A Sh*tty Week

 You know when you have one of those weeks when it feels like your body is going through a checklist of every condition you have and providing you with all those symptoms? No - lucky you! Yes- you have my sympathy. I have just been through one of the toughest weeks I have had in a long time, it has been relentless the onslaught of health issues. It feels never ending and I have no idea why this week has been like this.

I don't like to make a big thing of it on social media. Most of my friends also have chronic illnesses and are dealing with their own shit. They don't need to hear me moaning about mine. There are two people are am truthful about how I am actually feeling on a day to day level, Mr Myasthenia Kid and my best Cyber mate Beverley B. Beverley and I speak daily via WhatsApp we have been really good friends for about 18 months and "friends" for nearly 3 years. Beverley started following me on Instagram just after I lost Mollie and Frankie. We would chat every few days and we just hit it off. She left Instagram so we started chatting on WhatsApp. She is hilarious and always makes me shriek with laughter. Mr Myasthenia Kid and Beverley B are what get me through weeks like this.

I first thought something was amiss last Sunday, we went to visit a friend only to discover we had a puncture in our rear tyre. Mr Myasthenia Kid and our friend attempted to change the tyre but the wheel nuts were too tight to get off. I suddenly remembered we have cover with Green Flag and called them out. By the time we got home, an hour later than planned, it was like someone had taken my batteries out. I was so tired I couldn't think straight let alone string a coherent sentence together. If I call it fatigue that really doesn't do it justice. I took my blood pressure boosting medications just in case I had low blood pressure as that make me tired but they didn't halt the fatigue. By 1700 I was in bed, I really couldn't handle attempting to sit upright etc. 

Monday

I had my hairdresser come and sort my hair out. I took a photo of myself the other week cuddling Dembe and all I could see were the grey hairs framing my face. I then realised I was long overdue my hair being done as it was last cut and highlighted on 26th July! Whoops. I knew I would be tired after having that done so deliberately ensured that I had no plans at all for the remainder of the day. It was a Netflix and crochet afternoon. By 1900 I was shattered again but not as bad as Sunday. The main symptom today was period pains with no period accompanied with terrible hot flushes. The hot flushes were the kind where your bra and knickers are soaked and you feel so manky you need to go and have a shower and change. Which when you have a limited amount of energy to start with is no fun.

Tuesday

 Knackered again. Today it was back spasms. Every time I lifted my arms I would get an electric shock which would cause me to take a sharp intake of breath. My coccyx was also sore all day and I have absolutely no clue why. I just couldn't get comfortable lying or sitting.I stayed up until 7.30pm as Mr Myasthenia Kid was working the night shift and I knew it would be hours before he would leave for work. However by 19.30 I was so uncomfortable I couldn't stay up any longer.

Wednesday 

The first day of the week where I have felt relatively ok. I slept with Jay out of the house but I did keep waking with any sort of noise, so slept lightly . It wasn't my usual level of sleep. As I was feeling ok I decided I would work on my wall hanging that I have been making for the last month or so. During the afternoon I noticed every time I stood up my head hurt. Which when this happens I always freak out as it can be the sign of a CSF ( cerebral spinal fluid leak ) leak. I have had two previous spontaneous leaks and I really don't want to have it happen again. I decide not to dwell on it and use the fact both Dembe and Jay are in bed asleep to crack on with something I enjoy. By the time I finish my neck and back are screaming. I end up getting two hot water bottles one for my lower back and one for my neck. This helps it ease a bit. What I can't get over is how utterly exhausted I am.....again. The fatigue this week has been utterly overwhelming. I am in the position where stringing a sentence together or holding onto my train of thought is difficult. Jay is knackered too after the nightshift, we end up going up to bed at 18.45. Jay is asleep soon after, I am awake until around 10pm.

Thursday 

I wake up and from that minute on-wards for the next few hours I have diarrhoea. I ended up taking 6 Imodium to stop it as it is exhausting constantly having to get to the bathroom in a hurry. My stomach is cramping really badly. I have a conference video call with Facebook this afternoon and I am wondering if I will be able to a) cancel without too much fuss or b) attempt to get through it. I am a coward and seeing that two other people have pulled out already I decide to put on a brave face and attend the call.  I have so much makeup on trying to look like I am not a corpse it is crazy. I have drunk 4 cups of peppermint tea in an attempt to soothe my angry bowels. Thank god the imodium has worked. However the last 30 minutes of the video conference are sheer agony. Out of nowhere my bowel adhesion pain starts to kick off. It was so bad I was envisioning that I would faint during the video call. I keep praying that whoever is running the meeting will call time before I collapse. I can barely breathe the pain is so intense. It is like a hot knife has been plunged into my abdomen and is being dragged through my entrails. The call ends and I get upstairs as quickly as I can to take every single pain killer available. If I can't get on top of the pain I am going to have to call an ambulance. I am not being melodramatic, I am on an 8.5 out of 10 on my pain scale. 10 for me is passing out with pain and this is getting close. I message Mr Myasthenia Kid, telling him I am in a bad way. I don't want to stress him out but I also don't want it to be a surprise if I tell him I need him home now. Then as quickly as it came on, the pain lessens and disappears over the space of an hour. I am yet again left exhausted, too fucked to do anything. I'm in bed by 1800.

Friday I thought after the week I had the universe may take it easy on me. Who am I kidding? The universe hasn't finished with me yet. I wake up with a migraine, I take sumatriptan and 3 alka seltzer. I am really out of it and spend the morning lying on the sofa. Doing little bits and pieces on Facebook to put a Guide together for new members on the group I help admin. I am getting fed up with constant exhaustion not just fatigue . The migraine goes, well it recedes enough for me to be able to spend an hour or so on my embroidery machine faffing around. However I have now been left with vertigo. I have to be really careful not to turn my head too quickly or I fall over. Not just stagger but fall over end, up on your arse, fall over catch my drift? Half way through doing the piece that I am working on I am wondering if this was such a good idea. The problem is now I have started I can't stop. If I do it will cause issues with the design and it may not line up properly again when I start again. Which means 30 minutes worth of work will be for nothing. I have never been able to accept that there will be days even weeks sometimes when I can't do the things I want to. So I push myself well beyond what I should. I end the day with a resurgence of my migraine, more sumatriptan and alka seltzer. I do go to sleep early.

