17.10.05..12:41 pm

You know, I last updated a month and four days ago.

That was one day before I handed in my thesis. Two days before I went to Sweden to visit Susanna. Twelve days before my flatmate Irene moved back to Spain. Fourteen days before I began both a new job and work on two novels. Fifteen days before my flatmate Lula passed out and had to be taken to hospital. Sixeen days before I started deciding how to announce to the world that I'm ready for freelance editing work. Nineteen days before Lula was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Twenty days before she was operated on. Twenty-five days before my Dearheart Matthew (ah, he's living with me now, and I suspect, had you been following my little exploits, you knew that all along anyway) moved into my tiny flat. Twenty-nine days before I begin collaborating on a vegatarian cookbook with my good friend Liz. Thirty-one days before our friend Sybille, who had been living with us for two months, moved out. Thirty-one days before I baked a cake celebrating the return of Lula. Thirty-two days before Matthew and I ate the cake commiserating Lula's lack of return. Thirty-three days before I baked another cake celebrating the return of Lula. Thirty-four days before I got back to the computer to start writing all this down.

So it's been a bit of a mad time.

The thing with my flatmate Lula started ages ago. Not that we, she or anyone knew, of course. But for many months she'd been slowly starting to have trouble speaking. Despite living in London for seven years, her English has always been a bit suspiciously underdeveloped for someone who has no intention of returning to Spain on a permanent basis. (She never felt entirely at home in Malaga, much the way I never felt entirely at home in Toronto, though we are both adament that our birthplaces are gorgeous spots of the earth that everyone ought to experience.) In August she went back on holiday taking her boyfriend with her. It was the first time she'd ever taken a boy home to stay overnight and was so so excited about it. They had a fantastic time, her family loves him as much as she does. She got to go visit his family in Barcelona. Everything was great, except that her mum kept saying how Lula's Spanish seemed to have slipped a bit. They just figured it was because she'd been in London so long, only going back to Spain for a couple of weeks every summer. Even though she lived with Spaniards, her boyfriend's Spanish and her sister lives in London too. When she got back, Lula kept joking that it felt like she was losing her language. Her English was worse, she was havin trouble remembering how to phrase things, conversations would take twice as long as normal while she tried to put together sentences. And we just figured, she's been in Spain.

Then one morning while Sybille was in the shower and I was writing a review, Lula fainted. When she came to, she crawled out to the bathroom, pounding on the door, begging Sybille to get out because she was going to be sick. Sybille and I didn't know what to do. Lula was sobbing, switching back and forth between English and Spanish, absolutely terrified. Half her body was paralysed, her head was throbbing, she was having trouble breathing. Sybille and I looked at each other at a loss. Lula just does not panic. It's not in her nature. She doesn't cry. She doesn't get sick. And here she was this hyperventilating, shrunken little creature clinging to the edge of the sofa as though it were a cliff. I felt like every lifeguarding skill I'd ever learned and practiced had vanished. Slowly it was dawning on us that something was desparately wrong with our Lula. I think I must have snapped out of it first, I ordered Sybille to get a blanket and a glass of water and to keep Lula talking no matter how much it hurt her. I phoned emergency services and together we managed to calm her down before the ambulance arrived.

During the ride to the hospital Lula had a mild seizure. Very mild. So mild that the paramedic didn't notice, but I did. The slight stiffened sway I had only ever seen while visiting my grandparents. Towards the end of my grandma's life, the medication she was on caused epilectic fits; muted seizures that sometimes lasted mere seconds, though which my granddad would patiently hold his wife and wait until it was over so he could feed her more oxygen and hope that this one wouldn't be the one that killed her.

While Lula was in hospital she had four more of these seizures, one while in the MRI machine. The doctors treating her intially feared she had had a stroke, but these seizures indicated something completely different. She also had a smear, a tiny shadow over one part of her brain that seemed to be leaking, which showed up on a CAT scan. She ended up being moved down to the Royal in Whitechapel - the same hospital that had operated on Granny Lilly, my great-grandmother sixty odd years earlier, one of the first successful brain tumour removals in this country. The MRI showed that she had a small tumour on the left side of her brain right above the centre of the language centre. She was diagnosed on the Sunday, just hours after Sybille, Matthew and I visited her. Her sister and mum (who had flown over from Spain the Thursday night) stayed with us, Natibel (her sister) translating to her mother our jokes and attempts to make light of a situation none of us had any hope in. When a bell sounded, signally the end of visiting hours, we walked outside, one-by-one falling into silent tears, though each trying not to show just how fucking scary it was for us. It seemed selfish to be scared when it was Lula who had the tumour. I told Natibel and her mum about Granny Lilly, how she had been given six months to live and ended up finally kicking it in 1993, a full 51 years of sewing, baking, raising children and grandchildren later. It's not much relief, but it gives a little hope, right?

At 1pm on the Monday, the very next day, Lula was operated on. A wholly successful operation I might add. Within hours of waking up she was apparently starving and pestering her mother to run up to Brick Lane and pick up a cream cheese and salmon bagel. The request was denied, but goes to show in any case.

So Lula seems to be doing pretty well. Her boyfriend flew back from Spain a couple of days early, pretty much as soon as he heard the news. Her mum will be staying with us for two weeks once Lula is released. I've been cleaning the flat maniacally everyday since last Wednesday when we first heard that she would be coming home. But one ridiculously clean flat and two scoffed Welcome Home cakes later, there's still no sign. I'm hoping she'll be back tonight, but it remains to be seen. After being so convinced that she was coming home on Friday and moving Sybille into her new flat (neither of us had wanted her to move out while we didn't know what was happening with Lula), the weekend was more than a little disappointing.

The biggest shame about her not being back is that she'd be so entranced with what's happening with the weather right now. On Saturday it looked as though a giant had been roaming the streets during the night leaving a trail of kicked up dust that hung in the air all shimmering and suspended. And today it's gone an Edwardian pea soup.. weird but beautiful. Lula's would love it.

I'm done for today. More tomorrow and this time I will keep the promise.

****emmms