• Work is going well, getting paid is nice, babies are cute and small children say funny things and scream at people wearing bear suits. (Though changing nappies will never be a source of enjoyment for me. Ditto toilet training other people’s children or wiping their disgusting noses regardless of how many layers of gloves I am required by regulation to wear) I have made some friends at work and have my very own nemesis also, which is nice.
• My health is good, I’ve been keeping pretty well aside from losing a bit much weight and having a go at chickenpox for a while there.
• The kids are good and enjoying school at the moment, Titchy zozo won an award for her writing recently which was a very proud moment and the prize was her very own bank account with real life money in it! If only I could win real life money for writing!
• We had a short holiday at the beach, just us girls which was really relaxing and luvly:)
• I read Eat,Pray,Love and loved it
• I watched Eat,Pray,Love and liked it
• I finally paid someone to mow my lawn. I knew the situation was bad but didn’t expect the mower to show up on mowee’s doorstep the next day to whinge about how particularly gruelling the job was and demand more money.
• My application for a new house was not approved and I am physically going nowhere (though metaphorically thriving)
• The sidekick formerly known as trusty has dropped the prefix to his name, hopefully only temporarily.
• I have a message on my mobile phone from the council, wanting to speak to the cat.
• My study is going nowhere……
• I started seeing a psychologist, then stopped again.
• I’ve started meditating daily :)

That’s all for now, time for sleeps. M:)

i realised something else today, and it’s about a favourite mantra of mine “expect the best but prepare for the worst” which i have stitched into my mind to help me juggle this life of being sick. what i realised today is that i have been so busy preparing myself (methodically, practically and emotionally) for if i don’t cope with my new workload, that i forgot to expect the best. it suddenly occurred to me that maybe i will love this job? enjoy the hours? juggle it all beautifully and thrive? which cheered me up a bit.

(fyi, my most well used mantra is “this too shall pass” and i can be found muttering it inwardly or outwardly on any given day lately. i also have other sayings that i think of often though i don’t necessary use them as a mantra to transform my thinking, these are “a step backwards is progress” which reminds me to simplify rather than complicate my life with thoughts actions and things. “everything happens for a reason” which i really do believe and “find the positives” which can be tricky sometimes;)

the positives about my new job are:

- i’ll get a pretty good wage

- the uniform is purple

umm yeah, it’s a work in progress.

I am still preparing for the worst and have lists coming out of my lists. my whole week is planned out on paper step-by-step lest my little brain doth fail. the fridge is full of home baked goodness and the pantry with quick-grab snacks. I spent this morning chopping vegies and filling freezer bags with interesting assortments for when i can’t think how to make dinner. i’m on top of my assignments and the house is (relatively) clean. i’m prepared to push and i’m prepared to crash.

- baking a date loaf and dozen cupcakes, shopping for easy lunchbox-fillers and quick dinners, washing school uniforms and everything else in the house, packing away (into very high cupboards) all of the freshly washed winter sheets and blankets, washing a few day’s worth of pent-up dishes and generally scrubbing the kitchen within an inch of its (or my) life, hanging aforementioned bundreds of loads of washing then taking it in and folding, cleaning out wardrobes and banishing the heavy winter wear, reorganising the family whiteboard (it hangs in the kitchen and tells us what to do each day), organising babysitters during work shifts, making to-do lists for the entire week and probably a bunch of other stuff that I have forgotten to mention / blocked out due to trauma.

By the time I went to bed I was hurting and feeling nauseas and Trusty returned from South Africa to find a tired and grumpy girl on the other end of the phone. I was exhausted but had a very restless night feeling sick and hurty and anxious.

So this is why I am now spending my Sunday feeling quite literally sore and sorry. No matter how much I constantly remind myself of the importance of rest and pacing, the temptation to go overboard when I have the energy is irresistible.  Now the energy is sadly all gone and all I have to show for it is a ruined body and lots of very clean laundry and easily assembled food items for the week ahead.  Today I have been sporadically attempting to finish my weekend to-do list, doing short bursts followed by a lie down on my bed. Mowing the lawn is most definitely out of the question.

