Bigger break than expected

I never intended to be away this long from the blog and I can't promise that I will get back into regular posting any time soon. However those of you who have followed me for a while deserve an update so here it is.

Over the last few months Mr Myasthenia Kid and I have been sorting out his late mothers estate ready for probate ( this is a thing we do in the UK, it just means that the will that has been left is legally binding and that inheritance tax is sorted if the estate is worth more than a set amount ). We have also been winding up her accounts and any payments due. At times this has felt like a full time job, every day off during the week Mr Myasthenia Kid and I have had to make various phone calls etc with some company's being so inept even when dealing with a bereavement team that multiple phone calls have been made, letters to CEO's have been delivered and on a few occasions we have been awarded compensation due to the mess they have made.

It seriously feels like we haven't had a day off from this in months and now whilst probate has been granted and the last little bits and pieces are getting done, we now have to sell our home of 18 years. 

Selling a house is stressful, combine that with the loss of both of your husbands parents and the stress levels rocket to something you have never seen before. When I do get a minute to call my own, which is really bloody rare currently it is mainly spent zombie like due to exhaustion. I am waiting for an enormous crash, my health has taken some really dodgy turns over the last few months. On a couple of occasions I have almost called 999 for an ambulance as I have had bowel adhesion pain so bad I have passed out. I have had week's of non stop migraines triggered by occipital neuralgia and that has then impacted my sleep. At least once a week we travel down to the new house to ensure that everything is ok and that is also adding to my levels of fatigue. I have got to the point of just wanting the whole silly game to be over with and we only had the photos taken by the estate agent this morning - I am writing this on Wednesday.

Our home has had to have some decorating done and some tidying up in places. It is hard work scheduling everything in when you have so many different things to deal with. Finally things are coming together and we are in a position where we can put our happy home up for sale. Which I never ever thought we would do as after moving here in 2003, I categorically stated I would never, ever move house again! 

I know that we are really lucky in the fact we can move our belongings into the new place and not have to do a mad one day move that is the norm. I can't wait to have my bed down at the house as the bed that is there at the moment isn't very comfortable. It is always the same though isn't it? There is nothing like your own bed. Although Mr Myasthenia Kid reckons he sleeps better at the new house than he does here.

Our current home is now just a shell, all we have left to move down are the white goods, my bed ( including mattress) and some bits and pieces. The rest is either being left for the new owner or given away via a local group on Facebook to families in need. I often go to put something away and realise that I no longer own it or it is down at the new house. It does feel like we are constantly living in limbo not quite belonging here but equally not 100% belonging there.

My emotions are all over the place, I go through regular waves of overwhelming sadness at losing my in laws, leaving this house, leaving my home town of 26 years, leaving my friends and valuable support network. To then being filled with excitement at the new adventure before us, coming up with plans for the garden and colour schemes for the rooms. At times it can feel quite wrong to be pleased about the new house because it came at such a high price. There is just so much to process that I just don't have any desire to write either blogs. I need a break from everything but I can see it being a few months until we actually do finally feel grounded again.

So due to this my blogging maybe sporadic as it has been since October. Sometimes life just gets in the way. With so many changes happening in a small period of time, I simply can't keep all the plates spinning like I did when life was a tad quieter and simpler.

Keep everything crossed for us that the house sale goes smoothly, we could do with a bit of good luck for a change!

Stress, migraines and other sh*t!

 I have had a good few days over the last week with no headaches turning into migraines until this morning. Every night though I still wake up and have to change my pillows several time to make my neck and back of my head comfortable. More often than not I end up sleeping without any pillows. Something I haven't done since I was 18-19 when I had neck issues then. The problem is with being that flat I then quite often wake up with back pain between my shoulder blades. If I prop myself up I end up with back pain in my lower back. If I could just find the one sleeping position that allowed me to sleep through the night without any pain waking me up that would be fantastic.

I can't really complain though after the years of insomnia I suffered from around 2008 until 2016 when I was given Melatonin. Back in the bad old days I would only sleep between 2 -4 hours a night for two nights then on the 3rd night get no sleep at all. On the 4th night I would sleep 12 hours and then feel absolutely terrible, almost like I was drunk without the fun part. I did absolutely everything I could to get to sleep, lavender sprays, lavender sachets in my pillows, not using the TV or phone in my room, all without any success. This cycle of so little sleep had a very bad effect on my mental health and my pain levels. Everything felt heightened, my pain could be off the scale frequently and my emotions were all over the place.

This 4 day sleep cycle would just repeat over and over. I would occasionally get six hours sleep which would be a treat. The most frustrating times were when I would drop off to sleep and then two hours later wake up and that would be it for the night. I existed on cigarettes and mugs of tea. Usually one of the dogs would keep me company and they would swap over so that they all did a few hours each. Even now if I get up in the night I am accompanied by Dembe. He will either sleep right beside me, like he is doing now as I write this blog post or he will sleep on the sofa opposite to the one I am on, so he can watch my every move.

Dembe the Labrador is curled up on the sofa, the MG Kids leg is in frame along with her Chromebook, which is open on her lap.

I cleared this morning' migraine quite quickly with a dose of Sumatriptan. However due to the stormy weather ( we have a weather alert for heavy rain and thunderstorms until this evening ) the top of my head feel's like it is in a vice and being squeezed so hard my eyes feel like they are going to pop from the sockets. For as long as I can remember I have had headaches when the weather is stormy. I feel a bit cheated though as friends over an hour away have had massive thunder storms. Mr Myasthenia Kid's mum rang us to check we were ok as where she lives they have had torrential rain and copious amounts of lightening. We have had a few showers and currently the sun is shining. It is very humid so I haven't bothered sorting out my hair. It will stay straight for 30 seconds and then frizz. There is no point wasting any energy on it.

This will sound completely bonkers but I am quite a private person, despite the blog and talking about all manner of things. There are things I keep private because they involve other people or because I just don't want the sympathy vote. Sometimes I am still processing stuff in my head and just don't have the energy to deal with the questions that writing about an issue will cause. Things are really stressful here at the moment, we never seem to get a minute to catch our breath. But we keep going like everyone else does because the world doesn't stop just because you are having a shit time.

There are several issues going on but the one that is worrying me most at the moment is Dembe ( and this was probably the source of the migraine this morning). On and off for a few months poor Dems has had an intermittent limp. Not an obvious one, one that unless you knew what you were looking for you wouldn't know it was happening. We had him at the vet's last month to be checked out and the vet couldn't observe it in him, isn't that always the way. He was put on some medication a it was hoped that perhaps it was a soft tissue injury that needed some rest and some anti inflammatory medication would help. Within a few days he was doing so much better and no more limping. As a precaution we cut his walks with the dog walkers right down to the bare minimum, ensured he didn't do anything too physical. Sadly on last Thursday the limp came back, I still had pain medication so I gave that to him. The limp settled and then on Monday was back again.

