Bathroom Phobia

We spent Saturday night round at our good friends' house. They had invited us round for a relaxed takeaway and a bottle of wine.

I had vowed that morning I wasn't going to drink any more, just in case that was contributing to how I'm feeling at the moment. My current bout of exhaustion may well be linked to my liver still, as well as the tidal waves of bleeding. However I was offered a Prosecco and Cassis and being rubbish at sticking to things and not one to resist a new concoction, I accepted. It was very yummy and a subtle red colour, my favourite shade.

I began bleeding again on Friday. Having worked out that it was 8 days since I had last stopped I was not terribly impressed. It came on heavy and suddenly and I was glad to be at home with my crate of sanitary accoutrements, not in the middle of Kidderminster or on a train or something less convenient. I have already become extremely familiar with the M&S loo but as I wasn't expecting to be starting again quite so soon I would have been unlikely to have my purse full of products.

By Saturday night I was prepared and took a large handbag full of Always Ultra and a cool bag full of Haemate P round to our friends. I needed to take the drugs because I am still doing the injections every 12 hours and would be due to shoot up at 9pm.

By the time it was 9pm I'd had a couple of Prosecco & Cassis combo's and was shooting up in their kitchen slightly under the influence m'lud. Didn't affect my technique - still got a vein in one. And not a drop of blood anywhere - even on the little nest of kitchen roll I'd put out to protect their table.

The worst thing for me was using the downstairs loo with a heavy heavy bleed going on. I'm going to be honest about it here, so they may never invite us again, or in fact want to speak to me at all! When my period is that heavy and you're pulling the string (ladies I'm sorry to mention this but hey, that's how it is; fellas if you have no idea what I'm on about please move along...) it literally takes the tiniest pull and the weight plummets the thing out and thudding into the bowl. In the course of this I can often get somewhat bloody through no fault of my own - ewww sorry!! It's then a challenge of not getting blood splatters a la C.S.I. around the smallest room while I try and clean up as soon and as hygenically as I can. My friend had plenty of soap - two bottles - so that was ok. I am cleaner than clean as far as this goes so please don't stop inviting me round!

You'll understand why I have an uncomfortably close relationship with public loos. If I had a problem using a public loo or any kind of bathroom phobia I'd really be in trouble when I was bleeding. I would not like to remain in my house all the time purely so that I can use a clean toilet equipped with plenty of soap, a decent bin and an unending supply of sanitary products. Sometimes if I'm up to being out and about it is nice not to have to stay in solely for the facilities.

From our recent trip to London I can advise you that the loos in Liberty's were extremely narrow and poorly lit. Now I don't need lighting particularly, I'm happy not to see the carnage in the bowl but a little bit of room to swing a tampon would be appreciated. It is a very nice shop with lots of lovely and slightly unconventional sofa's to sit on when a bit jaded, and fab hand creams to try but it is definitely let down by the bathrooms. And the poor lady who was in a wheelchair and couldn't get up the couple of steps into the loos on the fourth floor must've been really fed up. The disabled loo was on the second floor I think - maybe I should've tried them out.

Cafe Nero near Shafetsbury Avenue was appalling in the toilet stakes (I'm getting an idea for a book here, can you tell what it is yet...?). They had loo paper everywhere, more cramped stalls and blue lighting - what's that all about? It was like they were trying to detect old blood on the walls before I'd even been in there!! I could tell there was no soap so I declined to use that one and had enough padding to wait until I got to the Palace Theatre. Now there's a proper toilet. Plenty of room, lots of cubicles, easy to use bins, no shortage of loo paper, lots of soap and working hand driers, thank god for the Palace.

If I you do still want me to visit while it is my time of the month, i.e. more often than not, I will need room to move around the lavvy, a bin to pop the overzealous packaging in, decent uncrumbly loo roll and soap to clean up afterwards please.

M&S may well do wonderful food but often there is no loo roll, the bin is coughing up paper towels and the squirter is devoid of soap in the Kidderminster branch.

I'm thinking of ordering one of those hospital hand sanitiser thingy's to attach to myself when out. . .

Edited based on comments.