Well, so far today has been a good day, I have with my hubby's help, managed to get all the washing done, stripped beds, got the house cleaned right through, and am now chilling before going to get ready to celebrate the start of 2011!! We are going to our favourite Chinese restaurant tonight, the River Avon, in town! We go there so much that we even get Christmas presents from them, which is really a lovely gesture! The food is always good, the atmosphere is wonderful, and they always play music, do Auld Lang Syne at midnight, and then we all have a bit of a dance!! Just hope I am able to do the dancing!! I am determined to beat this illness, and to do that I have to keep going, which sometimes is very difficult!
I am also looking forward to tonight because our youngest son Luke and his girlfriend Abby, plus her mum Les, dad Steve and brother Sam, are all joining us, and then coming back here to stay the night! It should be a really good fun evening!
I slept really badly last night, as I had the 'irritable legs' side of fibro, and I could not lie still for long!! Every time I tried to turn over my knees, ankles and hips hurt, and as I could not take any pain killers, I just had to lie there and drift in and out of sleep! But the good side of that is I was up early this morning so I may get a nap later, that will help me to stay awake this evening!! Don't want to fall asleep in my noodles!!!!
I have been thinking a lot today about my family, or lack of one!! My husband, two sons, one nephew and one niece, plus my hubby's brother, auntie, two cousins and their families, are all the family I have left! Not that there are not more alive, I have just chosen to have no contact with my 3 sisters, one brother, and the rest of their offspring! It is quite a long story, so maybe one day I will tell you about it all, but as it is almost 3 years since I last saw any of them, perhaps that will tell you that it is not something that is likely to change (and nor do I want it to, I have not missed all the bitching, moaning and back stabbing one bit!!!!). My nephew (my sister's yongest son) and my niece (my brother's daughter) have chosen to keep in touch with me, and as adults that is their choice, and I have also given my two sons the choice to keep in touch with my family, but they have decided not to! So sad really, they are missing out on being in touch with all their cousins, but the hurt and wounds are too deep for them to ignore! Anyway, I digress from my thoughts, I was sitting thinking about the wonderful parties my parents used to have on New Years Eve, my mum was Scottish, so New Year was always a big occasion, and where we grew up there were a lot of Scottish friends nearby, so our home became a house full of fun and laughter, my mum singing 'Que Sera Sera', my dad singing 'To be a Farmer's Boy' while making all the animal noises, oh how I miss those simple and wonderful things, now parties are all high tech, with Wii party games, and I have been warned that when we get back tonight the Kinect will be on!! Well I won't be jumping about that is for sure, but I can certainly have a laugh at all the others!!!
I am going to finish now and go and take a nap I think, then it will be time to get glammed up for New Year! I am looking forward to 2011, there are many things that make me happy, a few things that make me sad, but all of the wonderful people and things that I have in my life make me realise that I am very fortunate, and for that I will always be grateful! HAPPY NEW YEAR, MAY 2011 BE ALL THAT YOU WISH FOR AND MORE!
Friday, 31 December 2010
Thursday, 30 December 2010
The Beginning of my New Year Challenge (I refuse to do resolutions!!)!
Well, as promised, I have set myself the challenge of bringing to the attention of as many people as possible the awful 'Fibromyalgia'! I am following in the footsteps of my wonderful friend Sara Diana Williams, who has the most incredible blog about her fight against breast cancer! To me she has been my inspiration, and the reason why I pushed myself this summer to take part in the Race for Life to raise funds for Cancer Research! It also makes me feel grateful every day that although I have Fibro (this is what I will call it from now on!!), and it is a chronic illness, it is not life threatening!! For this I am extremely grateful, because I don't think I could cope with something so awful!
Yesterday was not a good day, it is now 1 am on New Years Eve, and I am sitting typing this to tire myself out in the hope that I will sleep! My eldest son, Aaron, returned home to Leeds yesterday after being home for almost 2 weeks, and this always leaves me feeling low, and when I am low, my aches and pains seem to know this and decide to attack too!! I feel annoyed with myself for feeling like this, because I have had a fantastic Christmas, with my three wonderful 'boys' around me, and I know I am very lucky! I have the most incredible husband who is very supportive, although at times he doesn't understand just how much pain I am in. We recently had a heart to heart because things he was doing and saying were getting to me (the raised eyebrows when I asked for help with something in the house, the muttering as he walked away when I had said I was in agony) and he told me that he misses the wife he used to have, who was always active, always doing something, and kept a good house and cooked a meal to come home to every day! It never ever once occurred to me that he was struggling to come to terms with my illness, how selfish is that! He has never been the kind of husband who insisted on a meal every day, he was often happy to come home and cook a meal, he loves cooking, so it was not that big a deal, what was a deal was how much I was being affected by this awful fibro!