Saturday

I wake up at 4am, I try really hard for almost two hours to get back to sleep but I can't. I am still fucking exhausted but no amount of sleep relieves the fatigue. Within minutes of being upright it is obvious that yesterday's migraine is back for an encore. Why it won't just fuck off and leave me alone I have no idea. At least the vertigo has gone. At 06.30 I go back to bed, I take my usual cocktail sumatriptan and 3 alka seltzer - I feel like I should have shares in both. I still don't get back to sleep. I lie listening to a podcast about the Salem Witch Trials, it is interesting but I would much rather be asleep. At 08.30 I give up and get up. I feel drunk due to the tiredness. My head is hurting but it is at bad headache level rather than migraine ferocity. I have got to the point where I really want this week to fuck off and do one. Is it too much to ask for a break? I can guarantee that most social media acquaintances think I have had a good health week because I have produced a few bits of sewing this week. What they don't see is the other 99% of the time when I am having my arse kicked by multiple conditions . Being able to produce those few pieces of creativity is what keeps me going when a week is as shit as this one has been. Today will be mainly spent lying on the sofa wishing I was able to actually do the things I want to today.

So fingers crossed for a better week eh?

PS I forgot to mention the numerous episodes of pre-syncope throughout the week!

Confidence

 I'm a bit calmer than I was last week and I have managed to carve out some time for myself to enjoy my creative pursuits. Which always puts me in a better frame of mind because it makes me feel like I have actually achieved something. I have struggled since being ill-health retired to feel that I make a valuable contribution to society. People always ask "what do you do for work?" or "D why Io you work?" and it is a real conversation stopper when you have to say "no I have been ill-health retired since 2008". My disability is pretty much invisible or not well understood by others, so even when I rock up in my mobility scooter or wheelchair people don't understand why I would need to use these.

I have in the past had family members that don't get the fact that I am in pain every day and that is all I have ever known. I don't tend to say much about it because well quite frankly talking about it bores me, so if it bores me what does it do for the other people? I am quite private which seems weird when I write a blog every week. There are very few people I am 100% honest with when I talk about how I am feeling at any given time. I learned from an early age that complaining about pain meant you weren't believed or were accused of being a hypochondriac and that was by people who should have known better as their job was to nurture and protect me. Plus as I grew up I made the mistake of being honest with people when I was in pain and it was used against me and I was told I was draining to be around. I know now that the woman I was dealing with, who was also my boss was a sociopath and completely incapable of  empathy towards me and even her own family. At the time though in my 20's her attitude was very damaging and stopped me taking care of myself when I was quite seriously ill for fear of being judged by her. When working in a close environment as I was and at her mercy, I was completely paralysed with fear. These days I don't put up with that kind of treatment but it has taken me a long time to get to this point.

Leaving work was hugely damaging for my mental health, even though the previous two years working had been extremely damaging also, when I was with a team that refused to acknowledge my physical limitations and I was treated like a burden. My card had been marked, my face no longer fitted and the senior team decided that I was going to be worked out. I desperately hung on making myself sicker and weaker until I collapsed and there was nothing left in the tank. I was admitted to hospital and slept for 48 hours solid, only waking for the bathroom and something to eat. I was burnt out by it all, physically and mentally destroyed, it took me a very long time to claw my way back and realise that despite not working I was contributing to society in my own way.

This is why sewing, machine embroidery, crochet have all become so important to me. They have been an outlet for my creativity that had been stifled for so long after being led to believe I was academic and not creative. I had no confidence at all when it came to being creative. I taught myself how to sew on my sewing machine, my embroidery machine and I then two years later taught myself to crochet. Due to being pretty much housebound and obviously numerous lock downs with Covid 19, Youtube, magazines and books have been my teachers. I do find I am a visual learner however many of these videos assume a level of experience I don't possess. So when it came to sewing I threw away the rule book, warp and weft meant absolutely nothing to me and nor did cutting fabric on the bias. Mostly I have got away with throwing away the rule book. I did the same with leaning how to use an embroidery machine, I embroidered designs on fabric that the book and many fellow embroiderers would have said wasn't going to cope with a dense design. I taught myself ways of getting the fabric to behave the way I wanted and have shared what I have learned with newbies. I make mistakes, of course I do. The number of times I have managed to catch a fabric underneath the embroidery hoop and rendered what I have just spent an hour on useless. I have many towels with half designs on where I failed to secure it properly in the hoop and the design has drifted from the outline. I like perfection when I embroider and sew and it is hard for me to accept anything less. Even though I know perfection doesn't exist.

My creative outlet hasn't just filled a void in the respect that it has given me something to do, it also challenges me and demands that I find solutions to problems. It uses my brain in a way that I haven't done since I stopped working, which is both exhilarating and exhausting in equal measure. So it was weird this year when suddenly I became anxious about using my embroidery machine and my ability to sew. It happened out of the blue, suddenly and unexpectedly I was too frightened to sew. Something I have adored since I started back in 2017. It meant projects were started and left semi completed for months at a time. My sewing area suddenly fell silent and gathered dust. I wanted to sew I really did but I couldn't focus long enough to do it or feel confident enough to. 

This year has been a tumultuous year with Jay's father passing away, me making a drastic change so that I walked away from those who were causing me harm and stifling my personal growth. There are also countless other things going on and I think the fear of sewing / embroidery was just a symptom of the mental anguish I was in. Eventually it got to the point where I had to use my machines as I needed to make a gift for a friend and I also needed to replace a wall hanging that I had managed to dye pink and nothing could be done to rescue it. In the end I just had to put my big girl pants on and take the plunge. I pushed myself well and truly outside my comfort zone, tackling projects I had always put off due to my lack of skill. I proved to myself I could do it and needed to stop listening to the negative voices in my head that had held me back my whole life.

I am rather thrilled with what I have created, it is still a work in progress and there are still days I have to force myself to get the courage to use my machines. Like the book says " I feel the fear and do it anyway".

All the fabric apart from the balck background fabric is Liberty. The patterns I got from www.womabtquilts.com - spinning compass points ( the central design) and the Flying Geese ( the triangles) are from www.forestquilting.com. Both patterns were free and just needed to be printed off. It is a technique called foundation paper piecing a technique which I have done only a around 3 times before attempting this piece and now I am completely converted to it. The reverse of my wall hanging looked like this,

I had great fun removing the papers although it did make a bit of a mess! 

Dembe was very curious

As I said it is still a work in progress and if I am well enough over the next few days I will be attempting to finish it.

