Chocolate, Flowers and smiles

I woke yesterday to a lovely sight, two Thornton chocolate figures , a chick and a rabbit, either side of a vase of tulips. I had to put up with my partner also being in the image, but you can’t win them all… 😉 I joke, I really am very lucky to have someone so thoughtful and kind and I really don’t know what I would do without him.
I am very lucky to have a family that support and help me too. I am rarely stuck having anything brought to me, prescriptions, electric top up, milk etc and I know I can pick up the ‘phone to my Mother and she will be there for a natter or rant. My Father is really good at lifting my spirits and I get my ‘getting on with it’ attitude from him. If you can’t change something then learn to adapt until such time that you can, that is very much installed in my brain. This has helped  me to adapt to being like this, well apart from the occasional rant  🙂

My rib pressure is still there, I now have a temperature too but I am constantly getting that so I have no idea if it’s related or not. The left side of my neck and shoulder have also decided to seize just to put that lil more annoyance into things. I am going to have to ‘phone the doctor tomorrow if it’s still there, the rib pressure as it’s going into my back and hips. The joy of chronic conditions eh.

The OT is coming round on Thursday and I need to tidy up the flat, but there is no way I can today. Moving is making my rib pressure worst but I can’t stand the mess my room is in. I will have to ask for help to tidy and clean it, which I do hate doing. I don’t want someone having to do that for me, hence why I refused home help as we get by well enough and I wouldn’t feel comfortable with someone I don’t know in my home. This is a personal thing, I think carers do a brilliant job and help so many people, theyre a god send in so many ways. And I expect eventually I will have to have them, but for now I will manage without.

My partners brother and his girlfriend popped in for a lil while before going to a family Easter lunch at their parents. I couldn’t go but it was nice to chat with them. I have never met his brothers girlfriend before, but she was lovely. They’re a good couple and I like them both. We are planning to do a film and take a way night soon which I’m looking forward to. I appreciated the suggestion, as I can’t go out they suggested coming here and all spending time together. It was a really thoughtful idea and I look forward to spending more time with them. Plus the local chippy is gorgeous so good company, films and a pig out on lots of food sounds perfect to me. Stuff the careful eating for that night, it’s all for a good cause after all… 😉

Wandering into the past

Well, I am still not feeling too good. The squeezing thing is still there and my muscles in my arms are swelled and very painful. Any movement I make is extremely painful and I really do not know what to do with myself. I am trying to distract from the pain by looking at things on the net and keep my head occupied on anything other than the pain. I do this a lot, the worse I feel the more I try to focus on anything other than myself and what my body is doing. I find it helps to do this, if I constantly focused on my symptoms I do believe it would make it so much worse, as that’s all I would be aware of. Of course I know what’s going on as I can feel it, but not giving it my full attention pushes it into the background a bit. It helps me not to get annoyed too!

It is times like this I wish I was young and full of energy, which wasn’t that long ago. Thinking nothing of being up at 5am looking after my son, going to college, doing the trips back and fourth from picking my son up from school, plus lunchtimes 4 times a day as he hated school lunchtimes. Going home doing the cooking, housework, playing or watching t.v until bedtime, then finishing anything else off I had to do before falling into bed usually after midnight and getting up the next day to repeat it all again. Most weekends I worked in a rugby club as a barmaid/waitress and in the kitchens and also doing functions for the Mayor, business parties at another venue that went on til 3am and I had to be up at 6am. I look back and think, I wish I had that energy again I used to get tired but I wouldn’t stop until everything was done, well, couldn’t stop but it never bothered me. It was how things were and I did it without thinking, never thinking that one day it would all be so different and just moving around the house would make my hands and body shake through pain and exhaustion.

I do resent at times that my body has turned on me, literally attacking my brain, muscles, bones and tissues. I resent that today even just moving my arm is agony and the pain in my ribs is starting to get a little too much even for me. I resent the years I know it is going to steal from me, the year it has already stolen from me, the years when I should still be out in the world, being part of it but more importantly part of my family. The mother I once was but can no longer be, the daughter, sister, I once was, always trying to help, chat, laugh just be there literally there to share those family moments together. I miss being like that, being able to be like that and I miss the person I was. Yes, I accept that this has happened, that my body is letting me down and by doing so changing my life, myself and my impact on others. But it doesn’t mean I don’t get fed up off it sometimes. It is rare, but I think feeling this unwell is making me look into the past and I try never ever to do that as it always frustrates me and makes me yearn for those years again.

