Overcoming the Fear Virus

So I have been anxious about the Corona Virus. I won't lie and say I haven't. But I forgot something very important. Read about what and how I overcame my fear that I blogged about his morning.

I have had a few day's rest from the computer as I am sick of doom and gloom and I rested my body to get over the fibromyalgia flare.

Today, I feeling a  bit better and I have a few things to do:

1. Make three slow cooker soups: pea and ham, chicken broth and pumpkin
2. Do a load of washing
3. Cook chicken kiev, mashed sweet and ordinary potato and peas
4. Dust furniture

I think that will just about see my spoons out today...

Hoping for a better tomorrow!

I have relapsed with another flare of fibromyalgia accompanied by angina. The angina is present in my sleep and wakes me up. That is in the few hours of sound sleep that fibro gives me.

I have done nothing today except make Chris dinner. The rest of the time I have been sleeping. Depression has called on me making me feel over this.

And I am so over chronic illness. Not that declaring this achieves anything. I am going back to bed in hope of finding a few hours of comfort when I sleep. 

So goodnight to you all. I am hoping for a better tomorrow for you and for myself! 

Weighing up the spoons!

I am overjoyed to wake with some spoons today! I have been in this fibromyalgia flare so long that I have forgotten what energy feels like. 

To cope with the residual muscle pain, I have taken a couple of paracetamol with my other tablets this morning. 

I am sitting trying to work out how to utilise my spoons skilfully. I know if I overdo it, I will be back in a flare tomorrow. There's much I would like to do, but I think I will keep it simple to avoid a rebound flareup.

On my to do list today:

1. Follow Wednesday's List
2. Get a few groceries and go to the post office
3. Cook some devilled sausages with vegetables and mashed potato for dinner
4. Have a bath in the evening if I have enough spoons left

If I can get most of this done, I will be happy. It's all about balance and weighing up the spoons!

Nothing like country life!

So this morning I came out to see this from our back window. We love it here and this window is like a screen saver. It is always changing! Chris grabbed my phone and took a video to show you.

It is lovely outside today. The weather is forecast to be 23C and is perfect autumn weather.  I have to go out to the chemist for some refills of our medications and I can see a sit out in the sun in my future.

My fibromyalgia flare is a bit better today, but I am still going to pace myself because if I don't, I know I will be in a flare again tomorrow.

So today I am following Tuesday's List and making a Shepherd's Pie with peas for dinner. Shepherd's Pie is one of Chris's favourite meals.

Oh, and when I get home, if I don't need a nana nap, I will be sitting in the garden seat taking in this lovely view!  We are grateful that God gave us this place to live in. There's nothing like country life!

It's just the nature of the beast!

I wish I could tell you that my fibromyalgia flare is over, but I can't. This morning I woke with so much pain that I took my bath in the morning instead of at night, hoping it would unkink all my sore muscles. It didn't.

As I lay in the bath I planned my day and prayed for the energy to do it. If determination was the only way to get through, it would be a breeze! But alas, determination does not equate to spoons (energy), and at the end of the day it can actually lead to false guilt if I can't achieve what I wanted to.

In chronic illness, I find that whilst it is good to make plans, it is unlikely that all will be accomplished. Like me knowing that my diabetes is out of control (11.6) and I simply must accept that I cannot take much sugar in any form, I must accept that I can only do so much. Or so little. 

So, it's no good flogging myself like a dead horse. It is what it is. What gets done, gets done. What doesn't, doesn't. 

So today, I am just following Monday's List. And preparing a curried sausages in the slow cooker for dinner. 

If I get everything done or not, I will have to learn to be content. Chronic illness is tough, but I will have to accept it: it's just the nature of the beast.

It's not rocket science

Yesterday I wrote a post in my other blog about practising good hygiene like the Jewish people do. 

I really believed most people washed their hands and cleaned their homes on a regular basis. However,  with the shortage on hand cleaners and anti-bacterial soaps in supermarkets, it would seem that no one much has this stuff on hand like you would expect in a home where good hygiene was practised daily.

Simple measures like outlined in yesterday's post, sneezing or coughing into your elbow and avoiding large crowds will go far in not catching or bringing illness to your home.

I always have the antibacterial spray Glen 20 at home. I regularly spray it near Xena's litter tray and around the toilet floor, especially behind and on the seat. Sometimes I spray it on door handles too and I wipe my computer mouse and mobile or cell phone with antibacterial cloths in sachets.

People are panicking about catching the Corona Virus, but are lining up en masse at Cosco's to purchase toilet paper. This to my mind enhances the chance of catching something like the ordinary Flu that really has killed more people worldwide than the Corona Virus.

We are likely to stay well with simple hygiene measures. It is not rocket science.

