Author diaries

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20 September 2004 Entry: "Rosacea and Running"

I have been keeping a sporadic running and writing diary since 1998, when I ran the Great North Run (first and last time). Recently I have given running a break, partly because I had a bad knee and I had to rest it, and partly because I have recently been diagnosed with Rosacea.
This is the disease, I discover, that gave WC Fields his bulbous nose.
It's a skin complaint that largely affects women between 30 and 55, with the type of fair skin that flushes easily: with heat or exercise. I was looking like I'd been heat blistered with a paint stripper, and children in classrooms would exclaim:
"Ee Miss ! what¹s happened to yer face ?"
I thought I had bad eczema. My forehead, cheeks and chin were red, and covered with raised lumps and pimples that were itchy, sore and dry. I was being treated homeopathically, so I left it to work, but by the end of August I decided to go to my doctor, who said "What took you so long ?".
Rosacea is treatable by antibiotic cream, rubbed in twice a day for months and although it can be kept under control it never goes entirely.
I think it has been triggered by my constant hot flushes such as women of a certain age experience, but my doctor said I had to avoid the typical triggers:
hot sun, alcohol, coffee, spicy food, heavy exercise, stress.
So, that's my lifestyle bang out the window. I've started a Bridget Jones type diary, of alcohol and coffee consumption, with comments on how I slept, when I woke to pee, and how many hot flushes I've had. Although I'm having some alcohol free days, I find I make up for it on the others - not quite the point. And I have to admit, when I don't drink, I generally sleep better, dammit.
My doctor said, on a return visit, when I admitted I was struggling a little:
"Give up the easy things like alcohol, but don't stop running". Ha.
So the writing is on the wall. I am determined to reduce the alcohol and pick up the running again.
The good thing about running is that it keeps me fit, makes me feel good and really helps with my writing. Ideas just come when I run round the town moor, they float into my consciousness, surprising me in a wonderful way. They do that when I'm cleaning the toilet as well, but it's much more pleasurable when I'm running, and as I keep a running diary, it becomes a focus for remembering and writing. So the desire to write keeps me going out to run and vice versa.
I've had two poems to write for this October, one for the Lit and Phil National Poetry Day Feast on the theme of food, and one for the Public Libraries Authorities' conference dinner. Food seems inextricably combined with poetry this autumn, I just hope they go down well.