It is what it is! indeed!

 

In my efforts to still be mistress of my home in spite of severe health issues, I have tried to pare down my necessary daily tasks.

I can forgo doing the washing for a day or two. I can not make my bed or do much cleaning. But every single day I find I must cook, which is a necessity that brings the second necessity of the day: doing the dishes.

Oh I have left them before during a fibromyalgia flare. But I have learned that they seem to multiply like rabbits- my kitchen sink and bench are testimony to this!

I have left the dishes until the morning or even until the evening, but the mess on the plates and cutlery makes the job not only labourious, but "yucky". So I have learned to keep abreast of them.

Now I know some people use paper plates to avoid doing the dishes, but I am old school. Besides, everything tastes better on a china plate or in a glass or cup. I detest polystyrene cups or picnic cups.

Occasionally during a bout of angina or fibromyalgia or even a day of back pain, I am happy to order take away meals... but it is such a nasty blow to the budget that this is rather rare.

So then I am now convinced that I must acquiesce to doing the dishes daily as we absolutely must eat- there's nothing else I can do about it except cook.

Finding two daily essential jobs wasn't easy because there are so many more things one could count as essential. 

More over, one thing chronic illness has taught me is that spoons dictate not only one's lifestyle but standards.

One can either accept less high standards or die trying to sustain them. And given the effort in just breathing and being some days, the standards become more achievable.

I have had to accept what the young ones say, "It is what it is!"  Indeed! It is! 

A common thread

 

I recently saw this beautiful painting that evoked happy memories of both my childhood and my mothering days.

With a large family of seven to wash for, I usually washed three loads of laundry daily and hung it out.

So many years ago,  and a time when the days were long but the years were short. Now mostly a distant memory. I now longer can hang my clothes out.

Fibromyalgia and polymyalgia rheumatica has put paid to hanging the washing on the line. Flexing my sore muscles is so painful these days. I am forced to use the dryer.

I really loved the smell of line dried clothes and delighted in this painting with the children in the yard. 

Hanging the clothes out to me is synonymous with family life. It speaks of service to family, activity and life.

Globally, I think we can all concede that washing on the line is a common thread that unites the human family.

When you got no spoons everyone has to help!

So my respite from pain has come to a sorry end. I have been hit with the Mother of all Flares. Just breathing is too much effort and sleep is brief and light. The truck that hit me didn't even stop. 

I have been pacing myself majoring on keeping the dishes and the washing up to date. It hasn't been too difficult really as I have planned in advance for the inevitable fibromyalgia flare that comes after a respite.

Most people who don't suffer from fibromyalgia would call me a pessimist, but we Fibromites know how fickle our body is and how greedy it is for spoons. We never can have enough spoons to say we are energetic. Spoons are energy measures

It's enough to have enough spoons to take a shower some days, and we usually suffer after for it in spite of the pride in ourselves that we made the effort and did it..and the luxurious feeling that being dainty brings.

No, we are realists who accept that our bodies are treacherous. They lure us into a false sense of joy in a seeming abundance of spoons- well enough spoons to make us believe that we can change the sheets, bake a cake, vacuum the lounge room or go shopping. In real life shopping, not just on the computer.

Knowing better really, but delirious in the freedom that a few spoons brings, our joy knows no bounds and we actually dare to live like we did before Fibro claimed our lives, bodies and joy. And we keep living in the moment full of joie de vie until the joy and spoons are gone.  

No, I knew from 20 years experience that my respite from pain would be short-lived and it was.  But because of planning for it, it hasn't seen me in a total mess, overwhelmed with meals and mess.

I had my dishwasher and I kept up with the dishes. I did a load of washing a day and I dried it in the dryer. But my greatest life saver was my frozen dinners I have in the freezer. They saved the day.

In all honesty, though I haven't kept the house running smoothly all by myself. I have had to enlist Chris to help me with stacking and unstacking the dishwasher and I asked him to put his own clean clothes away as soon as they came out of the dryer.

He has been really good actually- a blessing really. He also encourages me to take a nana nap, and feeling so fatigued and sore, I am so glad. We all need a hand when we are feeling so wretched and when you got no spoons everyone has to help! 