I rang the vets on Monday evening and got Dembe booked in for an appointment the following day. Mr Myasthenia Kid took him to the appointment as they only allow one of you into the building at the moment due to Covid. This time the vet could see the limp and she gave Dembe a full check over. Since this limp started there has been no swelling, no heat coming off any of the joints in his leg and for the majority of the time his limp is very subtle. You actually have to watch his head as he is walking towards you, every few paces his head bobs down, that's how subtle it is. It is so intermittent that we and his dog walkers have been unable to catch it on video. So the next step is x-rays of both his front legs. The vet has checked his back legs and his hips are sound. Hip Dysplasia is a massive issue within the Labrador breed and we ensured both his mum and dad had low hip and elbow scores. We also stuck to the rules about not allowing stairs until he was old enough and also we stuck to the exercise rule of 5 minutes exercise per month old. However sadly Labrador's are also prone to elbow Dysplasia and no matter all the precautions you take with your pups sometimes shit happens and this could be one of those times. I am not too concerned as he is insured, so they will pick up the tab. It is the fact that he maybe in pain, that he has to go to the vets and stay there when he has only ever been left for 30 minutes with someone else in his life since he was 8 weeks old ( other than his dog walks).

Those of you who have followed my blogs will know about our first dog Travis who passed away shortly before his 3rd birthday. As a teenager we also lost a family dog when she went into be spayed as she was allergic to the anaesthetic a situation that was just tragic. For some reason with Dembe I have always wrapped him in cotton wool and my fear about him having to be sedated for the x-rays really has me on edge. Plus the fact that he is coming up for his third birthday has me freaked out. I know he isn't sick like Travis was but I am just paranoid about it. If you want to read more about the dogs we have had please use these links http://themyastheniakid.com/2014/10/30/the-dogs-in-my-life-part-one/ and http://themyastheniakid.com/2015/08/06/the-dogs-in-my-life-part-two/ . I need to write part three to cover Willow, Frankie and Mollies passing within 55 weeks of each other but even though it is several years on it is still just too raw.

I was much more chilled with the other dogs, than I am with Dembe. I have gone back to being like a brand new dog owner and going to the vet about everything! I did feel when we brought Dembe home I had completely lost my confidence and I was always terrified I was going to hurt him ( accidentally obviously).

So until the X-rays come back from the orthopedic specialist we will be none the wiser as to whether he has Elbow Dysplasia or a soft tissue injury or anything in between. If it is Elbow Dysplasia depending on how bad the joint is the treatment could be conservative, treating it when it flares up, reducing his weight a little etc or it could mean an elbow replacement. The thought of which terrifies me as the recovery period is 12 weeks of crate rest which he will go bonkers, quickly followed by myself and probably Jay. So for the moment all professional dog walks have been cancelled. He is allowed 25 minutes off the lead a day and then small lead walks as he point blank refuses to go to the toilet in the garden. He has had his pain medication increased and hopefully that is helping him. The vet constantly reassured my husband that she felt whatever the issue was it has been caught early so the damage shouldn't be too great.

Dembe is fine in himself, loving, affectionate, eating and drinking fine. He keeps wanting to zoomies in the house so I am having to think up games we can play that doesn't involve too much food and too much movement! He is pretty chilled most of the time and is quite happy to snooze. I just thank our lucky stars that he is no longer a puppy as he would be manic with the need to burn off energy.

So the migraine this morning was not unexpected as that seems to be my default setting when stressed and at least they have reduced in number since my whinge post.

HRT

 Good god I feel old, as of last Thursday night, I started HRT ( Hormone replacement therapy). I was put on it for a number of reasons but the main one was an attempt to get a handle on my migraines that have just spiralled out of control since March this year. Leaving me some weeks having 3 a week. I was feeling permanently exhausted by it all, some of it was the migraine hangover and the rest was the Sumatriptan that although stops the migraine in its tracks leaves me feeling drowsy for the next 24 hours.

I'm not the youngest person to be put on HRT, I know people who have been placed on it since their 30's due to premature menopause or surgical menopause ( post hysterectomy ) but I am a good 5 years below the national average of the onset of menopause which is 51 in the UK. So whilst I am 46 and amongst the first in my friendship groups to be placed on it, it is making me having to deal with the fact that the first flush of youth is well and truly over. Middle age is upon me and it is making me feel sad. 

The sadness has nothing to do with my fertility being over, that isn't something that has bothered me. Although I can understand why some women would be upset by this especially those who have entered menopause early before they had the opportunity to have children. I am lucky I don't feel robbed by it, just relief as my periods were just so painful they would dominate 14 days out of the month. I would get cramps up to 7 days before my period began along with tremendous amounts of water retention, I would have period pain for the whole time I bled and it would be at the same intense level throughout. The pains when I had them were so strong I could time the contractions of my womb ( one of the many reasons why I don't have children as if periods hurt that much the pain of having a child would kill me, no word of exaggeration). Having periods made me feel like a prisoner in my own body. I had asked repeated doctors to let me have a hysterectomy, all they would ever say was no because I hadn't had children yet. The best thing that ever happened to me was being put on the contraceptive pill cerazette which stopped my periods completely. I was no longer dictated to by my monthly cycle.

Since 2016 I have endured ever increasing peri-menopausal / menopausal symptoms. I started sweating really heavily at the slightest physical exertion after not really being a sweaty person. I noticed my natural body odour change as well and became paranoid that I smelled, despite Mr Myasthenia Kid and countless friends telling me it wasn't the case. Then out of no where I was hit with crippling anxiety. I have always been an anxious person but this was off the charts, like nothing I could fully explain. I felt like there was a tight ball of barbed wire in my chest and I carried it with me everywhere. I had a constant feeling of my heart skipping a beat in fear. Due to the level of bereavements we went through in a short period of time I put the ever increasing anxiety levels down to a response to the grief. My life felt like it was spiralling out of control. It wasn't uncommon for me to wake up at 1-2am in a full blown panic attack with absolutely no idea what I was panicking about. 

I would find myself in a cycle of  very unhealthy catastrophising thought patterns. I never looked for the silver lining only the absolute worse case scenario. I spent the first year of Dembe's life worrying constantly that he would die. There was no indication that this was going to happen, it was just a constant thought in my mind. I worried about him constantly. The worst thing was I couldn't share my fear because I was concerned that people would think I was deliberately trying to harm him or that I was just plain weird. It was a very lonely place to be and I feel like I missed out so much of that first year due to this irrational fear. I put my fear down to Travis, our first dog becoming sick at 6 months old and passing away just before his 3rd birthday. I also reasoned out losing Frankie and Mollie in quick succession had just made me hyper-vigilant and that it would pass. I would find myself waking up in the middle of the night just to check he was still breathing.

