The things they don’t tell you

This is a departure from the usual content of this blog, but I feel the subject warrants it. Earlier this week news broke of a potential crisis in the gastroenterology service at Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Crumlin. Specialists there want to highlight the fact that the waiting list for some gastro investigations and tests, for diseases like Crohn’s and Colitis as well as Coeliac, is as long as 18 months. Meaning, every day, children all over the country wait in vain for a simple test which could lead to diagnosis and treatment. I am not a parent, but I do have Crohn’s Disease. And I remember well the horror of being on a waiting list, in pain and afraid.

ONE of the things they don’t tell you about having Crohn’s Disease is that sometimes, particularly at the start, few people will believe you when you say you feel dreadful. Again. Because for the most part Crohn’s is invisible and you’ll look fine.

They also don’t tell you that people will whisper behind your back at your sudden and dramatic weightloss as the disease progresses, hushed conversations about crash diets and speed.

Or that doctors will sigh wearily, when you explain that you vomit after every meal, and ask if you’re actually making yourself sick, suggesting you have bulimia.

And they certainly don’t tell you that at times, when the illness really takes hold, you may soil yourself. In public.

Crohn’s Disease is a chronic, incurable inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract, so can occur anywhere between the mouth and the anus, though generally manifests in the small bowel or colon.

Symptoms include vomiting, constant diarrhea, anal bleeding, fever, pain, weightloss, fistulas, liver inflammation, mouth ulcers, bleeding gums and a whole host of other problems.

The disease can range from mild to severe and often goes into remission for long periods of time. People with Crohn’s can live full, healthy and active lives and with medication or surgery their disease can be managed very successfully.

But, at times, it is no picnic.

A story I tell about waking up from a colonoscopy to find a male nurse heartily wiping lubricant from my behind and telling me he recognised my…face…from my home town regularly draws gales of laughter from friends and family.

The story about the time I crawled on my hands and knees to the toilet in my office, because I was bent double with pain, and vomited blood before passing out briefly, however, isn’t so funny.

I was diagnosed in May 2002 following nine long months of sickness, pain, tests, more tests, waiting lists and yet more tests. During those nine months, because doctors were unsure what was wrong with me, I received no treatment and simply had to suffer through.

I had started to feel unwell the previous September, throwing up every time I ate, no appetite, running to the loo every five minutes, classic symptoms which terrified me, as I knew exactly what they pointed to.

My eldest sister had been diagnosed with Crohn’s 12 years earlier and had gone through the exact same thing, so when it started happening to me, I knew. I knew I had Crohn’s, I just had to wait for the doctors to find it.

At 22 though, thankfully, I was adult enough to be able to wait. I could understand what was happening to my body and managed to cling on by my fingernails, knowing that eventually help would come.

A child isn’t so lucky. A tiny child has no idea what is happening to it, what the pain is, why suddenly every trip to the loo is a living nightmare. Or why they have to wait months and months and months to be tested and start treatment

What is happening at Crumlin Children’s Hospital is nothing short of scandalous. So long are the waiting lists for gastrointestinal tests and investigations for conditions like Crohn’s, Colitis and Coeliac Disease that tiny children are being put through hell on a daily basis.

I can’t imagine a child going through what I went through.

Not just the pain and the vomiting and the diarrhea, not just the embarrassment and the fear and the need to be within 20 paces of a bathroom at all times – but the sheer mind-numbing, crushing, constantness of it.

When Crohn’s has you in its grip, particularly before diagnosis and during those first few bewildering months after, there is no let up.

No respite.

It is never-ending, the pain simply doesn’t go away and I know personally, during that very dark time, I often prayed for it, all of it, to end.

It is indefensible that any child should have to go through that. Is this what our country has come to? That tiny children, sick children, are left to languish for 18 months before getting access to a simple 20 minute test? A test that could get to the root of their problem and give them their life back?

For a country that only last week showed off the brightest and best that Ireland has to offer, on a world stage, this serious shortfall and backlog in our health system is shameful.

It must be addressed as soon as possible. It may make no difference but I will be writing to my TDs and political representatives and perhaps, if you feel as angry as I do, you might too.