My anxiety / confidence will always be an issue, I know now that sometimes you do have to fake it until you make it, pushing yourself to do the stuff you don't feel comfortable with as by running away from it makes it a much larger issue.

It's a whinge ( sorry )

 It has been a rocky few weeks for me lately. My health hasn't been great, for some reason out of the blue I have had more issues with my neck and it is triggering more migraines. I am waking up in the middle of the night with them or they are building during the day and I am going to bed with them. I bought myself yet another specialised neck pillow in the hope that this would help and to be fair it does a little but I am still suffering with the headaches / migraines.

It is exhausting to be continually in pain, if the migraines weren't bad enough on Sunday out of nowhere I had a really bloody awful flare up of my bowel adhesion pain that caused me to cry out in pain. It felt like I was being stabbed in the stomach. I took all my usual medications to ease the pain and slowly they worked. It was so draining though and it took a good three days for my innards to settle down and not cause issues. I am so heartily sick of these flare ups for no reason that leave me feeling out of it because I am so tired.

I can cope with a lot of things but when there is no let up and it is one health problem after the other flaring up with no rhyme or reason it gets you down. There are so many things that I want to do creatively but have had to stop for the time being because mentally I am exhausted from the high pain levels and wouldn't be able to focus my attention for long enough to avoid making mistakes.

I have been practising self care as much as I can and trying not to feel guilty about not getting the bits and pieces I wanted to get done. I am lucky in some respects as I don't work and I can spend time when I am able doing my sewing / embroidery crochet. I have no deadlines but it doesn't stop the guilt I have when I have spent yet another day in bed or lying on the sofa. Thankfully Dembe loves a cuddle on the sofa and he is more than happy to come up to bed and sleep now that he is that much older. I just get frustrated as none of us is getting any younger and I feel like I am wasting whatever time I have left on this planet by having to rest because I am not well enough to sit at the sewing machine or pick up my crochet hooks.

The fatigue has been off the charts this last week. I know a lot of this is interrupted sleep and higher than usual pain levels. I always feel more tired than usual when my pain levels are not being controlled. I also made the mistake of running out of my Oramorph so have had two days without anything to deal with breakthrough pain. Despite it being the height of summer I have had more hot water bottles than ever. I am so glad that Mr Myasthenia Kid never bats an eye lid when I ask on a very hot day for a hot water bottle. I can't lie I can't wait for 5pm tonight as he is bringing back my Oramorph for me. I might get things a bit more under control then.

Today I am battling low blood pressure, even sat down my peripheral vision is greying out. I am struggling to read as everything is blurry. It makes life just that little bit harder than it needs to be. I thank my lucky stars that both my phone and my Chromebook allow me to make all text bigger, so I can work out what is being communicated.

I really hate the fact that I am moaning but most of the time on social media I don't mention how I am doing at all. I just don't mention my health at all unless someone asks me a direct question and even then I will downplay it. I just hate how hard everything seems to be at the moment. I know it is just a rough patch, everyone has them. I just don't seem to be able to allow myself to have them. It is as if I feel that unless I am doing something I am not worthy of others love / attention / friendship ( **delete as appropriate ). So I take enforced resting badly which then makes my mood dip. I try hard not to let it get to me but I get so frustrated that my body has decided to let me down yet again.

I am however looking forward to the bank holiday weekend and spending some time with my boys as they keep me sane at times like this.

Back pain update

The back pain I had last week was awful. I would wake up thinking I was ok and then within minutes know I was in for another day of unrelenting pain. No position was comfortable. lying hurt, walking hurt, sitting hurt . I had to stop what I was doing and just spend time alternating between resting and keeping mobile so my back didn't get worse by seizing up.  I hate it when my back pain gets that bad because either I am in too much pain to be able to concentrate on anything or I physically can't manage to do the things that bring me joy, like my sewing, embroidery and now crochet. It also means projects that I had planned had to be paused. 

I really don't like pausing projects as the slightest thing will stress me out these days. I am very easy to stress out when it comes to be crafting. Usually my crafting projects are presents. I like to have them made well ahead of schedule, by not being able to do anything means the deadlines are racing towards me. That then makes me stressed and tense, which isn't great when your back is bad. 

So without typing it or saying it out loud as I have known from previous experiences this tends to jinx me, lets just say things are much better. I am being careful, not twisting in only an EDS body can contort, moving more slowly and just being aware of staying in one position for too long. Last week seemed to whizz by in a drug induced haze, this week I feel present and able to do what I want to do. 

Unfortunately due to pain I can't stand in one spot for longer than about 30 seconds without the pain in my back becoming unbearable. The only way I can describe it is if my back is collapsing down on itself. The pain is right at the base of my spine. Years ago when standing wasn't a problem due to PoTS, I would have to hop from foot to foot as standing in one place would trigger back pain. I am working on my core muscles again now that the pain has settled. For crafting we have what we term the "camping table" even though we don't go camping, if I need extra space then that table is brought out and it means I can sit comfortably and get any jobs that would normally require me to stand done safely sat down.

I am still limited presently with the amount of time I can spend doing things as due to the car accident back in August, I am left with crippling neck pain and headaches, whenever I am working with my head tilted down. It is the same with computer screens, mobile (cell) phones, books, magazine and working on my crochet. Anything that has my head tilted down has to be carefully managed so that I don't cripple myself with pain later. This has been the most frustrating thing since the accident as I had managed to massively improve the amount of time I could work at my crafting ( embroidery / sewing / crochet) without causing myself pain.Now I am back to the bad old days of 15 minute bursts and having to ensure I stretch my shoulders and neck and move away from what I am doing. 

I am not receiving any treatment for the injury I sustained, I got told just after Christmas that my MRI scan was clear so orthopaedics don't have any suggestions other than it will take up to two years for the situation to get better. In the meantime I still have a left arm that has pins and needles in it every day and a massive flare up of occipital neuralgia that I haven't had since 2016 and I thought was behind me.

It is very easy to slip down the rabbit hole and get depressed about it all. I love sewing, embroidery and crochet. They are my creative outlet, they are the things that make me feel alive. From 2008 until 2017 I barely existed, suddenly when I found sewing I felt alive. I was incredibly lucky that when my Gran passed away I was left a small inheritance which allowed me to buy the things I wanted to be able to lean how to sew, make quilts, machine embroidery etc. Now with sustaining the injury in the car crash it can sometimes feel like all those things are slipping away from me. 