Carrying that level of anxiety day in, day out is exhausting. Especially when it is yours alone to bear.  That is why I can't get over the fact that with just a few doses of HRT (4 so far, I am writing this on Monday morning) that ball of barbed wire in my chest has gone. I have lost that feeling of everything being out of my control. My anxiety hasn't gone completely, I think I will always have some level of anxiety as that is who I am . I would be anxious if I didn't have anxiety! I am feeling much more relaxed and even Mr Myasthenia Kid has said there is a glow about me, something he hasn't seen for a very long time. He said the look of worry has gone from my face and I am back to being like the old me.

HRT hasn't been without side effects, had I known that one of them would be rampant diarrhoea - and I mean the time when it sounds like you have taken a piss out of your ass ( sorry if that is TMI but really I have been writing this blog for 12 years if you are only just offended where have you been?)I would not have started it on Thursday night when I was going to be travelling with Jay and Dembe to look at cars, with at least two 90 minute journeys. Thankfully I woke up at 5am so I could take many doses of imodium ( 8 tablets I ended up taking that day) to stop everything I had eaten form 1973 on-wards pouring out of me. Thankfully after the first day this side effect stopped. I had reached out on social media and asked if anyone else had suffered this side effect and a few people had. I also googled it and found that I wasn't alone with this symptom. Thankfully it did settle down after Friday and I have been fine since.

After the first dose I immediately felt different - well the next morning. Normally Fridays trip out to buy a car would have had me awake all night and feeling anxious and I felt none of those things. I felt reasonably relaxed and happy. Again another feeling I hadn't felt in a while, happiness. Whilst I hadn't been depressed, it was more like a feeling of being low / blue every day, I just felt more in the moment instead of caught up in my head . I even found myself singing which is something I haven't done a lot of for many years. For a couple of years I have felt like an imposter going through the motions of my life, now I feel like it is me. I am not having to pretend I am happy or that inside that I am not a simmering pot of anxiety and rage. Rage has been another symptom I have suffered from. I could and would just explode over the smallest of things.

I am still crying at the drop of a hat which winds me up no end. I only have to watch a slightly sentimental advert and the tears are rolling down my face. I have got into the Canadian series Heartland ( about a horse whisperer, her family and a horse ranch). I watch it most nights before i go to sleep as it is on Netflix and there are 13 seasons. I haven't watched an episode yet without crying at something. I seem to be lasting longer before the tears start, I am hoping that as my body gets used to the HRT * which could take up to 12 weeks, these tears will stop.

I am yet to know if the HRT will make any difference to my migraines, I woke up with one on Friday for the first time in ages. Normally I have been having them start in the afternoon with a classic aura. It could take up to 12 weeks for it to reduce  / stop my migraines. It could also not do anything at all, which means I may have to try different types of HRT to find the optimal one. I really am keeping everything crossed that at the very least my migraines are reduced if not stopped as the last 5 months have been very tough with so many days lost to them.

The hot flushes I was having have also reduced in severity since starting HRT 4 days ago. My hot flushes tend to go in cycles, sometimes they are awful every 20 minutes all day every day to the point my clothes are soaked through and I have to go and change. Filled with the paranoia that I am stinking of B.O due to the level of sweating. It got to the point this summer that I gave up drying my hair. There was just no point as the heat from the hairdryer and straightening irons would have me sweat so profusely that I would have to wait an hour to cool down before I could get dressed. I couldn't apply make up ( on the rare occasions I wore it) as it would just be sliding off my face due to the sweat running down in. When the flushes were at there worst it would leave me feeling dirty and down because I had no control over what was happening to my body despite using supplements such as red clover, sage, black cohosh, royal jelly etc.

This severe sweating cycle would then out of the blue just stop sometimes after months, sometimes after weeks. I would be able to dry my hair and only have to dab my face a few times. I would have possibly two flushes a day and the menopause would be back to feeling manageable. It was the never knowing day to day what the menopause would bring that would leave me feeling stressed.

4 days into HRT and the sweating / hot flushes are reducing massively. I haven't had to change my t shirt 15 minutes after first putting it on because I had armpit rings - something I have never suffered with even when I was well and would go to the gym. If it stops these or just reduces the hot flushes to the point where a tissue will dab the beads of sweat off my face I can live with that after the summer I have just been through.

Just 4 doses in and I can understand why some women say that HRT is a miracle drug and has given them their lives back. Until I started 4 days ago I really didn't realise how much of my life had been lost to the menopause over the last few years.

Oh and we did get a car on Friday and the plan is that we will pick it up tomorrow ( Tuesday 25th August 2020).

Car Accident

 It goes on and on, we are still waiting to hear from the insurance company whether or not the car is a write off. Unofficially the garage has told us they believe it is but it is all in the hands of the insurance company. With Covid many of their workforce are still working from home, so everything is taking far longer than it should. It is frustrating when some of us are already back to a semi normal - as in hubby is back at work and has been for a while. The stupid thing is for every day that the car is at the garage with nothing happening the insurance company will be getting billed. Same for the hire car we have been provided with. It would be in the companies financial interest to make this process go as quickly as possible but instead it feels like we are constantly walking through treacle. I really don't cope well with uncertainty. Not having a car, not being able to look at cars, as there is no point until we have a decision makes my anxiety go up through the roof. Plus with not working I am stuck at home all day with no real distraction from it, fielding the phone calls from the Police who are now involved, thankfully not about us but the other driver and the insurance company as and when they don't hide behind the data protection act, like they did this morning......when it has been me that has been injured and they wanted to talk to Mr Myasthenia Kid about it. You couldn't make it up.

I am still in pain from my injuries, my left arm constantly has pins and needles. Previous when I have had a trapped nerve in my neck the pins and needles would start usually when I was sat at the sewing machine. That healed and I hadn't had any issues for quite a while, since the crash I get no respite at all from the weird feelings in my arm that cover the whole of my shoulder joint, go all the way down my arm and into my fingers. It is incredibly annoying, I scratch the back of my hand a lot because the feeling can be like an itchy burning pain. I have had to stop though as all I do is rip the skin and it doesn't stop the feeling it just intensifies it. I also still can't turn my head properly, so I struggle to look behind me or turn my head to either side. Which isn't great when I am using my mobility scooter, well it isn't safe. So that is now also off limits for the moment.

What has surprised me most is the low mood, it has come out of nowhere. I am guessing it stems from the feeling of things being totally out of control, being in pain and just the turmoil this accident has created. I just don't want to do anything at all, then I feel guilty for not wanting to do anything. It is crazy, doing anything I would normally do is causing me pain or for the pins and needles to intensify so it takes away the desire to do anything. Which then leaves me with no distractions at all so I fall down the car accident rabbit hole and find stuff to obsess about and worry about. 