A final note – I do not wish to scaremonger. Nor would I wish someone recently diagnosed with Crohn’s to come upon this post and be scared silly by what I have written. Once I was diagnosed and found a medication to suit me I started to get better. Much better. I have received, and continue to receive, excellent care in the public health system, despite the waiting lists, and currently I am well and happy. I have a normal, full, wonderful life. Crohn’s is very treatable, it is not a life sentence and medication and treatment continues to come on in leaps and bounds. What I wanted to do with this post was to give a glimpse of the harsh reality of being ill and being on a waiting list. As I said, it is no picnic

So – what happens now?

I DON’T feel married.

There.

I said it.

I know I AM married, that I know for sure. I have the photos and the sparkly wedding ring to prove it.

And the husband, I suppose.

“How’s married life treating ya,” people ask me regularly, grinning and nodding at me in a jocular fashion.

“Very oddly. Married life is very odd indeed,” is surprisingly not the answer most people are expecting.

It is most disconcerting to wake up one morning and suddenly have a husband. Despite the years we’ve been together and the many years we planned this wedding, it still felt very sudden.

I have a husband. That’s him there, on the right, in the photo above.

He will be the father of my children. He’s legally my next of kin. He has a say in whether or not my organs are donated. How’s that for romance?

But I still don’t feel married.

I don’t know what I was expecting. Of course, I’m happy. Blissfully so.

Then, I was happy before the wedding. Blissfully so.

I feel very secure in my relationship, but I’ve felt secure since our second date.

I get butterflies when I see him walking toward me, but I’ve always felt those flutters of excitement.

How are you supposed to feel? See – that’s the thing, nobody tells you how you’re supposed to feel.

Personally, I blame Hollywood.

There are plenty of movies out there about meeting The One, you know, boy meets girl, girl loves boy, boy’s not so sure, girl gets in a huff and says everything’s ‘fine’ when it’s clearly not, boy cops on, boy and girl live happily ever after.

But what happens after that? There’s plenty of walking off into the sunset, even movies about the actual wedding itself, but the aftermath is rarely shown.

If Twentieth Century Fox doesn’t tell me how to feel, am I really married at all? That is the question.

Is this it?

Is it normal to feel like the wedding day was a dream, like it happened years ago, or perhaps didn’t even happen at all?

Is it normal for life to continue on as usual, exactly the same as before the wedding – just as happy, just as in love, just the same?

Or am I a monster with no soul?

Photo courtesy of the lovely and talented Red Mum www.redmum.ie

The ten-day itch

The before picture...

And the unfortunate 'after' picture...

WE were ten days married when Yer Man was relegated to the spare room.

That’s what marriage does folks, happy for years and years and then one very expensive day and an ivory dress later, boom, someone’s in the spare room.

“We’re like Marilyn Manson and Dita von Teese,” I yelled out across the landing.

“What?” he yelled back.

“I said, we’re like Marilyn MANSON and Dita von TEESE,” I screamed, a little more impatiently this time.

“How is that now?” he asked, coming to the door of the bedroom in his kaks, bleary eyed.

“You know, Marilyn Manson and Dita von Teese. They went out together quite happily for eight years, then got married and were divorced within the year, remember?”

“Oh yeah,” he yawned hugely “but you can hardly compare the two. We’re not getting divorced Karen, you just have the chicken pox.”

He was right, of course, I did just have the chicken pox, but that’s not nearly as glamorous as emulating the Spawn of Satan and his missus and being divorced within days.

The few spots that had appeared on my face and chest during our last 48 hours on honeymoon turned out to be full blown chicken pox, much to my embarrassment.

What 32-year-old grown MARRIED woman gets the bloody chicken pox? On honeymoon, of all times to get them?

I slunk into the doctor’s surgery immediately after touching down at Dublin Airport, scarleh for myself, finding it hard to believe that rather than returning home from honeymoon glowing and laden down with Infant of Prague tat, I was returning covered in pus-filled spots and laden with a raging fever.

“Jaysus,” the doctor said, taking a step back when I walked into his office “what happened to you? The last time I saw you, well…”

The last time he’d seen me had been ten days earlier, at my wedding. It was a real before and after moment for him, let me tell you.

Anyway, he gathered himself and diagnosed the pox, sending me on my way with an antihistamine and instructions to get calamine lotion and some bread soda to try to control the itch.

By that night, the spots had spread further and I was covered in them – they were itchy and tender and vast amounts of calamine lotion and sudocrem was the only thing that gave any relief.

