Tuesday 2 August 2022
We need to talk
Sunday 1 May 2022
You just have to flex with fibro
Friday 22 April 2022
Chipping away at the stone
Saturday 26 February 2022
Sex isn't everything.
Thursday 27 January 2022
We live in a fallen world
Thursday 18 November 2021
Coming to terms with it
If I can get down the steps today, I want to sit in the garden swing. I need the fresh air and relaxation that watching the birds brings. They are getting quite cheeky and tame now. I only have to open the door and they converge on the back porch/decking chirping at me to get them something to eat.
They stand there practically with their hands on their hips, feet tapping: why are we waiting? Quite funny. I know they case the house out- I see their shadows on the roof and carport. I will miss this place. Chris wants to move back into "civilisation" when we sell the fiver. With Covid, we haven't had any chance to get people here to see it.
As with coming to terms with the knowledge that my fibromyalgia and other issues will not get better, so I am trying to come to terms with missing out on country life.
Monday 15 November 2021
Keeping my wheels turning!
Good morning. It's a new week! We have to go out today, just some grocery shopping and a trip to the post office. That will be before I tackle last night's dishes.
I was so tired last night that I left them, hoping to wake up with some spoons (energy). That didn't happen so the grocery shop takes priority today.
Some lamb chops are defrosting for dinner tonight. I will do mashed potato, vegetables and gravy with them. A sandwich will suffice for lunch.
I use the frozen mashed potato, steam packs of vegetables and instant Gravox gravy. I am fortunate in that Chris loves meat of some sort with two veg and if one of them's mashed potato, he's a happy man.
Being able to go without peeling potatoes and shelling peas is a godsend for me. The arthritis in my hands, the torn knee caps and spinal problems make standing to cook to prepare a nightmare. I am too short to sit on a chair as I can't see over the benchtops properly.
When in a fibromyalgia flare like today, it is just the icing on the cake. It literally tips me over. The pain is incredible and never lets up. I do have a high pain threshold but when the pain is 24/7, it wears you down.
I think I will make myself a cup of tea and take some painkillers. That's the only way I will be able to function today. They can join my other ten tablets taken this morning. I swear I rattle when I walk. It is what it is! But hey, whatever keep my wheels turning!
Friday 21 May 2021
You have to flex with fibro
Monday 26 April 2021
It is what it is!
Thursday 1 April 2021
Is a little compassion too much to ask for?
I was relieved that I had a name to put to the painful syndrome that sucked the life out of me and added to my woes as a sufferer of angina, arthritis and back pain. And polymyalgia rheumatica thrown into the mix.
It made sense that with all these ailments, I would be finding it more difficult, or even impossible to do the chores that after a lifetime of being a wife and mother, were familiar and regular as the rising and setting of the sun.
With the newest diagnosis, came a depression because not only was I totally frustrated with having to constantly adjust to my new normal, but I was not afforded much compassion or understanding from others.
It was intimated, but not said, that I was lazy and using ill health as an excuse to be lazy. Nothing could be further from the truth. I was laid low emotionally as well as physically.
These days, it is rare to find someone who is compassionate for the chronically ill and/or aged. And it compounds the frustration and anger one can feel as one goes through the cycles of grief with a new diagnosis that limits one further.
I know a little understanding from others would go a long way to help me adjust and accept it every time I am faced with a new normal.
Sadly, not only do most people now not want to listen about chronic illness, but they don't want to know.
It's not a hard thing to commiserate with the trampled flower bowing under the weight of pain and illness and later, stigma.
We don't necessarily ask for help from others, but is a little compassion too much to ask for?