I hate all this adulting stuff. I am envious of Jay as for 9 hours a day he gets to forget about the accident and do his job. It is with me 24/7, with no escape and idiots on social media telling me that I don't need to worry that the car insurance will pay for a new car. Having already had one car written off nine years ago I know that these people mean well but are living in la la land. The insurance won't pay out what it would cost to replace like for like. They will give us a pay out that could be £500-£1000 short of what we would need to replace like for like. That is why you can get gap insurance when you buy a car, it covers the gap that the insurance leaves because the insurance company only pays you blue book price or what a car dealership would pay for the car, not what they would charge you if you bought it. It is a bloody racket with the consumer losing out all the time.

There is also the additional complication that many car dealers just aren't open or they are appointment only due to Covid. So it isn't like we can just have a mooch around and look at cars either. Another one of the joys of having a car accident during lock-down! what fun it is.

I'm so sorry that this post isn't all rainbows and roses but I have always tried to be honest when writing this and I am feeling really down about it all. I can't pretend otherwise.

Thankfully Dembe is fine if not a little clingy, he seems happier in the car again now after being a little stressed last week. Jay is having problems sleeping, quite often I hear him rattling around in the middle of the night. He is also having anger issues and is on a ridiculously short fuse. People may say it is only a hunk of metal and that would be the case if it hadn't caused all these other issues. Jay is feeling bad because he couldn't protect me from being injured and he couldn't stop Dembe being exposed to a car accident. Is it any wonder he has been impacted psychologically. When I do manage to sleep I am having the weirdest dreams, again all stemming from the accident.

In the week since the accident we have had a handmade lampshade delivered where the fabric has been used the wrong way up, my hair straighteners have gone bang - great in the current weather as I am now a frizzy mess, my big toe nail on my left toe has decided to peel off out of the blue. The only good thing is that my gp has agreed to me having HRT in an attempt to stop my migraines and the awful vasomotor symptoms I am having due to the menopause.

Before the crash we had bought a lazy spa , that was delivered with a European 2 pin plug which isn't very good when we use a 3 pin plug in the UK and an adaptor wouldn't be safe. So I have also been having to sort out a refund from Amazon who are saying it could be 6 weeks. So I could do with a change in my luck currently. It is about time the universe found someone else to pick on!

Some light relief

I am sure many of you are at the point where you just need a break from the C word ( Covid-19), some light relief as it were. The situation  has everyone at breaking point, even those who don't suffer from anxiety are starting to suffer with insomnia or anxiety. So this week I thought I would show you some of the upcycling projects hubby and I have been doing since he started his 12 weeks working from home. We are using these projects to keep busy and to stop the anxiety getting out of control.

The first project we tackled was his chest of drawers. We bought these from Facebook Market place around two years ago. They were a disgusting beige colour and had been upcycled quite poorly by the person selling them. The top of the chest of drawers hadn't been waxed or varnished and nor had the handles. We decided to continue the blue theme of his room and do them in Vintro Paints Northern star. It is such a beautifully pigmented paint, the colour is just so deep. I really am in love with them. We decided to dark wax the top and the handles which really makes the blue of the unit PoP! Sadly I have no before photos.

Spurred on by the success of this chest of drawer unit, we decided to start on my bedside cabinets. I bought these from the Devon Air Ambulance shop around a year possibly two years ago with the intention of upcycling them. Life got in the way as usual and they stayed a horrid orange pine for longer than intended.

We decided to sand the top and stain it with the dark wax. We then used Vintro Paint in the no seal chalk paint range, the colour was Beau Blue, then it was sealed using Vintro's Extreme Matt Lacquer.

We had two of these to do and I really can't get over the difference, from orange and dated to a thing of beauty. I also took the opportunity to wax the runners of the drawers. The drawers have wooden runners that were a little stiff, I remembered years ago reading about how to ensure they run smoothly by running a candle over them. I had an old candle knocking about so gave both units a good run over and the drawers come out so smoothly now I am in danger of whipping them out of the unit completely!

The next thing we tackled was the huge pine book case from the lounge. For this one we used Frenchic Furniture Paint in Duckling from the Alfresco range and used the Frenchic Browning wax on the shelves. Whilst Jay did that, I did a small pine unit that sits behind the front door. On these items we decided to use a gloss paint foam mini roller to give the items a smoother finish. Although the paint is self levelling (both the Vintro and the Frenchic ) if applied too thickly you can end up with brush marks. By using a roller it eliminates these, you just have to be careful that you don't get a build up of paint on the edges of the furniture. By using a brush you can remove these quite easily.

We had a break for a few days before starting the Tv unit. I wanted that unit done so that when I looked down that end of the lounge all that furniture was completed. I have hated this TV unit for so long I ca't remember a time when I actually liked it! Now thanks to its transformation I love it again.

Then I did a little tiny project all by myself, a cheap Amazon pine table that was at least 5 years old. That was desperately needing some love. This one had the top sanded, then one coat of clear wax, followed by a coat of dark wax ( Frenchic ) followed by another coat of clear wax ( by Rustoleum ). I then painted it in Frenchic Furniture paint ( Lazy Range ) in Wolf Whistle. I have fallen in love with this colour!

All the furniture has been given a final coat of Vintro's Extreme Matt Lacquer to ensure it can stand up to normal life in The Myasthenia Kid  household.

We still have lots of furniture to paint / upcycle and these pieces have been done over the last 3 weeks, with lots of rest days in between. Neither of us can believe how good these pieces of  furniture look now that they have had a bit of TLC. I had an inkling a lockdown maybe coming so bought all the paint in the weeks before so that should it happen we would have all our supplies here.

Just for clarification I have purchased all these products and none have been gifted to me. We really aren't that lucky! There are lots of other brands of paint out there these are just the two I like to use for our projects. 

Having the furniture to paint has helped give Mr Myasthenia Kid a much needed routine and hasn't allowed for anxiety to kick in. We have had a wobble over the weekend where he talked about going back to work. I quickly convinced him that it wouldn't be happening! 

Dembe has been brilliant whilst we have been working out in the back garden. He just sits on his chair and goes to sleep.

Websites for the paint
https://frenchicpaint.co.uk/

https://www.vintro.co.uk/

Exhausted

I know I am not the only one who is suffering through lack of sleep at the moment. My news feed is full of people all saying the same thing, wide awake and can't settle down to sleep or wide awake at 3am with heart racing mid panic attack. This virus is doing a number on all of us, mentally and physically. Add in a dog that is refusing to accept the clocks have changed and is waking you up at 5am most mornings and you have me exhausted.com. 