I could only sleep in the starfish position so that no inch of flesh touched another inch, hence why Yer Man had to move out so that I could have more room in the bed and be more comfortable.

If truth be told, I think he was relieved – having to sleep beside a sweating, red-faced, pock covered monstrosity was probably not his idea of a honeymoon.

The week wore on, with me lounging on the sofa, popping antihistamines, trying desperately not to scratch and watching more episodes of the Gilmore Girls than is healthy.

After a few days I felt better and thought it was about time Yer Man was welcomed back into the fold and into the bed.

Until we noticed the scabs.

Turns out when chicken pox is on the way out, the spots scab over and turn into horrible crusty black tipped yokes which FALL OFF all over the house, your clothes, your bed. You get the picture.

“It’s not so bad,” I lied, sweeping a hape of scabs onto the floor, out of sight “come on, come back into the bed with me, it’s nice here.”

I nodded encouragingly at Yer Man, causing another shower of scabs to fall off my face, begging him, pleading with my scabby eyes for him to return to the marital bed.

“I don’t think so,” he said looking terrified and slipping on a pile of scabs as he backed out of the room “Just call me Marilyn, I think I’ll take that divorce after all.”

The Missus and Him Indoors

THERE is a surprising dearth of opportunity to tell people you’re on your honeymoon, when you’re on your honeymoon.

You’d think it’d be easy, right?

There you are, all loved up after the wedding, sporting blindingly shiny new rings, hardly able to keep your paws off each other. AMPLE opportunity for someone – a waitress, an air hostess, a taxi driver – to ask “So what brings you to town?”

But it didn’t happen. Not once.

After the wedding day itself (which was truly wonderful and one of the happiest days of my life) it was the thing we were both looking forward to the most – gushing about being on our honeymoon and referring to each other as ‘my husband’ and ‘my wife’. We really couldn’t wait for that part.

We had it all planned out. First we’d smile winningly at the girl on the check-in desk at the airport, and gush that we were honeymooners so she’d automatically bump us up to first class, offer us champagne and gifts, and bring us into the cockpit (ooh Matron) to meet the pilot.

Didn’t happen.

Bloody Aer Lingus doesn’t HAVE check-in desks anymore. It’s self-service, so you check in yourself, pick your own seat and print out your own boarding card.

Yer Man was most disappointed, jabbing at the screen half-heartedly and turning to me with a mournful look. “I’m on my honeymoon,” he said sadly.

We cheered up though once on the flight as we figured that one of the smiling hostesses would bring us something inedible masquerading as food, zero in on the rings, realise we were on our honeymoon and bump us up to first class, offer us champagne and gifts and bring us into the cockpit (ooh er Matron) to meet the pilot.

Didn’t happen.

On European flights you don’t get any free food off them. So they pass by with the food for sale on a trolley at breakneck speed, only pausing if you purchase something. We weren’t THAT desperate.

The hotel, we consoled ourselves, the hotel will SURELY acknowledge our honeymoon.

They didn’t.

Oh they were very nice and all – big suite, friendly staff, lovely restaurant – but they simply smiled at us and welcomed us to Prague, gave us our key and sent us on our way. Not a word about being on honeymoon and no opportunity for us to mention it either.

It was starting to really upset us – what if NOBODY asked us why we were in Prague? What if we got NO free stuff? No complimentary drinks or token souvenirs or even a simple round of applause?

This wouldn’t do at all. At. All.

“Ok, here’s the plan,” sez I, grimly, sitting Yer Man down in the suite to go over things with him. “What we’ll do is this. We’ll go down to the restaurant and be seated and get our menus. Then you will go to the loo and stay there for ten minutes. Meanwhile, when the waiter comes back to get our drinks order because you’re taking so long in the toilet I will say ‘I’ll have a Coke and my husband will have an orange.’ Then you will come back from the loo and call over the waiter again and say ‘Sorry to bother you, but my wife ordered me an orange, but I actually wanted a Sprite. We’re only married a week and already she’s ordering for me! And getting it wrong! Bwahahah!’ We’ll sound like gobshites, but we’ll get to call each other husband and wife, it’ll work, trust me.”

It didn’t.

Of course it didn’t.

What happened was that we were seated, Yer Man went to the loo and the waiter, being a normal human being and good at his job, waited until Yer Man got back from the jacks before taking our drinks order.

“What will you have Madam,” he asked politely.

“A Coke,” I replied, through gritted teeth.

