AIDA AUSTIN: ’All the advice I’ve been given is about to blast to the surface’

My daughter ended up in hospital this week. She’s home now. Singing her head off in the shower as I write. Pissed off that we’ve run out of Pantene conditioner — but singing all the same.

Fourteen weeks post-op, family and close friends have reassembled like a raggle-taggle love-battalion; calling, texting, skyping and arriving in person. It seems the course of neurosurgery doesn’t run smoothly — but at least the course of love does.

And now that this most recent crisis has resolved, and life has stopped feeling like it’s transposed into a scene from Grey’s Anatomy, I’d like, this week, to raise the issue of advice, which is one of the main pieces of equipment that a love-battalion carries in order to perform its operations of support.

Now. I’m going to say this very calmly and very quietly — but if people give me any more advice, the top of my head will blow right off; if they don’t stop, a fissure will appear in my fontanelle and a geyser of advice will erupt through it. Think Steamboat Geyser in Yellowstone National Park with its tall, vaporous columns that shoot 300 feet high into the sky. Visualise a gush of advice shooting up out of the top of my head, shattering my eyeballs with its force. A geyser as tall as the Statue of Liberty. Yes. That tall.

Don’t get me wrong, the advice that’s boiling up a steam inside my skull is all excellent; it’s as good as it gets because that’s what you get when you only open up to the right people. (Let me just give you a word of advice about advice: opening up to the wrong people is like putting a grenade in their hands. Not that I haven’t made that mistake once or twice and paid for it.)

Wow, that feels good. Even giving that little nugget of advice there felt like a release.

Which gives me an idea. It’s only a thought — but perhaps I should pass on some of the advice I’ve been given to you. It might be that you’re in crisis and need a bit of advice from someone who’s walked the walk. It might be that you’re not. Either way, you don’t have to do anything with it. Just let me take it out from where it’s confined, bubbling, at depth in my head. Let me spout it out. At least a bit of it. To release some pressure. So that I can avoid a Steamboat Geyser situation. And keep my eyeballs from shattering.

Yes. The more I think about it, the more I realise that all the advice I’ve been given is about to blast its way to the surface. So get ready. Here it is:

1. “Take each day at a time.” (Source: entire battalion.)

2. “Don’t panic. Think. Breathe. And remember I’m with you every minute.” (Vanessa.)

3. “Don’t look up anything medical on the internet ever, ever again Mum. It’s so, so stupid.” (Eldest son)

4. “Eat — otherwise you’ll end up with a bum that’s like two wrinkled tomatoes in a plastic bag.” (Sister.)

5. “You found the best medical expertise. So trust it.” (Brother.)

6. “Believe in the power of positive thinking.” (All.)

7. “You come from a long line of Italian peasants, love. Strong women. The kind who’d clear a field and plant it themselves — but that doesn’t mean you won’t collapse if you don’t sleep, love. So get something from the doctor to help.” (Mum)

8. “You mustn’t trust your overactive imagination.” (Sister-in-law.)

9. “Sex’ll help.” (Husband.)

10. “Keep the heart up Dirty Gertie. Keep the heart up.” (Sister.)

11. “Hedge-chopping. You must get hedge-chopping. It always does it for you.” (Sisters.)

12. “Honestly, love, how many times have I told you? You must drink two glasses of wine every night. I keep telling you to drink more. I mean you live in Ireland — there’s no better country for it.” (Mum.)

13. “This will pass.” (All.)

And there is more. Like I said, 300 feet of it. But here is some advice of mine: there is no gap in the world wider than the one between the ease of giving advice and the ease of following it.