On top of not sleeping it has also been a busy few days for me as I started making masks due to friends and family asking me if I would. Initially I was reluctant as there seemed to be very clear advice coming from the medical profession and the government in the UK saying that they weren't effective. However over the last few days a few studies have been published looking at the effectiveness of home made masks and they have said that yes they do work. They do need to be made from quilters cotton and a double layer of fabric. The ones I have been making also have a pocket in the back so you can add in a filter - either a proper mask filter or any unwoven material will do.

It has been a non stop mask making factory here for a few days and I have pushed it beyond what was sensible so I have landed with a bump today. Utterly exhausted, short tempered  and feeling very fed up.  I also feel like I haven't accomplished anything which is utterly ridiculous as I have supplied friends and family with washable, re-usuable masks in an attempt to keep them safe . So why is my brain making me feel so bad??? It makes no sense I should be walking on air. Especially since I have had such lovely feed back from those that have received their masks. I think it is  a mixture of anxiety and sleep deprivation.

After finishing the masks this morning I have just hit a wall of fatigue. It is frustrating as I want to do stuff but the mental and physical fatigue means if I do try to do anything I will make a complete hash of it so it is better to just rest for the remainder of the day and not feel the urge to complete / do stuff to feel worthy. The masks were enough and the last one today was an endurance challenge just because I was so tired and it was beginning to affect my vision.


I did wake up this morning feeling really down in the dumps which is unusual for me. I think it is a mixture of a lot of things, Covid-19 and the anxiety it induces, the fact that our first holiday since 2006 has been cancelled, not sleeping, my routine of 12 years up in the air due to hubby being home, no time to myself, not being able to see people ( not that I saw them a lot ) just so many different things. We are incredibly lucky and I do know that. We haven't got to worry about money, Jay has a job and is being paid. So many people don't have that currently. Our mortgage will be paid along with our bills. So many of my friends are struggling having been made redundant or losing customers as they are self employed. I know that we are very fortunate but like a lot of people I am finding this new normal very weird and taking some time to adjust too.

I'm writing this to let you know that if you are feeling any of these things it is totally normal. It is a totally bizarre thing that we are going through all over the world at the moment. It is natural for us to feel out of sorts, unable to sleep etc at times of stress. 

I know it isn't a massive post this week but I am dead on my feet, there is nothing left in the tanks. If I knew it wouldn't interfere with me sleeping tonight, I would be in bed already!

Crazy times!

This is my mini quilt that I rushed to put together on Sunday morning. Here in the UK we are placing rainbows in the window, so that as people walk past on the daily exercise out of the house if they aren't shielding, it makes them smile. I love it when people are walking past stop and look at it - hopefully they aren't looking at it saying it is crap but looking at it and smiling!

Empathy

When I wrote last week's blog post Rainbow Bridge  I never expected in a million years the response that it received. It wasn't just me hubby had people coming up to him in work, telling him that they couldn't read it without shedding a tear or that it said what they felt but had never been able to express it. I had followers on Instagram contacting me about their recent losses and long ago losses too. On Facebook it was the same, with many people contacting me or leaving a comment. . It was emotionally hard as I am very empathetic, so when people start to get tearful when they are talking to me, it makes me cry too. But when I wrote the post I was half expecting it to stir up a lot of emotions because I had been in such a mess as I wrote it. I have to be honest I never did a final check on the post to look for errors, mainly because I found it so upsetting to read, it was real and raw. I haven't even gone back to look at it now to refresh my memory before writing this one. I just can't do it, I have already been in tears today twice over the dogs. It is always just bubbling away under the surface for me at the moment, although to look at me or to see any of my social media posts you would never know.

I am so touched that something I have written has moved so many people. I thank each and everyone of you who commented or messaged me. It was very hard last Thursday as I had no idea how it would be received. I had no clue if people would think I was wallowing, being self indulgent or a drama queen. That people would think that I should pull myself together and get on with the rest of my life. I promise you I am not self indulgent, wallowing or being a drama queen. I just write about life and my experiences. I try to give a voice to those feelings that we push down and don't let anyone else see. I take a chance that people won't reject me or ridicule me because I try to talk about things that many would rather brush under the carpet. Although there have been several articles regarding the death of a pet in National newspapers it is still treated with some degree of disbelief by those who have never had an animal / pet in their lives. 

The whole point of my post was for you - whoever you are, know that it is ok to feel whatever you are feeling, to express your grief ( and it is your's and no one else's) anyway that you like. That these feelings are totally normal. You are not weird, you aren't wallowing in your grief, you aren't an attention seeker and you are certainly not being a drama queen. You are hurting and it will take time to process all that emotion. Hell I am only 8 months on and there are days where I can barely keep it together. Days where all I do is cry. Days when I feel guilty when I know rationally I have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about. I just wanted you to know you aren't going mad, I honestly thought at times I was losing it. All of those feelings, even the uncontrollable rage that even surprises you when you roar, is totally normal. It is the beast called grief and it doesn't have to be something that you go through alone.

As I touched on in my blog post even when you have suffered from a significant bereavement such as a partner / child / sibling / parent / friend, people who haven't been through that kind of grief can't begin to imagine the enormity of the feelings of loss and pain. They may see you red faced, tear stained and see your grief but that is soon forgotten because it has no direct impact on their lives. The next time they see you, taking the kids to school, going to work, getting the shopping - all things you have to do despite the pain and grief they assume you are "better". They don't understand that grief goes on forever. They seem to think that grief has a timeline and by a certain amount of time say 6-12 months maybe sooner if they are real dicks, you "should" be "over" it. How do you explain that there is no getting over it? You are just getting through each day the best you can. There will be good days, bad days and the worst kind of days.  Life will probably never be the same again. But there will never be or has there ever been for anyone who is grieving a time when they are over it. Getting Over It has to be the most grotesque phrase ever. Followed by Time is a great healer. There is no healing from grief, you carry that pain forever.

I had people contacting me about dogs they had lost thirty years ago during their childhood that they still mourned for.  Others told me about their recent losses that they just couldn't process or that in the proceeding days before my blog post it had hit them, after thinking that they could keep going and carry on as normal. I was quite honest when I spoke to them and told them Jay and I have very little memory of January and February this year.

 We know we got Dembe, we know he was tiny but ask us to recall anything significant like where we took him on his first walk. What the date of his first walk was, his first bark, his first growl all the stuff we would normally remember and we draw a blank. It's not because we didn't care about it, purely our brains were overloaded processing what had happened when we lost Frankie and Mollie within 7 days of each other. I am so glad that I started the Dembe Diaries blog and his diary that I base the blog on, so that in years to come I can look back and see all those things in black and white that my brain was unable to absorb at the time.