“And you Sir?”

“A Sprite,” Yer Man grunted, dropping his head into his hands.

The best laid plans, eh? No need for anybody to call anybody husband or wife, no telling anyone we were only a week married. Nothing. We ate in silence, disgusted with one another. We could have been brother and sister for crying out loud!

After that we gave it up as a bad job and just got on with the honeymoon and had a blast. We consoled ourselves by only referring to one another as ‘my husband’ or ‘my wife’ refusing to use our real names for the whole eight days. It helped, even if we were still a bit secretly disappointed.

Finally though, on the last day of the honeymoon, we caught a break.

As soon as the plane touched down in Dublin Airport, we went straight to the doctor’s office as I had become very unwell in Prague the day before and wanted to check that it wasn’t anything too serious.

After seeing the doctor, I was sent home to bed and Yer Man was sent to the chemist to fill my prescription.

“Here’s the prescription,” he sighed wearily, sagging against the counter, “I have to get two bottles of calamine lotion as well. My wife has the chicken pox.”

Leavin’ on a jet plane…

BUT before I leave, here’s a quick peek at one or two wedding photos. It was a wonderful day and I’m still on a high, I couldn’t be happier.

 

 

 

 

Ding dong the bells are gonna chime…

“NEXT Tuesday, April 12, at 9pm, here on BBC One…” the announcer’s voice boomed out from my television advertising some programme or other, something I normally wouldn’t pay attention to.

But this time the date caught my ear.

April 12?

But April 12 doesn’t exist, surely?

In my world the calendar only goes as far as April 7.

Our wedding day.

For the past two years, five months and 12 days the whole focus of my universe has been April 7, 2011 and it’s suddenly hard to get used to the fact that after this date, life goes on.

I don’t know how I’m going to cope.

Everything, and I mean everything, has been geared towards this date.

There isn’t a piece of bread in this house that has a sell by date past April 7.

Ditto milk.

There’s nothing in our freezer, nothing now.

Not even the obligatory bag of Brussels sprouts bought at Christmas and left to fester there ever since.

We cleared out all our presses and our fridge well in advance so nothing could go off while we’re on honeymoon. If I eat another Chinese takeaway, I swear, I’m going to go into spontaneous heart failure.

There is exactly enough loo roll to get us to the morning of April 7 and that’s it.

I have my knickers and socks counted to last me until Thursday, everything else is in the wash, or put away for the honeymoon.

Our house smells of laundry detergent and bleach, with a little nervous sweat thrown in for good measure. Surfaces sparkle, we’re almost afraid to touch anything, in case it gets messed up.

Everything needs to be kept clean, for April 7.

Married women tell you to enjoy the run up to the wedding, the last few days, as they’re over in the blink of an eye and they’re right.

It does go by, so quickly.

What they don’t tell you however is how surreal these last few days are.

You can be doing something totally mundane, like say buying loo roll in Tesco, and suddenly it hits you like a train – I’m getting married on Thursday.

You look at the man beside you deliberating over whether it’s cheaper to buy 12 rolls in a multi-pack or three packs of four rolls and marvel at how in two days he’s going to be your husband.

They don’t tell you how receiving a card in the post addressed to your married name can make you drop what you’re holding in fright.

Or that at this stage in the proceedings you will be counting the hours, rather than the days.

So it is there, with about 36 hours to go, that I sign off.

There is not a lot to be done, but a lot to take in and I intend to enjoy every second of it.

I will be back, of course. On the other side, with tales to tell and photos to show off but for now, I’m off. And thank you for reading.

Ding dong, the bells are gonna chime…

You might feel a little pinch…

I’VE decided I’m never having children.

Sorry now, but no.

It’s not because I simply don’t want them, or because I’m some sort of child-hater who sits in restaurants and cafes looking disapprovingly at kids in my vicinity, or because I’m afraid I wouldn’t make a good mother.

It’s because of my eyebrows.

I got them done today, for the first time ever.

I know, call the Beauty Police, a 32-year-old woman who’s never had her eyebrows done.

But there’s the hairy truth.

I hadn’t intended to get them done either, for the wedding. It hadn’t even crossed my mind.

I throw a razor over my pits and my shins from time to time and besides washing my hair and having a shower every day, that’s about the extent of my grooming regime.

But that was BW. Before Wedding.