The Covid situation certainly hasn't helped things, I have had to contact my doctors so many times over the last 12 months about various issues that I haven't been able to manage myself. I have also managed to develop psoriasis ( well I think I have actually had it years it has just got much worse this year) my immune system is taking a battering. The last month or so I have had a really angry bit of skin just below my bottom lip on the right side. I presumed it was eczema, I get that when stressed. For the last month I have been treating it, last week I decided to try a different direction and ordered some cold sore cream. Let me just state here and now, it didn't tingle, hurt, blister etc etc however after 48 hours of religiously applying the cream it has almost gone. Whatever the hell it was, it certainly didn't resemble a cold sore has almost disappeared. It was about 2cm long and 1cm wide. So not small and very noticeable, I have been very grateful for the fact we are still wearing masks in public places! 

Whilst I am off in tangent land I will let you know that my blood tests have come back all ok so I have now been referred to Neurology- you know my favourite department for my possible focal dystonia. They were trying to tell me it was the mestinon causing my foot problems and then it was an electrolyte imbalance. I got sent a small novel by the local hospital. It was quite ridiculous as basically the letter tells me that they will either a) send my gp a treatment plan to follow or b) they will see me for either an appointment or tests or both. I then received a small woodlands worth of paper all about Covid, wearing a mask in hospital etc. Which is bloody wasteful and totally inappropriate for the letter I received. I also got travel directions - for a letter that just says they are assessing my referral. Now they look after a large region, how much money, paper and time have they wasted by sending out these small forests to people who it doesn't actually apply to? Ok rant over.

Good news though that my CA125 is obviously ok, I was told any issues they would contact me. Plus the fact that I have the letter from the hospital saying that they are looking at my referral meant there wasn't an easy fix for the gp. 

So for the moment back wise ( and we are talking the whole of my spine ) I am being very careful not to upset it and end up back where I was last week, where I was close to tears on numerous occasions.

Lockdown 3.0 / Happy New Year

 I had hoped Covid-19 would be less of a thing in 2021, I knew that it would be months before we started seeing light at the end of the tunnel but thanks to the British governments catastrophic handling of the situation, things are worse than ever. Deaths are at over 1,000 a day on our small island and people are taking lockdown 3.0 less seriously than they did in March 2020. Just WTAF?

It is hard when you are home alone all day not to fall down the Covid-19 rabbit hole. I can't lie I do worry about it. Especially with the situation where London hospitals have called a major incident for days in a row now, meaning they are overwhelmed by the number of Covid patients needing treatment. They are now having to ration the care they give and assessing what "value" your life has to society. Over 70 years old with a bad case of Covid the chances of you getting off a ventilator after being intubated are slim to none. It won't be offered to you, instead you will be made comfortable and be under the Palliative care team. More than likely you won't even get to see the back of an ambulance, soon you will be "allowed" the dignity of dying at home, not remotely comfortable because there aren't the district nurses to cope with the sudden influx of patients.

And yet the Covidiots shout "It's only the Flu!" "It only kills the old and infirm". That's all well and good until you realise that you are in that category. There are actually very few people without underlying health conditions. So many people have asthma, are overweight or have autoimmune conditions that mean that they could find it harder to fight off Covid-19. I find it very upsetting when people start spouting that shit because I have a lot of underlying health conditions. I know my "value" probably wouldn't be high enough. I wonder should my life be sacrificed so you can live your's unimpeded?

I have managed to stop myself being caught like a rabbit in the headlights, watching 24 hour news channels all day every day like I did back in March 2020. I restrict myself to only watching the news in the evenings. That way for the large proportion of my day I can pretend that it is just a normal pre-covid day. Because in reality my life has changed very little with lockdown, other than I can't have the fortnightly get together's of The Stichin' Bitches, the little craft group I had set up in the weeks before the everything went to hell in a hand basket. Sadly I had just found something that gave me immense joy and it was snatched away. But it will still be there when or should I say if things get back to normal.

Routine I have found is very important, in the 13 years since I have worked. Without a routine it is very easy to slip into depressive thought patterns and feel like life has no meaning at all. By having routine, it is like having mini goals for what I want to achieve for the day. Some days I achieve everything I want and more, other days I barely move from my bed but that is ok too. Although I still need to work on feeling guilty for not using my days more productively when I need to rest or heal. I still hold my self worth to how productive I have been, our whole society is built around being a productive member of it. If you don't work you can feel that you no longer have any value. That there is nothing that you can offer society. That is a tough way of thinking to escape. I like to think I offer more than a monetary value to society, I make beautiful things, I make practical things. I am enough.

Over the last 5 months music has become very important to me. It started with listening to the radio ( I love Absolute 80's ) . It coincides with when I started taking HRT, within days of starting the low mood I had been experiencing for at least 3 years had lifted. In all that time I had only listened to music very sporadically. Now I have it on every day. I really enjoy singing along with the radio as I go about my day. I like the 80's music as I remember so much of it from growing up. I know some 90's music but I was at an age where you (can) stop listening to new bands and get very stuck in the music you like. 

I've always been a bit of a Pop Princess as I like to call it. I like all genres of music but Pop is the one I will always go to if I need a lift or need some energy. Just before Christmas as part of Jays Christmas present as he was desperate to see The Mandalorian I subscribed to Disney+. Flicking through its offerings, I saw they had the Taylor Swift Folklore The Long Pond Sessions. Now I will be honest all I had heard of Taylor Swift musically up until then was "Shake it off" and "Look what you made me do", which were ok. All I had seen in the press were negative articles about her and her love life. I didn't hold an opinion one way or another. I had  seen on Netflix that they had the Taylor Swift Documentary on it. So I thought why not, if I didn't like it I could turn it off. How wrong I was.

I actually liked Taylor Swift the person, well what she presented on the Netflix documentary. So the following night I decided to watch the Disney+ one about her album Folklore. Well I fell in love. I have been chatting to my friends about it and laughing because I am like a teenager again obsessed with this album. I play it multiple times a day and never get bored. From morning to night my internal sound track is playing it in my head. The whole album has been like a giant ear worm but one that is thoroughly enjoyable. I have watched the Disney+ documentary so many times now, poor Dembe must be totally bored by it now as that is all he hears.