But I must stop it. The past is the past and although my illness has changed me I am changed for the better in some cases. I am more patient, calmer and more understanding of people. I appreciate everything so much more, even things like birds singing which I never even noticed before. I would have scoffed at the very thought of that last sentence before I become unwell! The time I can spend with people is something that is very precious to me now, just being able to sit downstairs and eat a meal with my son is something I cherish and will make me happy for days. They say that the older you get the more you understand and appreciate life, but I would add that you can also achieve that by becoming unwell as fighting against your own body on an hourly basis changes you quicker than old age. Because you become old at an age you should still be active and not having to think how every move will effect not only you but others around you.

You can probably tell that today is one of my mind flitting ones, I am jumping from one topic to the next trying to make sense of everything that is going on in my head and my body. Well my body is simple enough, it is not working as it should, even at it’s usual level of activity. It has decided to rev my symptoms up, slow me down and chuck in a new one that I am not impressed with at all. My mind, well who knows what’s happening there. I certainly don’t and it’s my head that it is in! It does tend to shut down slightly when I am particularly unwell and be as random as my body is with it’s symptoms. As my Mother is fond of saying, It’ll all come out in the wash , and for now I have some chocolate to eat which I will eat no matter if my body rejects it. It is Easter Sunday after all 🙂

 

Romanian genes

Well, I don’t think any health professionals will believe I am 90% housebound as I have a tan! I have been sitting on my balcony twice  a day for 20 minutes to help my vitamin D and am getting really tanned, darn my Romanian genes! Yep, I am part Romanian on my Mothers side, my Grandfather came from Romania and settled here after fighting for us in ww2. Hence my dark hair, eyes and pale complexion, apart from in summer when I go as brown as heck! Many of my friends call me vamp or gypsy and my Father joins in with the gypsy name.. I reckon he is just jealous 🙂 I was teaching myself Romanian before I became unwell and just last week started looking for CDs to buy to learn the language. I think I would really struggle learning it now with the zombie brain fog, but if I listened to it while asleep I could wake up speaking the language! Rather unlikely yes, but I saw it happen in an awful film once 😉

The squeezing sensation in my ribs and back is still happening, if it continues I think I will speak to the doctor about it next week. Maybe check if it is my chest, but I really don’t think it is. Also when you have M.E or Fibromyalgia whenever new symptoms pop up they are always put down to them and I don’t want every ailment I get put onto either. You can have other unrelated symptoms but I swear if I went to the Doctor with my leg back to front and no head they would say ‘oh that’s due to M.E/Fibro’.. O.k maybe not, but you get the drift 🙂

It’s Easter tomorrow and I am looking forward to eating lots of chocolate, purely for the sake of it! I am not religious, I had religion forced on me in school too much at a very young age, but I respect that it is a very religious day for many. My partner is religious and his family too and for them it means a great deal more than just eating chocolate eggs. I do admire peoples faith in their religions, It takes a lot to stand by your beliefs and I respect that. I have faith, but more of a spiritual kind and I am happy in that faith and the comfort it gives me. Especially when I am really unwell, I have hope and faith I will get over the bad patch and I don’t fear death at all. To me it’s just part of the cycle, we are all born, all live and all die, nothing in the world can change that. Unless they do invent immortality but by that time I will be long gone and I wouldn’t want to live for ever anyway, it would be more of a curse than a happy event for me. The changes in the last century alone would have been amazing, life changing but too much, I couldn’t imagine living through centuries of constant change and life changes. I am happy with the one life I get 🙂

For right now my life consists of getting myself back upstairs and into bed for a while to rest. This squeezing feeling along with my other symptoms is really tiring me out and for once I am quite happy to rest and do nothing but watch a DVD for awhile. And maybe sneak a couple of chocolate biscuits with my cup of tea.. ;D