Tag: living with fibromyalgia

Chronic Illness and Cleaning

Bones
Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

I hate cleaning. I hate it with a burning passion, because it takes time and energy and effort and then you have to do it all over again next week. I like things to be done once and then stay done. Which, sadly, isn’t the case for the dishes, or the dust, or the cat litter trays, or the bathroom, or the toilet, or the carpet, or the cat hair …

I live with two lads who firmly believe that cleaning is a thing you do once every six months when it’s a flat inspection and that’s about it. If anything was cleaned, it was me who did it. Including most of the dishes. A few years ago we decided on a compromise: we’d all pay a bit extra, and each week we would have someone come over and clean the communal areas for an hour, these being the floors of every door that’s open (so my flatmate can leave his office door open if he wants and it’ll get vacuumed), the bathroom, and the toilet. It worked out fantastically for everyone involved – I suddenly had more spoons to spend elsewhere, and we all got a nice clean house.

Unfortunately COVID is a thing and my amazing cleaner is half way up the country at home. I’ve been managing to vaguely keep on top of at least the cat and dog hair, and the bathroom, but the toilet’s gone to the lads. Even more unfortunately we have a flat inspection in three days.

So I get to do all the cleaning.

Now I’m the kind of person who likes to get up, do everything in one hit, and then sit back down again. This sometimes works, and sometimes doesn’t. I’d read somewhere about doing things in bits, and taking rests in between – a concept that fills me with deep unease and no small amount of misdirected anger. Since I have only a few days to get the house to rights, and then a full week ahead of me (with a full day of driving immediately after that), I figured I should probably do the sensible thing and pace myself.

I got up, I cleaned a few more spots of cat puke off the carpet, liberally applied toilet duck (although at this point I’m convinced the toilet requires an exorcism), and sprayed the cleaning product all over the shower stall. Then I lay down for 40 minutes.

It was a bloody challenge to haul myself off the couch again and continue cleaning, but get up I did, and thus I cleaned. I did the shower stall and the sink, and lay back down. Then I got up and went out to the paddock for the first time in days.

And you know what? I think this whole ‘doing a bit at a time and then resting’ has a lot more going for it than my usual ‘DO ALL THE THINGS AT ONE TIME’. And I didn’t combust with misplaced rage while doing it, either. I’ll have to experiment with it more!

Life In Lockdown

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Photo by Bruce Tang on Unsplash

Life has changed dramatically. We have been on lockdown for months. It’s affected every area of our lives and things will never quite be the same again.

The added stress of lockdown, a pandemic (a freaking pandemic, how is this reality??), and the second economic crisis I’ve lived through (so far) really knocked me for a number for the first couple of weeks. Well, that and being on my feet for a week solid beforehand. Regardless, I slept for two weeks pretty much solid, and it wasn’t until the fourth week of lockdown that I became a semi responsive human being again.

I haven’t been able to go to for acupuncture for my trigeminal neuralgia, so that’s flaring up a wee bit more than usual, but otherwise this is the healthiest I’ve been in donkeys years, because I’m not surrounded by people. I haven’t had a cold, or the flu, or the snuffles, since lockdown began.

And I’m loving it. I am unashamably loving lockdown. I don’t have to go anywhere, I don’t have to be human, I can study in my PJs lying on my couch with my cat on my stomach … I still take the dog for a walk and get a bit of exercise – social distancing is a thing – but otherwise I stay at home. And I love being a home body.

This won’t be the case for a lot of people – there have been catastrophic job losses and people attempting to survive on unemployment where before they had decent paying full time jobs.

But for me, it’s a little bit of quiet bliss. A bit of down time to rest, relax, and study.

I Got A Dog

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As the COVID lockdown loomed, I sped out into the back country of New Zealand to one of the largest sheep and beef stations in the North Island.  There, I was met by a woman and a dog.  A dog named Flash.

A dog who will, hopefully, become my “helper dog”.

I call him my “helper dog”, because here in New Zealand we have very strict legislation about what can be classified an Assistance or Service Dog.  Despite the training he will receive, he cannot be classified as an Assistnace Dog until one of the named charities certifies him.  There is one named charity that certifies owner trained dogs, and they are not taking new applicants at this time.

But that’s okay.  I don’t need him certified for him to help me around the home, or at work, or on the farm.  I just need him to be gentle, willing, and trainable.

After two days with him I can confirm he has all of that, in absolute spades.  He is a collie cross, a purpose bred heading dog, bred to stare at sheep until they move.  He just … didn’t do sheep.  At all.  So at the grand age of one, he was fired from basic training, and passed over to me.

It’s early days yet, but I am cautiously optimistic that he will fit in with the rest of my hairy horde and complement our lives.

An Injury Is Never Just An Injury

Bones

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When you have fibromyalgia, or trigeminal neuralgia, an injury is never “just” an injury.

Three weeks ago a door viciously attacked my little toe.  It was … well it wasn’t broken, and that’s the only positive thing I can say about it!  So the next day my fibromyalgia goes “HAH, PETTY TOE, LET ME SHOW YOU THE TRUE MEANING OF PAIN” and everything from my waist down felt swollen and heavy and on fire.  My joints all the way up to my hips were stiff.  I lay in bed and read trashy fanfiction to distract myself from the pain.  The day after that the burning heavy stiff sensation was only in the leg with the bung toe, and after that it went away completely.

So fibromyalgia is a real asshole when you get hurt.  But to top that off, whenever my fibromyalgia does a flareup, my trigeminal neuralgia does a flare up!

Well today, while sorting rams, I got smacked in the nose.  Fortunately by a hand and not a ram, but still, it was a good thwack.  I went and put cold water on it (the best we could do out on farm) and promptly had a meltdown.

The injury is on my face.  The injury is, specifically, on my nose.  The inflammation will put pressure on the second branch of both trigeminal nerves, and that’s likely to set off my trigeminal neuralgia which I had only just settled down after a volcano pimple on my jaw decided to set the whole thing off (why, oh why, does my face do this to me?).

So I had an anxiety attack, which is kind of understandable.  I don’t want my fibromyalgia to flare up.  I don’t want my trigeminal neuralgia to flare up.  I don’t want to be in pain.

But I don’t really get much of an option, and not doing the things that I love to keep myself safe from injury is also not an option … so I have to be kind to myself when I am injured.  And reduce inflammation as much as possible!

For now it is definitely setting off both trigeminal nerves, but it’s only set off the third branch of one side and mildly set off all three branches on the other.  Here’s hoping fibro doesn’t kick in tomorrow and make all the joints in my upper body stiff and achy!  I’ve got stuff to do!

Procrastination

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I am procrastinating.

The things I’m procrastinating on are little things, but they have a very big impact on my life.  The things I’m procrastinating on will set in motion things that will literally change my life as I know it, and all for the better.  I had to ask myself this morning why on earth I’m procrastinating on improving my life.

The answer is simple:  I don’t like change.  I’m probably afraid of it.  Yes, it’s going to change my life for the better, but it’s still going to be change.  It means choices, decisions, actions… more things to do.  I have linked the simple action of taking two photos and sending an email to the whole big scary mess, like by doing this I will immediately have to do all these other things.  Which is a load of crap.  All of the rest of it is still months off.

But my brain is ignoring me and panicking nonetheless.  It’s leaving me paralysed with anxiety and the need to run away.  This anxiety is causing my muscles to tense, which is causing a fibromyalgia flare up, which is making me even more inclined to procrastinate because it hurts to do things.

I’m going to do it today, because I need to get it done and out of the way, but I really really don’t want to.