A few weeks ago my sister hired a make-up artist to meet with me to do a trial for the wedding. The make-up lady was going to do ‘a face’ for me and then my sister planned to copy that for the wedding day.

Grand, no problem there.

In she bustled, the make-up lady, looking me up and down as she unpacked her case.

“Are you prone to dark circles?” she asked, prodding the area under my eye and staring me down.

“Er, yes, I guess so,” I replied, terrified.

“And blemishes, and oily skin I see as well,” she continued, in a martyred voice, not even giving me the chance to respond that time.

“Naturally, you’ll be doing something about those eyebrows,” she said, again a statement, not a question.

“My eyebrows?”

I was puzzled. My eyebrows were fine, I didn’t see any problem with them. They sit on top of my eyes, in a normal fashion, not doing anything outrageous. What exactly did I need to ‘do’ with them?

“You’ll be getting them waxed. Or tweezed? Threaded maybe?” she replied, almost pleading with me.

It wasn’t something I had considered but judging by the pitying glances the make-up lady was throwing me, they needed to be done.

So today I bit the bullet and took myself off to the Brow Bar at the Benefit counter in Debenhams on Henry Street.

To be fair to the lovely girl who served with me, even though she actually clutched her throat in horror when she saw the state of my brows, she managed to compose herself and sorted me out with a smile.

Not before she tortured me though.

And here comes the point of this story.

The PAIN of it.

Honest to God, the sheer physical PAIN of it was like nothing I’ve ever experienced.

Because I’d never had my eyebrows done before, they couldn’t wax them as I hadn’t had a patch test and didn’t know if I’d react badly to the wax.

The last thing I wanted 12 days before the wedding was an allergic reaction anywhere near my face.

So I agreed to a tweeze instead.

“It might be a little bit sore….” the lovely girl said kindly, taking me by the hand and backing me into a chair before I could change my mind “but I’ll be quick.”

The liar.

It was AGONY. And she took her time. Though to be fair, she was only doing what I asked her to do. The cow.

“How are you doing there?” she asked gently, halfway through the first eyebrow.

“Nrrrghghghghhhhhh,” I replied as amiably as possible.

“Don’t worry, I’m nearly finished,” she soothed.

The liar.

Hours later, HOURS, I stumbled out into the main store, face numb, forehead roaring red, palms bleeding where I had dug my fingernails in, though it has to be said with beautifully shaped brows.

It actually only took about 15 minutes, but it felt like a lifetime.

If a simple eyebrow tweeze can bring tears to my eyes, imagine what I’d be like trying to force an eight pound baby out through my hoo-ha?

And some women can be in labour for days. Days!

So no, I’ll be having no children thank you very much and from this moment on my eyebrows will grow wild and bushy, the way Liam Gallagher and nature intended.

Do ya feel lucky, do ya, punk?

“ARE ya nervous, are ya?” the florist asked, stopping short of adding a lip-curling ‘punk’. But only just.

“Well no, not…” I trailed off seeing his disappointed little face.

“Yup, very nervous. Up the walls now. Not sure if I’m doing the right thing. You know yourself. Cold feet. Last minute doubts. Bwah ha ha!” I laughed heartily, over egging the pudding ever so slightly.

“Sure all you brides are the same,” he said knowingly “but sure you may as well marry someone you know? Nobody wants to die lonely and alone, sure they don’t? Bwah ha ha!” He laughed heartily, if ever so slightly hysterically.

Ok, so I can’t sleep. But that’s not because I’m nervous. I can’t sleep because I’m worrying about the party aspect of the wedding.

Worrying about people enjoying themselves, whether the dinner will be nice, whether I’ll look fat in the photos.

The actual marrying Yer Man bit, I’m not nervous about at all. It’s huge, sure.

It’s overwhelming sometimes.

It’s an enourmous commitment and I can hardly believe it’s happening.

But I’m not nervous about it. I’m very sure I want to get married. And I’m very sure I want to get married to Yer Man. I’ve been sure about him since the second date, so that’s not a problem at all.

Somehow though, people seem to want me to show a little nerves. I’m not enough of a bride unless I’m on the phone to the Samaritans every minute of the day, agonising over whether to back out now or wait until my groom is actually at the altar, apparently.

And my florist isn’t the only one demanding a little nervous sweat either.

The hairdresser today was the same.

“Are ya nervous? Sure of course you are,” she said, not even waiting for my reply.