Finding my way back into enjoying music again has been the combined result of having HRT and the lockdown. Without either of those it wouldn't have happened. It has been like a journey of discovery for me. A bit like when you are a teenager listening to new bands and deciding which ones you like. It has been very uplifting in a time when it would have been very easy to be overwhelmed by the news / Covid-19 / Lockdown 3.0. I have been lucky enough to be able to inadvertently get back to something I love which is music. I do believe time in lockdown can be used positively rather than sitting around doing nothing but watching the news. I know not everyone will love my taste in music and that is ok, find what you love and use it to lift you up.

It would be disingenuous of me if I said every day in the last 12 months have been filled with roses and unicorns, of course it hasn't. I got very down after the car accident as it massively impacted my ability to sew / embroider / crochet. I allowed myself to have those down days because denying it would have stored up trouble for the future. It is important to acknowledge those feelings, they are real and they are valid. The trick is to move on after 24 hours and pull yourself out of those negative thought patterns so that they don't become all consuming. It is hard at times especially when I have had to go to bed early yet again due to the crippling headache I am suffering with due to the neck injury and the muscles spasming. I still have issues every day with numbness and pins / needles in my left arm and headaches of varying ferocity. It could be a while before that goes if it ever does. So you have to just get on with it because life will still carry on around you.

I've rambled on much more than I thought I would! I am back after my Christmas and New Year break. I want to wish you a Happy New Year! Thank you for reading.

I have left you the YouTube link to Taylor Swift's Folklore Album, listen, don't listen. Just find what brings you joy and stay safe.

Health update

After last weeks post Spondylolisthesis, my back improved massively. Just yesterday I was considering dropping taking the naproxen as it hadn't caused me any issues at all for a number of days, then I woke up this morning and bang the pain was back.

I have pushed through as much as I can today but I had to give up at 14.30 and take some diazepam. The muscles of my backside are really tight and sore. When they are like this it is a symptom of the Spondylolisthesis, it aches down the back of both my thighs and no position is comfortable. Standing feels like someone is kicking me in the arse, sitting makes my buttocks ache and I get severe pain in my coccyx. If I could lie down knowing that by doing so I wouldn't be woken up at 2am by my back throwing a tantrum I would. So at the moment my only relief is by having a hot water bottle applied to my back ( far too hot ) and regular changes in position which makes doing anything difficult because those changes need to be made every ten minutes or so.

If I knew why my back had kicked off so much today I would be happier, I didn't use my sewing or embroidery machines at all yesterday. We had a relatively lazy day but even in that we were moving around and I certainly wasn't static for hours at a time. Which I know does cause me issues, so I am at a loss. I have avoided all the things I am supposed to like lifting - can't do that anyway, staying static for too long. All I can think is that I have turned weirdly in my sleep and hyper-extended my spine and it is letting me know today that it didn't like it.

I have always found wherever possible distraction is the best possible thing to combat pain but some pain is just so strong that no amount of distraction can stop those nerve signals being acknowledged by your brain. That is why I like sewing / embroidery / crochet as it means I can distract myself most of the time but today it hasn't mattered what I have done those pain signals are just getting stronger and stronger. I am very glad that we now have a dog walker who takes Dembe out for an hour when Jay is on a late night as it means Dembe settles very quickly in the evening and I will be able to go to bed and attempt to get comfortable relatively early on tonight. Rather than Dembe needing mental stimulation for 90 minutes or so, to tire him out and get him to wind down for the day. 

Much of the last few days has also been spent on high alert as from now until the 23rd (ish) I am on migraine watch. This week of the month is usually when it strikes. Yesterday ( Tuesday) I was convinced it was going to be today as I was starving hungry all day with nothing satisfying me. I am still trying to work out what the signals are that I am going to end up having a migraine but there is nothing I can say is 100% concrete that is a definite clue that it is going to happen. I have noticed mood changes the day before, hunger and sometimes the evening before my vision goes a bit weird. However it doesn't happen on each one, which means sometimes these things happen, I get frightened because they have been so bad and then nothing. Which is exactly what happened last night. 

I am a few weeks into the Migraine Clinic protocol and they advise that you really need to have been doing it for around 3 months before you can say if it has had any effect on your migraines. You can find the protocol HERE. So it is too early to say at the moment, also I have been known to skip a months migraine and have it two weeks later so a cycle of 6 weeks rather than 4 weekly. That is the major issue I won't know when the next one is coming. I have worked out that dehydration is a trigger but it is a rare trigger as due to my excessive thirst I do tend to drink much more than the average person. The day in question when I did suffer a migraine it followed a day where I had been drinking alcohol from around 2pm in the afternoon (Cider at 4% so not the hard stuff). Because I didn't have any additional fluids I am pretty sure that is what triggered that one and I had to use my emergency meds. I was very grateful that I did have my grab bag made and everything in one place as it meant I could take the meds and get my head down.

I have been religiously taking my supplements and even managing to remember to take the midday dose of the one I have to take three times a day. A new alarm on my phone helps me remember!

As sitting is literally a massive pain in the butt and I am having to type this sitting down I am going to wrap this up now. Plus I took half a diazepam about an hour ago and that starts messing with concentration levels. Plus I want to tidy up a bit before Dembe gets back from his yomp on the common!

Latest Makes

It is one of those weeks where stuff is going on behind the scenes that is private stuff. I share as much as I can on the blog but I am human and we all need some element of privacy/ Everything is ok with Mr Myasthenia Kid and I and of course our beloved Dembe. So don't go worrying about us, I am just not in the mood to write a blog post, like I normally would so I thought I would share with you a few of my latest makes.

I have been searching for a lampshade for our landing for ages, years probably but just couldn't find anything I liked. I found out that you can buy kits to buy lampshades so I had a look at the website ( if anyone is interested https://www.dannells.com/ ). I watched the video that accompanies the kit a day or so before hand and then gave it a go. I deliberately made sure that I didn't rush and that I followed all the steps laid out in the colour instructions. Plus Jay aka Mr Myasthenia Kid was on hand to help when I needed it. I have to say I am ridiculously pleased with it. The fabric is Liberty called Conservatory Fruits, I bought half a metre of it last year because I liked it but had no clue what on earth I would do with it. Then I decided this was the project it was destined for. Is it sad that I am just thrilled with my work?

I have also been plodding away on a Christmas quilt I am making for my physiotherapist. I do a block every so often . I have just managed to complete the biggest block ( which is made of 4 smaller blocks ). I have also managed to get over my fear of metallic threads by switching to a totally different brand and the difference has been night and day! So I have managed to incorporate it onto this quilt.

