...and the award goes to...

So, here we are. Five weeks on from the day that M-I-L had a dose of the sh*ts (which lasted for less than a day, remember), and she still hasn't been out of her nightie and dressing gown since.

Obviously, as a bloke, I'm used to the concept of making out that you're dying when you have a bit of a cold, but she's taking this to a whole new level. It's almost at the point of becoming an artform! She's even taken to using her commode because she can "barely make it to the bathroom" (allegedly - you should see her move when we're not in the same room! I've witnessed her virtually skipping down the hallway when she doesn't know she's being watched, only to have her start panting and rubbing the area over her heart when I follow her into the kitchen and she becomes aware that I'm there).

She is trying to turn us into her personal slaves as well. Whenever she hears someone in the hallway, she calls out in a pathetic voice to try and attract attention. Then she insists on being brought a cup of tea and a sarnie. She's particularly good at doing this just when we are leaving the house to go somewhere, especially if we are running late.

As a result, I've become quite adept at moving silently down the hall with a level of stealth not seen since Kwai Chang Caine walked along the rice paper under the tutelage of Master Po. I've also become selectively deaf; I simply don't hear her when I'm on my way out of the door. I just know that when we've all left she'll be up and in the kitchen making a ready meal.

She's also taken to deciding on a day by day basis what she wants to eat, and then expecting someone to go out to the shop to get it for her. I feel particularly aggrieved at being asked to get in the car and drive to the supermarket just to pick up a solitary Hollands meat and potato pie for her ("I'm not well, and it's all I can face eating" - yeah, right! When I'm ill, I don't exactly feel like shoving a stodgy pie down my throat).

She's due to get the results of her barium enema soon. I know how this is going to go already. They'll find nothing wrong with her and she will interpret that as "The doctors are baffled. They don't know what's wrong with me." I'll tell you what's wrong - self pity and a good dose of hypochondria!

I feel an Oscar coming on - Best use of ham acting, piss and lavender in a domestic environment!

Milking it!

About two weeks ago, M-I-L called out the doctor because she'd had a bad dose of the sh*ts overnight and had stomach pains. Given that she's nearly 80, and was probably dehydrated, the doc suggested that she should go into hospital to be checked out.

So off she goes to hospital where they stick her on a saline drip to rehydrate her, and take some the usual set of bodily fluid samples to test.

Within a few hours she no longer had the sh*ts and announced to the current Mrs James that she felt greatly improved. They decided to keep her in hospital overnight and took more samples, having found nothing untoward in the first set.

The next day she looked as right as rain, and her medical chart seemed to bear out that there was nothing amiss in her vital signs - blood pressure, pulse, temperature etc all normal.

Once again, they found nothing wrong in her samples and said that if she had no further symnptoms she could go home the next day. So it was that we collected her the next day looking the picture of health.

However, since she got home, she has proceeded to milk her experience for all its worth. She has lived in her dressing gown and has pretty much stayed in bed acting feeble - at least until one of her soaps or game shows comes on, when she leaps out of bed with cat-like agility and sits there in her chair in front of the TV to watch it. Televisual experience over she slopes off back to bed for further martyrdom.

We get a feeble voice whispering "Hello! Hello! Get me a cup of tea will you?" Then when she takes it through she gets "Would you butter me some toast as well?" and so it goes on. She's been eating, drinking and defecating normally for the last two weeks , but she still makes out that she's at death's door.

A few days back, my son heard her get up, leave her room, walk briskly down the hall to the kitchen and, when she saw him there, she physically changed her demeanour to make out that she was having to cling onto the wall/door frame to stand up straight, and asked him in a feeble voice to support her across the kitchen to get to the kettle (presumably for another cup of tea and soup - see "Making Lunch the M-I-L Way" below).

She claims to be unable to carry anything because having a saline drip in her arm has drained all her strength. She's as right as rain when she thinks there's no-one there to notice or hear her. As soon as she realises that there is someone around to notice, she puts on her pathetic 'I'm not long for this world voice": especially whenever the phone rings so she can get some long distance sympathy.

My daughter overheard two comments she had with her friend when she came to visit.
Comment 1: (by M-I-L)

"You know, I'm not being looked after properly. I've had to make my own meals" (like she does every other day that she's not ill!)

Comment 2: (by her friend)
"So what exactly is wrong with you now?" (clearly as baffled as we are two weeks after the initial illness!)

She even told our cleaner that it was probably down to the super powerful painkillers that she was taking that she was ill. That may have been so except for the fact that she hasn't taken then for a week and a half - that's some lasting effect they have!

There's nothing more wrong with her than a major attack of hypochondria.

It makes my blood boil.