I Love My Body

This is long, sorry.

I know it sounds like I’m bragging and I apologize, but I really love my body. Yes, I know that I am overweight, have age spots, gray hair, and big feet. I just need to let it be known, that I don’t care. Every time I see my faults in the mirror, I am aware of them, and I know that I am still a work in progress and need to keep in shape so I can enjoy this body for the rest of my life. But, still, I remind myself of all the things this mortal, fleshy, bag of holding (Dungeons & Dragons pun), has gotten me through.
It has pulled me through working since I was 15 until I could no longer work. It saw me through 5 mile runs while I was in basic training in the army, Hiking through mountain trails while carrying 20+ pounds of cleaning supplies every day in the San Bernardino mountains. It helped me get through many graveyard shifts, standing 8 hours a day, while working in fast food on hard, tile floors. It allowed me to clean toilets, wash dishes, change diapers, and bend over to clean the oven for over 50 years.
It made it possible to bring two amazing people into existence and give birth to them, as well as one angel baby that I never got to know personally outside of the womb. It stayed mentally strong while I said goodbye to my mother and father, as well as my husband who I got to spend 34 years beside. It allowed me take care of that wonderful man while he made the transition to the next phase of existence.
My body made it through all the changes I put it through; the times I lost and gained back pounds, the fast food I gleefully chucked into it, the stress and muscle soreness, sunburns, surgeries, and sleepless nights. It slept in beds that were broken down, car seats, and couches where my neck was crinked. It paced the floor holding squalling babies (and then, thankfully, sleeping babies). It rocked back and forth while dealing with nausea after being forced to overdo it. It held and supported my husband when he was unable to walk and needed a hand.
Sure, it’s pudgy and sore, but it deserves my love and care. I am disabled and on disability so that I can give back to it, some of what it gave to me. Love.

A Fresh Start!

I have found that my diabetes, fibromyalgia, and sleep apnea, and weight all combine to play off of each other and increase how sick I am. As I get sicker and sicker (and gain weight), it becomes easier to do nothing and blame one sickness or another on my lack of energy.

On the 31st of May, I decided I need to turn things around and dig myself out of the hole I've dug for myself. I was getting depressed and was giving up. Funny how that works. I hit a low spot and then I realize that I am not pleased with where I am and I start working to improve. I still have a little fire in my veins.

First, my doctor put me on insulin so that we could start bringing down my blood sugar. Then I started using one of those little bicycle peddle machines that I had purchased over a year ago. I started with only 15 minutes a day.

That was just three weeks ago. I had two days of misery where my digestive system rebelled and I was in serious pain, then it started to improve. I started a food plan and restricted my calories and portions, then increased the exercise to 15 minutes after each meal. I was amazed at how my blood sugar readings dropped and I started sleeping better.

The next week I increased the time on the peddle machine to 20 minutes after each meal and I noticed that I had lost a couple pounds. Now I'm down 10 pounds and I'm feeling remarkably better! I can walk up the steps to our apartment and I'm not short of breath and my heart is no longer pounding. I sleep about 8 hours each night and I am getting normal blood sugar readings every day!! I'm not even nearly as hungry as my stomach decreases in size and I am no longer depressed!

Because I feel better, I find myself volunteering more and doing more around the apartment. I have increased the amount of time I can work on my knitting and sewing and I feel enthusiastic again!

Listen to your doctor! He/she really knows what they are talking about!

I Haven't Posted in a Long Time

I know I haven't been real good at keeping my blog updated, but let me attempt an update.

My fibro has remained pretty much the same. I changed doctors because the doctor I was seeing at the VA has retired and, since there were no replacements, I opted to use a program called Veteran's Choice and see a doctor outside of the VA. At my last appointment with the VA doctor, she told me that I had signs of kidney disease, but didn't give me any idea of what stage it was in or what I should do for treatment. It took me about 3 months to get in with the new doctor and when she did blood tests, she informed me that there were no signs of kidney disease at all. 😕 Since she is not interested in helping me figure out where the confusion is coming from, I have decided that I need to tend to my diet and exercise and do whatever I can on my own.

As far as keeping down stress, it seems like an ongoing battle. I knit and crochet still, but this month has been particularly rough. Our old male cat, Morgan, has had bowel problems for a long time, but lately he has taken a turn for the worse. We don't have the extra funds right now for Vet bills so we made the decision to have him put down, especially since he stopped eating and has had blood and a loose stool for a couple weeks and didn't look like he was going to pull through. We had it done over the last weekend and it was difficult. It brought back all the losses I've suffered through over the years and Michelle took it really hard as well. I keep getting up at night and find myself in tears when I don't hear him calling to me to feed him. We also have a move pending and that is stressful. The house is in that "kinda packed, kinda not packed" phase and it makes for a mess.

As far as my crafting, I'm excited that I'll be having a room to myself when we get moved. I picked up a couple patterns to make clothes for myself and look forward to turning my bedroom into a sewing room as well, in the new apartment.

I have been working on baby sweaters and hats for the last month or two. I closed down the clothing closet and have been working with the Others Helping Others facebook page  to take orders for sweater and hat sets. This is what they look like:

I still have a bunch of orders to go. The last set went to Michelle for a friend of hers at work. I got sidetracked for a week or two while playing video games and had to get myself focused back on my knitting. I started by using a crochet pattern for the hats, but, because my favorite sweater pattern is knitted, I designed a knitter version to make with the sweaters. Here is my pattern:

Baby Turban Hat

4 size 8 doublepoint needles
worsted weight yarn

cast on 60 stitches and divide on three needles at 20 stitches per needle.
Rnds 1 through 4, knit straight
Rnds 5 through 8, purl straight
repeat the last 8 rounds total, 4 times.
rnds 33 through 36, knit straight.
Rnd 37 *(knit 8, knit 2 together). repeat * to end of round
Rnd 38 knit straight
Rnd 39 *(kniit 7, knit 2 together). repeat * to end of round

repeat the pattern, decreasing one round and knitting straight one round, until you are done with the round where you have knit 2, knit 2 together around. Finish off by cutting the yarn with a long tail. Put the yarn from the tail onto a yarn needle and pull it through all the stitches on the needles, removing the needles as you do. Pull the yarn tight so that no hole remains on the crown of the hat. Pull the yarn through to the inside of the hat and knot and weave the end.

Put a long length of yarn on the needle and, leaving a long enough end to weave in, gather the bottom of the "rings" to the top of the "rings and, pulling tight wrap the yarn multiple times through to make the "knot" on the front of the hat. Weave all ends in on the inside of the hat.

Well, that's all for now. 

The Daily Struggle

I'm working on housework today. I follow a daily routine that makes it possible to keep the housework done by doing routines, scheduled breaks, and uses timers so that I don't have to try to do everything at once and burn myself out.

When I have bad days, I only do as much as I am able. When I feel better, I just pick up where I left off and don't try to catch up what I missed while I was feeling bad.

No stress!

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.