I also have been brave enough to go back to my blanket that I am crocheting, it is the most complicated piece I have done - it is an intermediate level pattern and I am not ashamed to admit I have probably tried to run before I can walk with this one! More than once it has been shoved into a bag and left in the cupboard for weeks at a time.

The blanket is made of 12 squares, numerous triangles and Octagons. So I am trying to slowly make my way through the squares.

I also finished this shawl in the last week, I tend to crochet when I am in bed or too ill / sore to sit at the sewing machine.

I really enjoy crochet as I find it really relaxing and almost like meditation. 

I'm pleased I have been able to continue with my crafts during the lockdown as I think it would have hit my mental health quite badly if I hadn't have been able to. I have still been making masks as and when I can.

Face masks

A few weeks ago I helped the local NHS hospital by altering some surgical masks for them that had come in but the elastic ear loops were too big. This led to a few of my friends asking if I would be making face masks or would I make them some face masks for them or their friends and family. I know the jury is out on the use of face masks. This post isn't about that, there are research papers that are for and against the use of face masks by the general population. I think we can all agree that "home made" face masks when worn provide protection to other people more than the wearer - which is why many countries have adopted  the wearing of face masks so that they can all protect each other from Covid-19 and other nasties.

Initially I was very much in the camp of home made masks are bad. That they provided a false sense of security and that by having poor mask etiquette that they could cause more harm than good - if someone continually touches the front of the mask when wearing it and doesn't wash their hands after they are capable of spreading their germs far and wide on every surface they touch. Since then there have been articles in The Guardian,  The New York Times that have shown even home made masks when constructed from the right materials can offer a level of protection that hadn't been anticipated. Add in a filter to those masks - made of an unwoven material or a special mask filter ( you can buy at various oulets) they can provide as much protection as the surgical masks I was altering the other day. A link to the New York Times article can be found here.  The Daily Mail did an article -here The Guardians Article can be found here. So I am now very much of the opinion that yes we should all be wearing face masks of some description when out in public to help protect each other.

So for the last 20 days when physically able I have been making masks for friends and family to wear. All I have asked for is the cost of materials, being on a tight budget I can't afford to be giving away material, elastic and pipe cleaners etc as much as I may wish too. With Mr Myasthenia kid at home, he has been able to keep Dembe entertained and do the chores I would normally push myself to do that would wipe out my energy reserves. Even with him doing that I have had a couple of days in that 3 week period where I have crashed hard just due to pushing myself too hard for too long in an effort to keep people supplied with masks and not letting anyone down. I am on an enforced break now as I have run out of elastic - I thought I had ordered enough but apparently not! I am awaiting fresh supplies. 

To be honest I am quite glad for the break, I am so tired mentally and physically it hasn't been until I have stopped that I have realised how far past my reserves I have got. I always find it amazing how knackered I can be doing nothing ( but obviously I am not doing nothing as I am taking care of myself. I just judge myself way too harshly and think I should be as active as the next person even when in reality I know that is an impossibility ). There have been evenings when I have been so tired that I am unable to form a coherent sentence or stand up straight. The rest was long over due.

For my mask pattern I used this Youtube tutorial

Mr Myasthenia Kid has been helping me with cutting, pressing , folding pipe cleaners for the nose bands, going to the post office etc All the things that can take me more time than an able bodied person and things that I can't do such as a post office run. Without his help and support I would never have been able to make the number of masks I have. 

I have been running on adrenaline for days, I knew I had. Last weekend I was supposed to be taking some time off for sewing but instead I started several other projects. Today (Tuesday  21st April ) is the first time I have sat and just done nothing. Everything is hurting and I feel zombie tired. Which is why I tend to keep pushing and pushing because I know how incapacitating the crash will be. I have always been a boom and bust merchant. Plus keeping busy stops me worrying about Covid-19 and what would happen if either of us got it. 

So due to my lack of elastic I have had to have a day off and it feels strange. I'm so tired though it was very clear that I needed it. I did manage to get Jay to help me highlight my hair as I am having real problems lifting my arms above my head. Within seconds of doing it I am getting awful pain in my shoulder joints. Normally I would battle on through but it is just too sore for that and I am having to put my arms down. He has done a good job and now my roots look far less obvious than they did previously.

I did have a lovely surprise this morning finding out that Natasha McCarty from Natasha Makes was sending me a gift after hearing about my run in with a pin cushion on Saturday!

On Saturday when I was busy making a baby bib for a friends new baby, I didn't notice that I had knocked my pin cushion onto the floor. It had gone pin head side down leaving the sharp ends pointing up but hidden by the pin cushion. I use this particular pin cushion as it has sentimental value to me. It was my late paternal grandmothers and I use a lot of her old sewing stuff on a daily basis. It was only when I got up from my sewing machine and I removed my foot from the pedal, that I placed my foot on top of the pin cushion ( I was wearing socks only) and put all my weight through that foot to stand up. To say the air was blue would be an understatement! It took me ages to get all the pins out of my foot as there were around 20 or so on the cushion. I yelped and cried, there was blood and tears. Later when I looked at my sock I realised that the blood had come right through . 3 days on and the sole of my foot is still a little sore, not something I ever want to repeat, especially as a long time ago I stood on a darning needle and had to go to the local minor injuries unit to get it removed whilst using gas and air! I will be making the pin cushion as soon as it arrives and I can't thank Natasha enough for that. 

Dembe modelling my creations from last weekend!

So for now I am putting my feet up and allowing myself to chill out for a few days!

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!

New things

Six weeks ago I did something crazy. It had been in my head since before Christmas and I had been spending an age mulling it over too scared to say it out loud. It took until after Christmas for me to even say to anyone what I had been dreaming up.  One day I mentioned to my husband what my idea was, he assured me it wasn't that crazy and that if I didn't try I would never know.

To some this idea won't sound that crazy at all but believe me it sent my anxiety into over drive. My big plan. my crazy idea, wasn't really out there at all. I just wanted to start up a monthly coffee morning for like minded crafting friends who would like to learn new skills, solve a craft problem, get hints and tips etc. I will be honest  through 2019 I was a bit of a hermit, some of it self imposed, some of it well read my post Reflections and you decide. I was going months and I mean months without seeing anyone other than Mr Myasthenia Kid or Dembe. Ok so that is a bit of a half truth there as we were going to dog training but a 5 minute conversation once a week with someone other than my husband is not socialising. Especially when the topic is just Dembe or dogs in general. My mental health was being crushed, although creatively I had never felt so fulfilled as my sewing / embroidery had taken on a new direction. My anxiety was really getting bad around social interactions because I literally just wasn't seeing anyone.