Ditto the neighbours, the woman on the till at Tesco, my entire family and, it seems, every other person on the planet.

Oh the nerves must be kicking in now!

How are the oul nerves?

You must be nervous, are you?

I feel like I’m bursting people’s bubbles when I say that actually I’m not nervous about the wedding itself. It’s like kicking a puppy!

But just for the record, no, I’m not nervous.

Sure what have I to be nervous about? Amn’t I marrying Yer Man.

Kind, generous, funny, loyal. And the owner of a very fine ass.

Like two peaches in a hanky.

Can’t sleep, won’t sleep

IT’S official – I can’t sleep.

And even when I can, I won’t.

My head is too full.

Of wedding plans and problems and worries.

Must remember to do this.

Don’t forget to do that.

Tick this off the list.

Dammit, add this to the list.

We’ve been planning and planning and planning this wedding for so long, and yet there are still things to do.

Still things to think about, still things to keep me up at night.

Silly things.

Stupid things.

If anyone could hear my thoughts right now they’d tell me to cop myself right on. It’s a wedding I’m working on, not nuclear fission.

But still. At times it feels like nuclear fission. At times it feels like I’m running the bloody world.

I’ve come to the conclusion that weddings are mad things altogether, Ted.

I fully believe that in years to come hip teenagers in hovercars and spaceships will wander around museums looking at wedding photos in bewilderment, convinced we were all off our respective boxes.

It’s such an odd thing to want to do, get married, isn’t it?

Tethering yourself legally to someone, making a hoopla out of announcing that you’re a couple, flouncing about in ivory tafetta.

Like eejits.

I lie awake night after night, listening to Yer Man snuffling beside me, watching the light on the landing brighten as the hours pass.

Worrying about pew ends, running through the order of the day, hoping our suppliers won’t let us down, wondering if any of it is really worth it.

But then I turn on to my side and snuggle into his warm back, feeling his heart beating under my palm, and get my answer.

*This post was written at 2am, but I clicked ‘Save’ instead of ‘Publish’. D’oh! It made more sense at 2am!

Those three little words…

“DO you remember the first time we said ‘I love you’ to each other?” I asked Yer Man earlier.

He wrinkled his brow and sat back in his chair, pursing his lips.

“God…I’m sure I…let me think, I’ll get it in a minute,” he said in a worried tone, throwing me sidelong glances, sure he was in for an ear bashing for not remembering the magic moment.

I let him stew for a bit before giving in.

“It’s all right,” I said into the strained silence “I don’t remember either.”

“Oh thanks be to GOD,” he let out in a great whoosh of air “I was sure you were going to batter me.”

We sat for ages, thinking, letting our minds wander back.

Of course one of the reasons neither of us could remember was that it was so long ago, as it happened very early on in the relationship.

Very early indeed.

We were only going out about two weeks when we laid all our cards on the table.

Suddenly Yer Man jumped from his seat “It was a text message!”

Oh God, he was right.

It was indeed a text message, after about six dates. How very technological of us.

We had been beating around the proverbial and one night I couldn’t stand it any longer and said it in a text.

Luckily he pinged back an ‘I love you too!’ message pretty quick sharpish, so I wasn’t left on tenterhooks wondering if I’d just killed yet another relationship.

Of course we lied about it to our friends. We couldn’t admit we had said it so early on, that we had broken all the Rules. I knew from our second date that I would be spending the rest of my life with this man, but I couldn’t tell anybody that. You wouldn’t tell anybody that.

I remember my birthday, about five months after we started going out, when a bunch of roses appeared in my workplace, sent by Yer Man.

The card wished me a happy birthday and was signed with an ‘I love you’.

“Oh my God! Is that the first time he’s said I love you?!” squealed a colleague, jumping up and down with excitement.

“Erm, yes, yes it is,” I lied, embarrassed. Too embarrassed to tell her that at that stage we had said it, and meant it, about a bajillion times.

We hugged our secret to ourselves, like thieves, taking it out when nobody was looking to savour it, to relish it.

We only LOVED saying it, so we did. Every text message, every date, every kiss and cuddle.

It would have got boring only for, you know, we were in love and all of that junk.

In twenty days we are going to be saying a very big I love you, a very public I love you, when we marry and it got me thinking and remembering the first time.

Good times.

What about you – do you remember your first I love you?