My thermostat's broken!

 

Once I passed menopause, I thought I would be free of hot flushes and sweaty nights, waking up in a bed of sweat and feeling nauseous.

However, fate was not kind to me and as soon as I finished the menopause, I became ill with fibromyalgia.

To be honest, I am never at a normal temperature. On blood thinners for heart stents and antiphospholipid syndrome (or sticky blood), I feel the cold keenly and on any given day while everyone in my home wants to turn the heating off or down, I am there pleading my case for more heat.

Ten minutes after the heat is put up for my benefit, I have to turn it off again. I feel sick- I am sweaty and unwell.

About an hour before I go to bed, I turn my electric blanket on as I feel the cold so much. I sink into the warmth as it soothes my fibro muscle and spinal pain. A couple of hours later, I wake, sweaty, nauseous and out of sorts.

I strip the minkie blankets off but I feel cold so I put some back. Five minutes later, I am hot again and I stick one leg out of the blankets and fall sleep again.

This cycle of hot/cold repeats through the night. I am turning like a rotisserie chicken! Thanks to fibro, my thermostat's broken.

My cactus sofa

                            

We all like to find a comfortable place to sit or lie down. You know, somewhere to put one's feet up and just relax. But I am finding with my fibromyalgia flaring and my spinal problems that this is not easy.

No matter where I sit or however comfortable a chair looks, it's usually uncomfortable. Take for instance the new computer chair I recently bought to solve that problem.

It looked so suitable on the website and I was certain it would do the trick, but when it was finally assembled, it was not comfortable and it seemed to aggravate my lumbar region, making my legs go numb.

As far as furnishings go, the chair wasn't cheap and like so many things I have bought to relieve pain, it is not being used.

The lounge suite with recliner ends can't be used either. The recliners are so hard to get in and out of. Thanks to fibromyalgia giving me muscles the size of sparrows' knee caps, I cannot operate the side lever to bring the recliner footrest out.

If Chris helps me with that, I also cannot get out. I have no muscle power in my legs, thanks to fibro again, torn knees, and spinal problems. The only good thing it's for is to lay on.

And speaking of laying- even my bed is hard to get comfortable in. With muscle pain at an excruciating crescendo by the end of the day, no matter how I lay, it feels like I am trying to sleep on a concrete slab!

I only have panadol osteo for pain relief as my doctor is very hesitant to give me any and I will not take Valium as a muscle relaxant. I was addicted to it for years as it was the first thing they gave me in hospital for my many weeks of traction for my Schuermann's Disease.

Fibromyalgia is a pig of a disease/syndrome. It rules my life and leaves me nowhere to turn off and seek some comfort. When you couple that with another malady such as my ankylosing spondylitis, it drives one over the edge emotionally.

As someone in need of some pain relief and her doctor too afraid to order it, I am seriously considering changing doctors. Until that happens, you will find me lying on my cactus sofa.

A little time to slumber

                                                

A little time to slumber all my days spent in the sun,

My idle hands were folded my daily chores not done.

I wasn’t at all rebellious as into the sky I’d gaze,

I just left my daily duties as in the sun I bathed.

I read my book for hours dishes soaking in the sink,

The meat still in the freezer for I didn’t stop to think

What I needed for dinner it lay frozen in a lump;

I’d serve meat of something be it chops or steak or rump.

Just a minute of my surfing turned to hours of my day,

As I sat online chatting to people far away.

Imagine then my panic as at last I looked around,

To see the clock now telling  my man was homeward bound.

What a rush of my adrenaline making me quickly scamper

To launder clothes still waiting in the dirty laundry hamper.

The bed was pulled up in a hurry the dishes washed and left to dry,

As I boiled up some veggies and set the meat to fry.

Which would likely take forever for it hadn’t completely thawed

And I so wanted dinner ready as soon as my man hit the door.

Feeling very guilty as I served our dinner late
I decided my many forums would henceforth have to wait.

© Glenys Robyn Hicks

“Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep; so shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth; and thy want as an armed man” Proverbs 24:34