Chronic health conditions impact so much of my life, it limits the time I can spend doing it. I would love to run a small business selling items but my body couldn't cope with the work load that something like an Etsy shop would produce. I can't do craft fayres as I couldn't sit there all day without then being sick and exhausted for weeks after. Crafting is my life it gives me the reason to get up and keep going every morning. Without it I would be very lost. However part of crafting is sharing your triumphs and disasters. Whilst there are various Facebook groups ( some of which are very supportive, others are like a nest of vipers) it isn't the same as actually speaking to a real live human being. I can no longer drive as I lost my driving licence 5 years ago due to my medical conditions. Public transport is too hard going for me. I rely on Mr Myasthenia Kid if I want to go anywhere so attending guild meetings hasn't been easy due to his work schedule. I wanted something that combined my love and appreciation for all crafts and a social atmosphere. So I took the plunge.

I knew the name I wanted for the group - "The Stitchin' Bitches", I also knew due to the size of my house numbers would have to be limited, if anyone wanted to come at all. A friend of mine reached out regarding a crochet issue she was having, we are both self taught and only in the last few months. I casually mentioned in my response that should I start up a group for us to meet and discuss our crochet ( and other crafts) would she be interested. She almost bit my hand off, she would be extremely interested in it and what a good idea. 

Even though I had this positive response I still left it at least a week until I built up the courage to put up a post on my Facebook timeline asking if there were any like minded crafter's like me that wanted to meet up on a monthly basis and do crafts together. Be it crochet, knitting, embroidery, sewing. I had a lot of responses but it was from people in different parts of the country saying that they wished they lived near me as they would be there like a shot. Initially responses from local friends was slow, embarrassingly so. I was starting to think that maybe there wasn't any desire from any of my friends ( other than the first one I spoke with). Determined not to take the lack of response from my first post as the definitive answer I posted several more times. Each time I got responses from people outside the area that I lived , even the friends I have made world wide via various health forums wanted to come. But in the end I had 4 people interested which was a good number - remember I live in a tiny house.

I set up a private Facebook group for us all to be able to post in and then set up a poll so that they could let me know what days suited them best to hold a meeting. I had envisioned when I first embarked on this idea that it would be one hour a month - which for me was fine as it would give me time to recover and give me some social time. We decided Mondays were best and set the date for our very first meeting of The Stitchin' Bitches - they all loved the name by the way! I think we sort of sound like a Country and Western group LOL!

Initially it all seemed fine until my anxiety kicked in the day before our first meeting on Monday 10th February. I was just terrified that the meeting would be a flop, that people wouldn't speak to each other or that after 30 minutes people would be racing to get out the door. I was so anxious I barely got more than 2 hours sleep, I tossed and turned all night. This would be me hosting an event ( thankfully all my friends know I am poorly and will pitch in with making drinks etc if needed)  without my safety blanket of Mr Myasthenia Kid. Also some of the people attending I hadn't actually seen since I left work in 2008. For me it was a huge gamble. I am always really anxious when people come to the house anyway, I worry that they think it is dirty or uncared for etc. Its hard to keep on top of stuff when you aren't well and all the DIY stuff falls on one partner. So I know there are some places crying out to be redecorated etc. I was also worried about people judging me, on the outside I don't look sick but every day is a battle of some sorts. I worry that people think I am taking the piss because no one ever see's me when I am really poorly.

Monday 10th February seemed to come around so quickly. By the time 11am arrived I was pretty knackered just from the sheer anxiety creating this "event" had caused. I really shouldn't have worried. I also wasn't the only one who had been anxious, a friend confided in me on leaving she had been terrified to attend. As for thinking they would all be racing for the door at 11.30am nothing could have been further from the truth. It was 13.30 that the last person left and the first person had only gone around 15 minutes before that. I had been concerned due to the fact that we all had one work place in common that we would end up discussing that but again nothing could have been further from the truth. It was barely mentioned and that was only as people left. It was just so lovely to have a few hours with people whose eyes didn't glaze over when crafts were mentioned. I know I can get very passionate about my projects, so it was nice to answer peoples questions about the techniques I had used etc. It was equally nice to see what my friends had been up to. For all of us it was so uplifting to get out of the house and socialise - obviously I didnt go far!

The really nice thing was that as the meeting / gathering was drawing to a close one of the lady's said "Rach, any chance we can do this once a fortnight? I don't think once a week is enough". Everyone else was in agreement also. I said immediately that no one would "have" to come to every session especially if they felt fortnightly was too much, that I was happy for people to dip in and out as needed. But the buzz the morning had created was so great that we set up the next few weeks worth of meetings. I was so proud of myself and what our little group had achieved. I posted on my Instagram account about it and now several other people dotted around the country have decided that they are going to do the same thing. Which is really lovely as it is such a boost for your mental health and to stop the isolation that is all too common in the world.

Today (Monday 24th March) we held the second meeting and today we had the grand total of 7 people here (including me). Dembe was like a dog with two tails, with all the love and fuss he got from everyone. Today two members learned how to start to crochet - slip knot, chain stitches and then double crochet ( UK ). Another lady had a refresher on crochet and learned how to do a Granny Square for the first time. In the corner a lady was being taught to knit. Mr Myasthenia Kid is on holiday this week from work and made himself scarce for a bit having a wander around the town. However he said the buzz and positivity he got from the room when he came home was amazing. He said he was so proud of me for being so brave to try and do something to end my own social isolation. He did make us all laugh as when he walked in he said "good god is this the budget version of the Playboy mansion". Considering our age ranges were from 21 to 70's it was hilarious. 

We were also spoiled by a new member who brought homemade scones, jam and cream for us to have as a crafting snack! And bloody gorgeous they were too. I had decided yesterday to make everyone little paper tissue holders as a way of saying thank you for coming and making it such a success. 

I can't lie after every meeting I have been utterly exhausted. If I knew that it wouldn't impact my nights sleep I would go for a nap in the afternoon. Mondays after are written off with me having a lazy restful afternoon on the sofa but mentally I feel so uplifted and happy. I am so glad that I pushed myself to do something totally outside my comfort zone and I hope I inspire others to take that chance and do new things.