 I do remember Jay barely spoke in the first 4-5 days after it happened. It was quite stressful as I went into list mode, trying to control everything because my anxiety spiked. His anxiety spiked because I was making so many demands on him all the time and obviously he needed to have some control in his life too. It was very difficult trying to get him motivated to help me sort the house out ready for Dembe's arrival. Especially as we couldn't stand being in the house as it was just full of reminders of how empty it was. We did cry together and we did talk about our babies, all of our babies. But the pain and grief was hard because although it has happened to both of you (or all of you) it is also an individual thing that no one can make better or take away from you. People grieve in different ways. Just because Jay wasn't breaking down in tears every 5 minutes like I was didn't mean he wasn't hurting or struggling to cope. You only had to take a look at him, ashen faced, tired and so very quiet, grief and pain was written all over him. For a few days I was worried that he was going to drop down dead from a heart attack or stroke he looked so ill.  

Grief is weird one minute you can feel like you are doing ok and the next minute it feels like the world is imploding. There is no rhyme or reason to it, you are carried on its current and it takes you wherever it pleases. There is no control of it, it controls you initially, even denying you sleep when it wants to. Both Jay and I suffered from terrible insomnia in the 7 days after Mollie and Frankies passing. We would find ourselves downstairs in the middle of the night watching crap on the TV whilst eating chocolate biscuits and drinking sugary tea in the hope we would just pass out from a sugar overdose. I remember one day within about 20 minutes of each other we both left the electric shower on, when we left the bathroom, returning to it a few minutes later, neither of us could work out why we had left it running. We had no recollection of leaving the bathroom.  Life really was being lived on autopilot, all we could do was keep putting one foot in front of the other and get through another day.


I want to tell you that things do get better, the grief becomes less overwhelming.  I feel like I am finally starting to live life again instead of just simply going through the motions. I am not saying that in 8 months you will also be feeling better, it could be less time it could be substantially more time. But there will come a time when you let a breathe out and know that you are starting to be you again.


Up until about a week ago the last time I listened to music and enjoyed it was 29th December 2018. That was the day that Frankie passed away and I had been listening to my Sinead O'connor LP. I didn't play any music for a couple of weeks. After that time had passed, I tried but I found the noise too much and overwhelming. I had no emotional connection to the music. I would rather be in silence or have the TV on low in the background.  For the last two weeks I have played music non-stop. I have sung at the top of my voice and quite possibly scared the neighbours. I have found the joy in music again. I haven't played my Sinead O'Connor LP, I think that one will take some time. I may not play it again for several years, I'm not setting myself a target, I will let it happen, I won't force it. One day I will sing something from the album and it will be like an ear worm that won't die until I play it. At the moment anything from that LP makes me sad.

We have also started planning things for the future. We have booked  a short break in the UK next year and we will be taking Dembe with us. It is very exciting. This will be the first time since 2006 that Jay and I have had any sort of holiday. It is only 3 nights away but it will do us all some good just to get out of the house and away from the day to day. I am nervous as hell as I have become a real homebody since becoming ill. Other than stays in hospital I haven't been away from the house in 13 years. It is hilarious to me that I am getting a bit anxious thinking about it when Jay and I have travelled to Sri Lanka, USA (Florida), Antigua, Paris, Menorca and various places all over the UK for weddings / christenings. I know that we can do it, it is just my world has been so very small over the last 13 odd years.

So please be kind to yourself, wherever you are in your journey with grief. Everyone does grief differently, there is no one size fits all. What works for you may not work for anyone else.  Remember living life does not mean that you have forgotten those who are no longer with us. At some point things will get easier, you will reach a new normal. It is not a journey you have to do alone. If more of us start talking about grief and how it affects us we will educate those who have never experienced it and maybe create a little more empathy. The world could really do with more empathy at the moment.

Insomnia

I have written about my struggles with insomnia previously, thankfully though its not been something I have struggled with since around 2016 when I was prescribed melatonin and the antidepressant Mirtazapine . Both have improved my sleeping habits immensely. I also take a low dose of amiltriptyline to prevent migraines and again this helps me sleep....until last Sunday night (18th November).

Sunday nights have been a sleeping issue for me as long as I can remember. I think the sleeping problems started over the anxiety of going back to school on the Monday. Throughout my school years I was bullied, so going to school was a cause of anxiety. If ever anyone says to me their school days were the best of their lives I want to punch them in the face. For me they were a source of misery and I never knew who would be gunning for me next. Primary school was particularly awful, comprehensive school was slightly better but I just felt so out of place there having come from a tiny school of less than 400 pupils to then be amongst over 800.

After school I then had the Monday morning work anxiety. I would be ok on Sunday until about 5pm and then I would begin to worry about events that would take place at work during the week. Again I was the target of two bullies unfortunately both were my boss and when one left the business the other one jumped right in and took their place. I loved my job and was good at it but it did absolutely nothing for my mental health.

So now after years of Sunday night anxiety its ingrained in me and I can never sleep or settle down for sleep very easily on a Sunday evening. So when it happened this Sunday I just shrugged my shoulder and thought oh well I'll sleep Monday. Yet when Monday came around the same thing happened no sleep. I put Mondays lack of sleep down to having bloods being done on Tuesday morning. Its always a drama getting blood out of me. It was it took 2 people three attempts. I've got a lovely blown vein on the back of my hand. 

Tuesday was also dramatic as our washing machine broke down, well died to be more accurate. It was about 5 years old and had been a really good machine - washing machines don't seem to last very long in this house. Probably due to the dogs stuff that fills the waste pipe with sand. I have a Rug bag  which is what horse owners put their horses rugs in to stop all the dirt etc going into the machine - its a bit like a lingerie bag for horses lol! A new machine was ordered and set up for delivery the following day. We can't be without a machine when we have two elderly dogs who have accidents.

So when I lay tossing and turning last night I presumed I was anxious about the new machine being delivered. I wasn't remotely anxious I just couldn't drop off to sleep and if I did drop off I was only staying asleep for ten minutes or so. Today I am exhausted three nights of very little sleep has destroyed me after being used to sleeping again. On all three nights out of desperation I have increased my melatonin, added in an extra amiltriptyline and then last night I toyed with taking my last diazepam which is my emergency pill for either the dentist or when my neck pain is off the charts. I don't have the doctors until next week  and I will ask about an additional prescription of diazepam as when the neck pain is bad its the only thing that relives it.


Last night well technically this morning I didnt drop off until gone 02.30am , at 7am I received a text message to tell me that our new washing machine would be with us in 20 minutes. So bang went any chance of managing to sleep for a bit longer. Jay has gone back to bed. He can fall asleep pretty much whenever and wherever he wants. I am unable to do that and I am always terrified if I sleep during the day I wont sleep at night. So today I will push through until I can't go on any longer. My plans of using my embroidery machine have gone out of the window. I am so out of it I'd be a danger to myself holding a pencil let alone using machinery. If I didn't have a load of things being delivered today I would have crawled back into bed right now, regardless of not being able to sleep tonight.

