My Cats are Making Me Crazy

While I'm typing this my cats are causing havoc in the living room. I really need to knit and calm myself down.Haha
I know I haven't blogged in quite a while. Life has been just a bit hectic lately. I started a clothing closet in my garage at the start of the summer and got it going pretty good by the end of the summer. Things were actually pretty regular and fun and Michelle (my adult daughter) and I had just started going to the gym a couple times a week to swim when our lives were tipped upside down. Michelle ended up in ICU with a severe infection and we almost lost her.

What started as a small abscess turned, in just 4 days, into necrotizing faciitis (the flesh eating infection you always hear about in the news). After 55 days in the hospital and 13 surgical procedures she was discharged and sent home. With me on disability and her part time job put on hold, things got really frightening.

We found out who in our family we could count on and how much we can handle when we put our minds into it. I found out that my pain disability can be put on a back burner when it comes to being supportive of someone else (something I knew previously from my experience of taking care of Randy while he fought cancer, but I forgot). I did have to close the clothing closet temporarily. I managed to keep up the house and still spent at least 50 days at the hospital with Michelle.

She is home now and slowly we are getting our lives together. The finances are still in a disaster, but the routines are getting up and going and I'm actually starting to make some plans for the future. I registered for classes at the local community college and am making decisions on how to make it possible to bring in an income.

While Michelle was in the hospital and I was sitting in her room, I managed to soothe myself with some knitting and crocheting. I made her some bedsocks first, then started some doilies and made some things to donate to the hospital NICU while I was at it. Here is one of the doilies I got done.

I find that in the long run, the most relaxing and mind numbing thing for me to do is doilies. They are challenging enough to keep my thoughts on my work and off of the crisis I'm dealing with, and yet are relaxing because after you figure out the current round, you can go around the doily, repeating the same thing over and over and can let your mind wander a little. Good for meditation.

All in all, we came out of our situation with our  heads held high and our sanity intact.

Friday is here!

Yay! The weekend is here! This weekend is a three day affair. Just John and I will be home, Michelle has a camping trip with her friends from her ecology club at school.

I finished a baby set this week. It includes a baby afghan and three bibs. I made a similar one a couple weeks ago for the same Aunt, who ordered them through my Gnomish Gnits business.

Catching Up

I know I'm a terrible blog mommy, but I tend to get caught up in my life and forget to update things.
So to update, let me start with my health. First, brace yourselves, but I've done some serious rethinking about my fibromyalgia.
Through some recent situations and friendships, it occurred to me that my past decisions and attempts to get healthier have been unsuccessful at doing just that, making me healthy. I tried to take a different stance.

First, the prevailing thought path for those of us with this disease is that we should hook up with some support groups. Well, I've found over time that no one really knows any more than I already read in medical research sites about what causes fibro or any consensus on how to address it. Even the little medical advice we get is usually dismissed by anyone who doesn't find immediate relief.

The big thing that caught my eye is the argument I hear that fibro sufferers consider their malady as progressive in nature and doctors don't. At first, I was right there with the others. I felt that I was getting worse as I aged. But, then I realized, I felt worse because I was inactive and my other problems were getting worse because of that. I was gaining weight and losing muscle tone so my diabetes was getting out of control and I was having more muscle pain and neuropathy in my legs. My digestion was worse and I was suffering from boughts of nausea and bowel issues. My blood sugar was all over the place and I was dealing with dizzy spells. But when I tried to find information on how to get active, I kept hearing about how I need to take it extremely slow and careful. Most advice was to only do a couple minutes a day, maybe two days a week. Well, I already know that I don't show any improvement moving that slow. I start, feel gunky because I haven't done any exercise for a long time, get discouraged and stop. Not only nothing better, but it usually is worse along with a huge serving of self loathing. It's then followed up with increases in diabetes medications, the doctor reacting to my exercise flare with more pain meds, then the whole medication side affects and more meds for those, and on and on.

So I got mad, not just frustrated. I was beginning to feel like the whole thing was a set up to get me hooked on more pills. Not only that, but the support groups were starting to feel like pity parties and less like support. So I dropped the support groups and decided to get active.

I began by just getting out more and doing things in our neighborhood and town. Trips to the museums and parks, even though I would get short of breath and have sore legs. I concentrated on my surroundings and less on my discomfort.

As I got out more and with having meetings for emergency preparedness, I realized that I seriously needed to drop weight and get stronger to keep up. I started taking walks. First, I walked 1 1/2 miles to the library and found I could make it, but it was exhausting. I forgot my cane on one of the trips and realized that I really didn't need it. I was using it as moral support, not because it was actually helping me. I stopped using it permanently.

I soon came to realize that I needed to walk more often than an occasional walk to the library, so I bit back my embarrassment at using the exercise room in our apartment complex and started getting on the treadmill there. I started going 4 days a week and walking at 2 miles an hour for a half hour, then increased the speed and time gradually. Yes, I was sore. Yes, I had a fibro flare. Yes, I was often short of breath and thought I was dying.

But, with the help of a good book each day, I was able to distract myself enough to continue. I found that it helped to pick up books about positive energy, how to motivate yourself, and how to increase your happiness.

Then it happened! I started feeling better during the day. Not only was my breathing better and my pain in my lungs gone, but I felt more management over my flares and leg pain as well. I had a flare with my hip when I increased my speed up to 3 mph, but I took an extra day off and started slower when I went back and increased slower. My next doctor appointment went better. My blood pressure was better, I hadn't lost weight and my blood sugar hadn't changed for the better, but my cholesterol was lowered into the normal range.

The next week after that, I increased to 5 days a week. A week after that, the manager put a bathroom scale in the exercise room and I discovered that I had lost 5 pounds. A week later, it increased to a 10 lb loss.

It's been a couple months (I started walking to the library at the end of February and it's mid May now). I'm down 20 lbs now, my blood sugar readings are in the normal range for the first time in a couple years, and I have good management of my fibro pain. I sleep through the night now and I'm finally not dozing off or needing a nap during the day. I can finally keep up with house work and I've been much more successful at getting my knitting business going.

I believe that when we act sick, we actually get sick. You have to stop fighting so hard for the right to be able to be sick and start fighting for the right to wellness. It won't always come to you through the doctor or through medication. Sometimes you have to knock down the walls that are holding you still. I realize that every person with fibro has their own unique set of ailments and diagnoses, but it's up to you to take the reigns of your condition and take control. The doctor's interest is not your interest. I plan to keep digging my way out and I hope you can make a plan to get out also.