds.
Unfortunately, a couple of my latest medical tags haven't been met with such enthusiasm as at 36 I've been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis and crepitus. I also have bilateral kidney stones (you don't have to say it - no one likes an overachiever!) - which are disappointingly small for the level of pain they cause and also make me wonder what the hell I'm eating to form gravel in my stomach - I do wonder if I pass enough of the little blighters, whether I might be able to finally finish off the drive!
Crepitus sucks as it turns your joints into dodgy floorboards which means I must go full stealth mode when playing hide and seek with the kids, as I can't go up and down the stairs anymore to a hiding place as they can hear my snap crackle and pop approach. I go black ops and pre-meditate my hidey holes.
Speaking of low blows oral sex can prove difficult as I also suffer from temporomandibular disorder, which makes my jaw click and lock, rather off putting for the hubby. Fortunately, it's not constant, it comes and goes but when it's bad it feels like my jaw has taken a hit by Iron Mike and the circle of life is complete as I end up going back to the start on soft foods waiting for the aeroplane! I suppose it's good preparation for an insight into my twilight years, at least I'm not wearing a bib yet.
I'd love to be one of those starlets in the movies where the two lovers wake up in bed together and she's still irritatingly stunning, but thanks to the TMJ I sleep with a mouth guard and am closer to resembling Dr Lecter. The best I can hope for is to avoid a drool patch.
But it's not all doom and gloom. Like every other test, it just makes life that little bit more interesting. Straddling during sex is probably the funniest thing as I never know when my hips are going to pop or lock - Shakira was right, hips don't lie! The hubby knows when I'm turned on as my toes click and give me away #WinWin.
Strangely it's the chronic tiredness due to fibromyalgia that gets me down the most. Whether you've heard of it or acknowledge it as a genuine condition is up to you. To be honest I hadn't heard of it until the doctors started banding the term about. If I could sum up the fatigue simply, it'd be in a remake of the Funny Bones book: under a dark dark duvet, lay a tired tired mummy.
But tired is an understatement. I can be having a good day and then without any warning an invisible hand presses my off switch. I feel so overwhelmingly tired my head starts to loll about as though I lack the strength to keep it up. Even my fingers tingle as though intercepting a small electrical current. But as is the British way, the only way I can deal with it, is to make light of it. There's enough heavy stuff going on in the world without feeding off my physical shortfalls. So instead of being a 'Queen of the Night' like Whitney, I'm a self-declared Queen of the Naps!
Fortunately, I work from home, so I steal rendezvous with the Sand Man where I can, in between shifts and the school run; I don't have time for an affair!
A note of warning. If like myself, you're a bit of a dopey sleeper - by that I mean I'm generally not the full loaf when fully awake, so when half asleep or coming round, I'm very disorientated. Choose your snooze location and cover wisely. I once woke up crusty eyed and bleary under a pile of children's coats! I cannot convey how much it freaked me out. I felt like Alice in Wonderland and started looking for small glass vials.
With that I bid you farewell, my head has a date with a pillow.