Insomnia causes my pain levels to increase, my mood to plummet and makes me thoroughly miserable. I hate not sleeping because the knock on effects can last weeks. Its been so long since I have had a run of three nights that I had forgotten how bloody awful insomnia makes me feel. 

Fingers crossed that at some point this week I fall asleep before 2.30am!

A trip of a lifetime

Next week hubby and I will be visiting the Emma Bridgewater Pottery factory. It’s a trip that we decided to take around two months ago. We never thought we would get to visit it so soon. We always had thought we would have to wait for a few years before we made the trip as we would “have” to do it over two days but we decided to bite the bullet and just do it in one. It will probably leave me quite sick, there may not be a blog post next week, if the exertion hits me really hard. However I am determined to enjoy myself and live with the consequences.

A trip even for an able-bodied person can involve lots of planning, as the whole thing has seemed rather surreal to me I hadn’t really started thinking about the trip and the reality of it until yesterday. Now my lists have lists. I did order a road atlas as we are old school and don’t use a sat nav. Our road atlas was invaluable on a trip many years ago when we were on our way back from a family christening in Norfolk and the M25 was closed. I took on the navigating responsibilities and got us to the M4 by going the scenic route rather than sitting for hours in a huge tailback. Also last week I finally printed off the directions from the AA Route Planner - both there and back (I have made that mistake before!) The tickets have also been organised and placed in a folder. But that is just the tip of the iceberg of stuff that needs to be done.

Due to the sheer volume of medications I take, I have had to try to come up with a working solution of taking extra meds with me just in case I need them. I really didn’t want to be lugging around a full-size 300ml bottle of morphine when I may in the course of the day take only 20ml. Same as I don’t want to be taking 200 paracetamol or a blister pack of ten slow release morphine tablets. My handbag will resemble a pharmacy if I am forced to take all these things, I already have a print out of all my prescription medications which I carry at all times. It really is a pain in the arse having to be so thoroughly bloody responsible but the consequences would be awful if these things weren’t properly managed. Not keeping on top of my pain medications means I can be in agony for 48 hours until the situation is back under control. Even when I am having a good time I can’t forget my pain meds as further down the line I will be jolted back into reality with searing joint pain.

The anxiety levels planning for this trip has induced are off the charts. I am an anxious person by nature but it had been under control for many years just raising its ugly head anytime I was more stressed than normal. Since giving up smoking though my day-to-day anxiety levels have increased. Anything and everything is setting me off, even the most basic things can leave me doubting myself or working out the worst case scenario of every situation, what I call catastrophizing. However unlikely the catastrophe maybe likely to happen. It’s a horrible way to live as it makes you so desperately unhappy. You spend your whole life ignoring the here and now, worrying yourself sick about the future, something which you have zero control over. It literally sucks the joy from any situation. So even though the anxiety about this trip is causing me sleepless nights I am determined to go, to prove to myself that I can live in the moment and enjoy myself. If my anxiety levels don’t settle down after this trip I am going to have to make an appointment to see my gp as this level of anxiety isn’t normal. It’s not my normal.

With 7 days to go until my trip ( it will be less again by the time this is published)  my lists have lists. Writing lists does seem to soothe my anxiety until 1am when I wake up most nights in a panic about something or other. Thanks to the Lush Sleepy lotion which I blogged about here , I am getting off to sleep much more easily. It is just staying asleep that seems to be the problem. At least now, well during the day I will have a list I can check and re-check, to ensure I have planned for every possible outcome. When my mind is occupied with writing, crafting etc it is easy to feel calm and in control. The waking up in the middle of the night is just frustrating because that is now actually starting to make me ill, due to the lack of sleep. I am now panicking about not sleeping properly the night before we go…….how bloody stupid is this? If I keep worrying about it, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thank god I can function on the minimum amount of sleep and I think the adrenaline alone will keep me going for this trip next week.

Next week is going to be quite hectic with our trip to Stoke-on-Trent and both of our birthdays. So if there is no blog post next week you will know why, it’s because I am utterly exhausted. I will try to get something out even if it is just a photograph from the day but I won’t be pushing myself. I am sure you will understand as I will be recovering from my trip of a lifetime.

Insomnia Cure? (and other stuff this week)

**I haven’t been paid to provide a review of this product, I have also not received payment for advertising this product. This is an honest review of a product where no gain be it financial or through goods etc has been made.**

If you live in the UK, use social media platforms such as Instagram or Facebook or  read the newspapers and haven’t heard of Lush’s new wonder product “sleepy” then where have you been? The print media has been full of gushing reviews for this product, autistic children who have never slept more than a few hours at a time were now sleeping a solid 8 hours, insomniacs were rejoicing. Doctors were claiming it was a breakthrough in the treatment of sleep disorders. Ok so I may have just made that last sentence up but you catch my drift. The media, including social media were full of praise for the product that was allowing the sleepless to finally get some sleep.

So desperate had I become for a decent night’s sleep. I wanted to believe the hype. The product isn’t cheap at £13.95 for a measly 215g, (link to Lush website here) obviously the cure for insomnia is priceless but for most people in the real world spending £13.95 on a body lotion that may not even work probably seems a little extravagant. I have repeatedly moaned on here about how since giving up the fags (cigarettes) I am no longer sleeping. Initially when I stopped the first two weeks were heaven, then after that I was having problems with dropping off to sleep and then staying asleep.

I have two types of insomnia, onset insomnia - where you can’t drop off and maintenance insomnia - where I can’t stay asleep. I don’t know which is more infuriating actually I do, its maintenance insomnia as that can happen to me within 30 minutes of falling asleep. I wake up and I am wide awake immediately and I can stay that way for hours. Onset insomnia is frustrating but I just get up and do something, read, have a cup of tea. I am currently in a pattern where one or two nights a week I am having trouble falling asleep. Every night I am waking up for several hours during the night. I knew the chances of Sleepy the Lush body lotion helping me be able to stay asleep was remote but at this point I was willing to give anything a go.

I can’t remember which day I ordered the body lotion but it arrived within two days which is pretty good for ordering a product online and not paying extra for a named day delivery, I paid for standard delivery. The packaging wasn’t excessive and it arrived in tip-top condition. I was looking forward to trying the lotion when I went to bed.