I also have my younger son living at home, Luke, and he is an absolute star! Although I no longer work, and both my hubby and son do, they never complain when I ask them for help with the things I have not been able to do during the day. I no longer work, and as someone who was once a nurse, and loved her job and caring for others, this has been my biggest problem! I hate not working! I hate not having my own money! I hate having to ask others to care for me!
But, out of all the problems that Fibro has caused me, the worst of them all is the 'Fibro fog', my memory is shot to pieces! I have had to write down the name of this blog, because when I wake in the morning I will not be able to remember what I have called it, and how to get back into it!! How awful is that!!!
I used to save peoples lives, I used to work on a busy medical ward where there were people on heart monitors, and I had 26 patients in my care, and I had to remember what every single one of them had wrong with them, so that if a doctor was called to the ward I could tell him their history! Now I am lucky if I can remember my name some days!!! I am laughing now as I type this, because while my eldest son has been at home, I have frequently called both my sons by the wrong name, good job I only have the two of them!!!!
I also have my wonderful life saving Black Labrador called Jess, she is my absolute star, she seems to know I am having a bad day and never leaves my side, and on the few good days I do have, when I manage to walk to the field nearby to walk her, she never even needs to wear her lead, because she stays right by my side and never leaves it! Strange that an animal can sense that something is not right and treat us humans with such respect and dignity, yet some people who call themselves my friends have backed away from me because I am not the person I used to be!!! Perhaps the humans need to take lessons from the animals!!!
I am going to finish this first blog now, because it has done the trick and I feel very tired! I also feel positive about this, and I hope that people will start to read my blog and it may help all those people out there who suffer from this chronic illness, and it may also make those people who think that this is not really an illness but just in a persons mind, to understand that this is real, and if a few of those people go and look up Fibromyalgia and chronic illness, they will understand what we are going through!!
Yesterday was not a good day, it is now 1 am on New Years Eve, and I am sitting typing this to tire myself out in the hope that I will sleep! My eldest son, Aaron, returned home to Leeds yesterday after being home for almost 2 weeks, and this always leaves me feeling low, and when I am low, my aches and pains seem to know this and decide to attack too!! I feel annoyed with myself for feeling like this, because I have had a fantastic Christmas, with my three wonderful 'boys' around me, and I know I am very lucky! I have the most incredible husband who is very supportive, although at times he doesn't understand just how much pain I am in. We recently had a heart to heart because things he was doing and saying were getting to me (the raised eyebrows when I asked for help with something in the house, the muttering as he walked away when I had said I was in agony) and he told me that he misses the wife he used to have, who was always active, always doing something, and kept a good house and cooked a meal to come home to every day! It never ever once occurred to me that he was struggling to come to terms with my illness, how selfish is that! He has never been the kind of husband who insisted on a meal every day, he was often happy to come home and cook a meal, he loves cooking, so it was not that big a deal, what was a deal was how much I was being affected by this awful fibro!
I also have my younger son living at home, Luke, and he is an absolute star! Although I no longer work, and both my hubby and son do, they never complain when I ask them for help with the things I have not been able to do during the day. I no longer work, and as someone who was once a nurse, and loved her job and caring for others, this has been my biggest problem! I hate not working! I hate not having my own money! I hate having to ask others to care for me!
But, out of all the problems that Fibro has caused me, the worst of them all is the 'Fibro fog', my memory is shot to pieces! I have had to write down the name of this blog, because when I wake in the morning I will not be able to remember what I have called it, and how to get back into it!! How awful is that!!!
I used to save peoples lives, I used to work on a busy medical ward where there were people on heart monitors, and I had 26 patients in my care, and I had to remember what every single one of them had wrong with them, so that if a doctor was called to the ward I could tell him their history! Now I am lucky if I can remember my name some days!!! I am laughing now as I type this, because while my eldest son has been at home, I have frequently called both my sons by the wrong name, good job I only have the two of them!!!!
I also have my wonderful life saving Black Labrador called Jess, she is my absolute star, she seems to know I am having a bad day and never leaves my side, and on the few good days I do have, when I manage to walk to the field nearby to walk her, she never even needs to wear her lead, because she stays right by my side and never leaves it! Strange that an animal can sense that something is not right and treat us humans with such respect and dignity, yet some people who call themselves my friends have backed away from me because I am not the person I used to be!!! Perhaps the humans need to take lessons from the animals!!!
I am going to finish this first blog now, because it has done the trick and I feel very tired! I also feel positive about this, and I hope that people will start to read my blog and it may help all those people out there who suffer from this chronic illness, and it may also make those people who think that this is not really an illness but just in a persons mind, to understand that this is real, and if a few of those people go and look up Fibromyalgia and chronic illness, they will understand what we are going through!!
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