Today's to do list is:

1. Clean my kitchen
2. Do some washing
3. Vacuum the middles of the floors
4. Feather dust
5. Cook a lamb stew for dinner in the slow cooker

Are there any spoons out there?

So it's morning and with it comes the stiffness, the muscle pain and tiredness that belies the fact that I actually slept for nine hours. It sure doesn't feel like I slept at all.

I have to go to the chemist this morning as I am out of blood pressure tablets. As I have been home all week, mostly in bed, I will enjoy being out of the house a bit. But I know I will be glad when I get back home as well. Fibromyalgia makes you like that.

Accepting that I will be exhausted by just going to the chemist seems laughable to people who are not ill: but to us Sacrificial Home Keepers, it's a reality and part of our new normal. So I will take this necessary trip out today with gladness that I am getting out of the house but with the knowledge that I will probably need to go to bed for a bit afterwards.

Before I go to the chemist, which is a twenty minute drive from home, I will be cooking the evening meal in my slow cooker so that it is one less thing to worry about when I need to rest later on.

So once again, my to do list will be very simple:

1. Follow Saturday's List
2. Cook some sweet curry sausages with rice in the slow cooker
3. Go to chemist
4. Fill our tablet dispenser for the week

We will have to see if I can get it all done. If not, this picture will be of me searching for any spoons out there! 

Alas, I have no children to help!

So today is another dreary day of fibromyalgia, pain and chronic fatigue. I honestly don't know when this fibro flare is going to end or if this is how my life is going to be forever!

I didn't do the dishes last night! Looking back, I know that was a huge mistake. This morning I was faced with icky slimey water that was steaming hot in a previous lifetime, but now has cooled down making my stick of dishwashing soap a gooey mess.

Overnight the dishes seemed to have multiplied while I slept, with more teacups Chris used during the night (for he is a night owl), and more now with breakfast and lunch dishes.

I look at them, sigh and promise myself I will do them. And I will. After a nana nap.

Nana naps sometimes help me and are becoming a necessary fact of life for me. They used to be voluntary, but now they are mandatory. If I don't give in to my chronic fatigue and take a nap, my body wilts and my eyes have trouble focussing. I literally go cross eyed trying. I have heard this happens often for the poor Fibromite in a bad flare.

So today's list is again a simple one:

1. Rest
2. Dishes
3. Cook tea which will be fish, chips and salad.

I sure hope I feel better after my nap: those dishes aren't going to do themselves and alas, I have no children to help! 

No need to panic

So there have been a few cases of Corona Virus here in Australia. People have panicked and supermarket shelves here are running low on bottled water and toilet paper. Knives have been  pulled on people over a dispute on toilet paper. There have been stampedes. 

There is no need to panic. For starters, one- we have a very good health care system that can cope with helping anyone who succumbs to the virus and secondly, according to statistics, we have more of a chance of catching the common flu as we do of contracting and then dying of the Corona Virus.

I think the news is to blame, exaggerating and fear-mongering. It is no wonder there's panic in the ranks.  We won't be stock piling. But we will be following normal precautions by avoiding large crowds, airports and even shopping centres. We will shop online. And we will wash our hands frequently. It's just basic hygiene really.

With how I am feeling at the moment, with the fibro flare not over and constantly tired, staying home and shopping online will be the norm for us anyway. But in all honesty, we are not panicking.

My list of to do's today is basic:

1. Follow Thursday's List  
2. Do a 15 minute stint on FlyLady's Zone
3. Cook a stew in the slow cooker for dinner

More tea, Dear?

So whilst writing this post, I bought in some water and a cup of tea to take my morning medications. I was interrupted by a knock at the door which was the Woolworths delivery man with my online grocery delivery.

When I came back, I was horrified to see my little cat, Xena drinking happily from my tea cup! Knowing that the tea had already been spoilt for me, I stood back and let her finish drinking. Luckily, my phone was on my computer desk and I was able to take a picture of her lapping my tea.

She's a lover of Vegemite too. I found her a few weeks ago licking a plate that was stacked by the sink ready to be washed. She was really enjoying the saltiness of my Vegemite from my leftover breakfast toast. I guess she's a true Australian then! We love our Vegemite from the first tentative suck on a piece of toast our mothers offered us as babies. 

My sugars this morning were 10.1 which is better than 18.6 plus Ketones last night. I am avoiding sugar like the plague! I think I went wrong with eating a pear before going to bed last night...

I have a few things on my to do list today:

1. Make our bed
2. Clean my kitchen
3. Dust
4. Make another cup of tea to replace Xena's...
5. Cook a Shepherd's Pie for dinner tonight:  not necessarily in that order :)

I think from now on I will have to make a cup of tea and pour it into Xena's drinking bowl with a piece of toast and Vegemite in her feed bowl. After all, in her mind she's not a cat: she's a human child who is very loved and spoilt. "More tea, Dear?"