The colour is a little off-putting to me with it being a lurid purple. It really smells strongly of Lavender which is a scent known to aid sleep. I have tried dropping lavender oil on my pillow and using an oil burner in my room for an hour before going to bed in the past but it’s made zero difference. It also contains sweet Tonka bean but to be honest I can’t differentiate the smell from the lavender. As expected the product does feel gorgeous on my skin and a little goes a very long way. So now the £13.95 doesn’t seem so bad as it is going to take me awhile to get to the bottom of the pot. I applied the cream to my neck, back, arms and chest, all the areas close to my nose as it is the smell of the product that is going to help me sleep. I did also use it on my feet as they are dry with the change of the season. My skin did feel lovely the following morning, including my feet.

The first night was a raging disappointment, despite falling off to sleep easily (which was nice) I was woken up by the pain of gastritis and the sound of a dog pacing around downstairs on the laminate floor at 1am. Usually a dog pacing around downstairs in the middle of the night is not a good sign, it's normally a precursor to a dog vomiting. When I got into the lounge I found Frankie who seemed very out of sorts and very shaky on his feet. He had been fine the night before so I was very concerned. He didn’t want to eat when I had a banana and normally he’d sit and drool for that. When I returned upstairs I noticed that he was having great difficulty climbing the stairs. I managed to get him into my room and onto the bed (thankfully he jumped up unassisted) and I put the electric blanket on hoping that heat would help whatever was causing the problem. My husband got up a few hours later, I was still awake having not gone back to sleep. Frankie was worse again so I explained to hubby what had gone on earlier. The dogs were taken out for a very short walk and the alarm was set so we would get up early and ring the vets once they were open.

I did finally manage to get a few hours sleep but it was a dreadful night and the quality was awful due to being stressed out over Frankie being ill. In an ideal world a product tester wouldn’t have all this drama going on.

Frankie went to the vets with Mr Myastheniakid at 09.30am, due to Frankie's age (he is 11 this week, as is Willow) I had convinced myself that this was the beginning of the end. The vet said she felt it was probably a flare up of Hip Dysplasia (a diagnosis I have never been entirely happy with as he has only ever had one problem with his hop and that was over 10 years ago. Of course that diagnosis made pet insurance ridiculously expensive.) Or he has developed arthritis in his hip. Frankie was a very good boy at the vets allowing them to take blood but he wasn’t happy at having his legs moved around. He came home off his face on painkillers, he can’t take the normal medication metacam or rimadyl as he pees blood, so he had no NSAID just a painkiller.

Friday was an incredibly long day for me, hubby was late night meaning he wouldn’t be home until gone 9pm, so I would be dealing with a hallucinating dog by myself for the day. You could see Frankie was hallucinating as he was watching stuff that wasn’t there. Thankfully at about 2pm he went to sleep beside me and slept the rest of the day. Normally I am in bed by 7pm as sitting on the sofa makes me sore but that day I had to stay downstairs all day as I didn’t want Frankie injuring himself further by running down the stairs when Jay got home. BY the time Jay did come home the injection was starting to wear off and Frankie was more with it.

I applied the Sleepy body lotion that night and was out like a light, I did wake up about 3am and was awake for a few hours. Again my skin was loving the lotion and was feeling very smooth. So that was two nights out of two where I had no problem getting to sleep and where I didn’t wake up within the first couple of hours of dropping off.

Saturday morning it was clear that Frankie was in pain again, he was panting very hard, although he was moving better. When any of our dogs get an injury I try to treat them naturally by giving them Maxxiflex  a tablet that can be bought on Amazon (and again I am not being paid to promote or advertise this product and each dog may react differently to this product so please speak to your vet). After two doses of this tablet Frankie was completely back to normal, bouncing around all over the place and no heavy panting or showing any signs of pain. We kept him as quiet as it is possible for a Weimaraner to be quiet. By the time hubby came home on Saturday evening Frankie was jumping at the front door wanting to go out for a walk and he  leapt into the back of the car without any issues. For the previous 24 he had been unable to get into the back of the car and had been lifted by hubby onto the back seats.

Despite all the stress involved with looking after Frankie and having a Grandmother who was in hospital, I did remember to apply the Sleepy body lotion. I had the best nights sleep I have had in ages, I slept all the way through the night and woke up almost feeling refreshed.

Frankie continued to improve Sunday, his blood test results would be back on Monday which may have given us an idea what was going on with him, be it arthritis, soft tissue injury etc. He was so much better today, we were quite surprised he had improved so much in the space of 48 hours. We were still “attempting” to keep him as quiet as possible, we were just very happy he wasn’t in pain.

Sunday night I did the same ritual I had been performing since Thursday evening covering myself in the Lush Sleepy body lotion. I will be honest Sunday nights are a real problem for me at the best of times, I have had problems sleeping on a Sunday night since I was a child. I have always suffered from anxiety if there is a break in my routine, unless I was at home. So finishing school on a friday was fine as I would be at home but starting school / university / work on a Monday and the anxiety would stop me sleeping. Despite not working anymore and not having been in education for over 20 years, Sunday evenings are still angst ridden. Which means most Sundays I lie in bed for hours, sometimes until gone midnight before I drop off. This Sunday was no different, so the body lotion didn’t do anything at all for me, it was a tall order not even medication works on a Sunday evening.

Monday, Frankie was completely back to normal, following me from room to room, annoying his mum / sister and me! He really was feeling an awful lot better. The vet rang late Monday afternoon and I found out that Frankie had a soft tissue injury his blood work had shown this and the vet was very pleased at how well he was doing, although Frankie still has to take it easy for bit. Yeah the vet has clearly never owned a Weimaraner! Due to Frankie's age and size (39-41 kilos) he has developed a heart murmur. The vet said you can hear that one of his valves is leaking but it is very mild at the moment. He then went into signs that I need to look out for which will tell us that his heart is starting to fail (although the vet never said this, it was a case any of these symptoms and bring him in but I am not an idiot and know the score). So our boy isn’t a spring chicken anymore but he’s happy as Larry as long as his pack is together and that’s all that matters.

Monday night - slept like a log, woke up at 3am was awake for two hours and then slept until 8am.

Tuesday night - dropped off really quickly but woke up at 3am and stayed awake until gone 6am. Then slept until 8am.

My overall verdict on the Lush Sleepy Body lotion, well it probably needs a bit longer really to give a really good review. However if you are suffering with onset insomnia not linked with anxiety, I’d say it was definitely worth a go as long as you are also practicing good sleep hygiene. If you aren’t I would suggest trying that first. If you have no problems getting off to sleep but suffer with maintenance  insomnia then I’d say don’t waste your money, unless you apply it when you wake up in the middle of the night. I don’t know if it would help at all but it is something to try. It does smell really nice and it leaves your skin beautifully smooth. An added bonus I have discovered is that it is quite good on acne, probably due to the lavender in it. I get hormonal acne on my chin and this has calmed it right down and made it not look so red.