****

On Thursday 20th February, I had the worst migraine I have ever had in my life. It was so bad that I am actually suffering from amnesia caused by it. I have "lost" most of Wednesday 19th, the majority of Thursday 20th, Friday 21st quite a bit is unrecoverable as is Saturday 22nd.  It is only from yesterday on-wards that I can recall anything that happened during the day with any clarity.  I won't lie this has scared the shit out of me. Which is why I haven't done a huge detailed blog post because basically I don't know what happened to last week. I have a gp appointment booked because I need to know that this was just a horrific migraine and that I can be referred to see a headache specialist or if it was something like a TIA that can also be looked into. Having Google at our finger tips can be a curse and a blessing but as I can't account for much of last week and this has never happened to me before with a migraine I can't just ignore what has happened. Anyone who knows me also knows that I don't run to the doctors every 5 minutes so it has really shit me up.

As soon as I know you will know.

To feel human again

It has been a manic few days and it has left me utterly exhausted. I have seen that many people I could almost be accused of being a social butterfly. All I know is today I feel like the batteries have been taken out and I am working with my emergency power supplies only.

We have started back at dog training and we are going twice a week. On Sundays Dembe has his agility training which he loves and is doing so well at. On Tuesdays he has his obedience training which he loves in a different way. Both tire him out mentally as well as physically. The problem with the dog training is that there is just one day in between which doesn't quite give me enough time to bounce back if I am then adding in medical appointments or getting my hair done or seeing people. 

Tuesday was my final medical appointment out of a string of 4 over the last 3 weeks. One medical appointment in a week is enough to knock me for 6. 4 in the space of three weeks has sent me crashing. It's hard to describe what you mean to people that aren't sick. For me it means I wake up feeling more tired than when I went to bed. It is an effort at times to even take a breathe in. As the day wears on I feel like I have been at the gin, without the fun part, so my eyes are bouncing around all over the place and I feel disconnected from my body. I look very pale and run down but inside I feel like death warmed up. I can struggle to maintain my body temperature so that I am freezing cold ( even in the height of summer). I can get emotional over the slightest thing, lose my temper usually with inanimate objects that aren't doing as they are told because my hands won't work ( so I am continually dropping them ) . It makes it hard for me to complete anything that requires attention to detail.

Add in me making the stupid decision to make all the Christmas gifts for family & friends but not starting the majority of them until a few weeks ago and I feel like I am on a hamster wheel that I just cant get off. There is no down time as not doing something for a day puts me further behind but this week I have had to take a step back because I am so tired I can't work without making mistakes. Doing nothing makes me feel like a failure and that I don't contribute anything to the world...which is why I have been teaching myself how to crochet so that on the days I can't sit at the sewing machine / embroidery machine I can do something else curled up on the sofa or in bed.

The stupid thing is I keep adding to this list of things to make which is then piling on the stress. I will get there but I keep having panic attacks when I see someone helpfully posting on Facebook that there are X amount of days / weeks until Christmas. I really need to learn to be kinder to myself as even on the days when I have felt drained I have still pushed myself to do just a little something. I like to break tasks down so that I when I come to make an item it is all ready to go and the amount of time it will take to get it all together will be massively reduced. 

So like yesterday I decided to have a go at making the Doggie Christmas Stocking from Sweetpea Embroidery. Because I know I need to make at least two of these for gifts, as I prepped the fabric pieces for the first stocking I did the second. It took me longer, obviously but Jay was home and was doing all the running around for me so all I had to do was sew. When or if I manage to get to the embroidery machine today all I will need to do is stitch it out as everything is ready and cut to size. This is how I have to do all my projects, I do all the prepping one day or over a couple of days and then when I make the item I can concentrate solely on that rather than expend energy I don't have. It is very rare for me to be able to start and finish a project no matter how small in a day. As my actual time I am able to work is so severely limited. I can't sit at the embroidery machine or sewing machine all day, I am deeply envious of those who can. I am in pain within 20 minutes, so have to take regular breaks. I have an alarm on my phone that goes off every 20 minutes to ensure that I get up and move / change positions. Otherwise it will cost me £45 at the physiotherapist whilst she tortures me ( in the nicest possible way ) to correct the damage I have done to myself. 

It's the same for material prepping. Everything is done in stages. Many times I make cardboard templates to help me with ensuring I cut out the right size fabric pieces. This helps with cutting down waste and ensures that even if I am not thinking straight as long as I have the right template ( sometimes that isn't as easy as it sounds) I can be trusted to cut my fabric out. Obviously making templates adds more time to a project, it tends to only happen if I know I will be making more than one of an item. Basically the majority of my life is spent breaking down tasks into smaller manageable chunks so that I have the energy to be creative and give my life some meaning.

Currently there are boxes everywhere with bits of fabric / templates / batting all cut to the correct sizes waiting to be embroidered and sewn together. It will all get done but it will be done slowly and in the best way that I can pace myself.

I am so exhausted today as Sunday I had two visits from friends who had come to collect their table runners that I had made them, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. It was great to see them but we also had dog training in the middle of the day.

The table runners had taken a lot out of me getting made and I had been stressed out about getting them straight and sewn together nicely. I took a lot of time over it. The top stitching alone left me needing a nap afterwards last Friday. I sewed the rest of it together on Saturday afternoon.

Monday I had my hair done for the first time since August, it needed done desperately as I had already used my dressmaking shears to hack a sizeable amount off the fringe ( bangs ). After my attempt at hairdressing it was even more important that it was sorted out. I am lucky that I have a wonderful friend who does my hair for me and knows I find the whole process exhausting. Doing it at home means it takes 2.5 hours instead of 4 hours being overstimulated by lights and sound in a hair salon. 4 hours in a salon would probably lead me to be bed bound for around a day.

Tuesday - the last medical appointment was for my filling. I did it without diazepam the first appointment in ages where I have managed that. My dentist and I have now got a process that works and reduces my anxiety. I had to ask him just to not tell me any detail about the procedure. I only need to know that I require a filling not what he will be doing. It worked brilliantly as he didnt tell me on the 4th of November what the process would be and yesterday as he did it he kept quiet . It worked like a charm. I was just left with TMJ pain in the afternoon and evening, which triggered a migraine. I spent a lot of the dog training session last night losing the vision in my right eye and the feeling that my scalp was shrinking.

Today ( Wednesday ) I have woken up with the remains of a migraine, waves of nausea and just generally feeling washed out and knackered. I will push myself later to get something on the Christmas present to do list made or completed but for the minute I am drinking bucket loads of coffee in the hope it will make me feel more human again.