Am I even the same girl I was yesterday? The difference is staggering. Just showering exhausted me today. I’m currently sipping at peppermint tea to settle my stomach, have deep heat applied to my sore-est of muscles and am trying to recover without taking any painkillers. I am tempted to sleep yet scared of putting my body-clock out of whack in the lead up to my early starts at work. I’m implementing all of the deep breathing and stretching and distraction techniques I can muster in order to ward off anxiety.

Fingers crossed, positive thoughts, prayers or whatever it takes to wake up tomorrow feeling rested and renewed. m

Spring sprang this week and it’s already quite warm which I’m sure has something to do with the easing of my symptoms. The cold really messes with me so I’m enjoying this nice in-between weather. The mulberry tree outside my study is full of fruit already and is attracting a variety of hungry birds. I’m not getting much study done, gazing out the window every time a birdie catches my eye, but I am putting my ‘Concise Photographic Field Guide of Australian Birds’ that Trusty gave me for christmas to very good use. I can’t for the life of me find ‘the one with the red around its eyes’ in my book which leads me to believe 1) the book is crap 2) i’m crap at identifying birds, or 3) I have discovered a new species. I’m running with no. 3.

Trusty is still in Africa having my dream holiday and sending sadistic text messages ‘I saw a baby Giraffe today’ etc etc. I’ve heard rumours that he has posted photo’s on facebook but since I heroically fled the cult deleted my account a few months ago, I haven’t seen any proof. I haven’t seen any pics since Capetown so for all I know he could be back home already, hiding out under the staircase for weeks abusing google images and stealing realistic wildlife pics in order to fool the general facebook public. Corporate box at the Rugby last night? Yeah, right.

This week also saw me become fully qualified to administer first aid – please hold the applause. After 6 hours of listening, blowing air into a dummy and applying a couple of shoddy bandages, I do not feel in any way prepared for an emergency incident, despite the pretty certificate and handy wallet-sized DRABCD and CPR reminder card. Please don’t anyone try to die near me unless I’m carrying my purse ok? I’m likely to get all my letters jumbled up. Oh, and it also turns out I’m allergic to latex and broke out into a rash around my mouth and up my arms after mouth-to-mouthing and pumping the inanimate object back to life. Ungrateful latex bastard. I scratched my arms discreetly under the desk, not wanting to let on the level of discomfort I was in lest the roomful of eager students pounce on me with bandages and ice packs, shouting ‘can you hear me? squeeze my hand’ before stabbing me to death with an epi pen.

The rest of the week flew by in a haze of school-ness. Girls school stuff, my school stuff, meetings with teachers, Lecturette semi-finals, post an assignment off, begin a new one. Now it’s Monday tomorrow, so here we go again…

My Fibromyalgia also had a 1 year dx anniversary and celebrated by finally driving my body to the point of exhaustion and defeat which saw me at the Doc where we both wrung our hands and competed for the title of most fed up with it all (I won but the wonderful Dr.M gets bonus points for caring:) So.. now I’m off to see a Psychologist to talk about life management skills and coping strategies for the ill and chronically pissed off.

Tomorrow, the first day of spring,  is a special anniversary for my trusty sidekick and I, a little something to do with the L word perhaps;) I will be celebrating by getting a haircut and going grocery shopping, while trusty celebrates in Joburg by going to work. Continents and oceans and timezones apart, I think the celebrations will be a little short on romance but well intentioned and I’m sure we’ll both find a spare moment during the day to think back 2 years ago to the first time we nervously said those three little words:)

Seeing it’s the first of spring tomorrow (new beginnings and all that) and over a year since my FM/CF dx, I think it is finally time to move on past the denial stage once and for all. I can feel some resolutions coming on;)….

more soon :)m

So catch up news:

HEALTH – I’ve had a few flare ups, but generally I think I am doing well. I had 2-3 weeks there where I had boundless energy and motivation and was charging through to-do lists like nobodies business! I was exhausted every evening and a bit foggy-brained but it felt really good to be getting things done and to be able to exercise a bit more too. This is the first winter that I’ve been without antibiotics (so far so good) and able to fight off viruses on my own steam, though it does exhaust me and take a lot longer. I’m at the tail end of a symptom flare right now and, as usual, it was awful and made me act like a grumpy crazy person but I think the worst is over. The pain was bad, I think the cold weather exacerbates it and the fatigue just goes on and on. The most frustrating part is that i think it was brought on purely by having a busy day at work and not drinking enough water. (oh and probably drinking too much coffee and not resting and trying to do too much but I’ll never admit to that;)

STOOPID MOMENTS- At the time it’s humiliating, saddening and sometimes frightening, but looking back I can laugh at some of the things that happen in the midst of a fibro fog. My short-term memory has been so bad lately that I forget what I’m saying mid-sentence, forget my pin number, can’t string words together coherently and have to sometimes look at what I’m holding in my hand because I’ve just plain forgot what’s there. Recently I got into the car, reached to put my seatbelt on but stopped to say something to the kids in the back. When I’d finished talking to them I’d forgotten what was held in my hand (seatbelt) and assumed it was the car keys. So yes, I tried to start the car by putting my seatbelt into the ignition. It all happened in a split second and as soon as I looked down, I realised but I was actually a bit scared to drive anywhere after that! I’ve also tried to send a txt msg on the tv remote and said some very strange things to the kids which I don’t remember but they are sure to and will remind me regularly for the rest of my life. I know, these things happen to everyone but in a fibro fog, they happen all-day-long. Some days are just one long struggle to remember the right words, form sentences and remember what room I’m in, why, what the hell I have in my hand and what I intended to do with it.

STUDY- Studying is very difficult during flares when my brain turns to mush and moves with the speed of an elderly sloth, so I try to get ahead while I’m feeling well. I’ve finished my compulsory and moved on to my elective subjects – though all 6 of these are compulsory, so I don’t understand why they arrive with a huge ELECTIVE sticker smacked on the front. It’s not like I can elect not to do them and throw them out the window, it’s as though that sticker is there just to taunt me. My current subject is ‘Electronic Learning Resources’ which disappointingly just turned out to mean ‘Computers’. Fortunately though, I can cruise the interwebs and blog to my little hearts content by classifying it  as important background research and experience for my subject:) For how can I teach the poor little children about googling and blogging if it’s not crisp and fresh in my mind?

CHILDREN – the girls are fine, had a few of the typical winter germy things but otherwise well. Lil performed in CREATIVE GENERATION, STATE SCHOOLS ONSTAGE recently which was an amazing experience and gave her a boost of confidence. It will be aired on tv next month:) She is currently rehearsing for her school talent show, where she is performing a Justin Bieber utter utter piss take. It’s adorable:) Titchy is bored with school and wants to hurry up and get a real life (which apparently means grow up, go to university, get a job and have lots of pets) I’m willing to swap with her recently-turned-eight lifestyle, I can dig a bit more lego and a bit less housework in my daily routine.

TRUSTY – mind your business! Ok, trusty is all right I think, overworked as usual but he does it to himself. He’s off to Africa to look at Giraffes for me (oh and some pesky thing to do with work) So I’ll not see him for weeks and weeks. Hey, don’t they have some nice Diamonds in South Africa………? ;)

ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING ELSE – ok, I’ve lost my train of thought so I might wrap it up there, I really hope to write again soon and will endeavour to get ahead in my study etc etc so that I can do it guilt free.

M:)

Ps. Thanks to WAMCARE for listing my blog, check out all those great ME/CFS bloggers! It’s one big juicy pile of inspiration and encouragement over there:)