For the first time in AGES 'my' fatigue dropped enough for me to use my sketchbook. So I played with my letraset markers :) and had some fun (along with a colour boost!) hurrah for art therapy ;)
I had a life once.
A career too. One I was good at.
I made a difference.
Now I'm incredibly lucky if I manage to leave the house once a week, usually it's much less than that.
Not only is my Fibro severe but it's flaring in a scary way right now due to gallstones and an inflamed gallbladder.
Pain levels are off the chart.
There are lots different pains;
Achey rheumatic type joint pains (everywhere);
Pulled muscle pains;
Nerve pains;
Broken bone pains;
Sensitive skin that screams in agony when clothing touches it;
Tender points that make even the lightest of touches from another person agony and often result in an involuntary scream of pain;
In the midst of all these I can still identify the Gallbladder pains. They're different. I'm a pain expert.
But that's just the tip of the Fibro iceberg.
We don't sleep much. Some medicos still consider Fibro to be primarily a sleep disorder. The combination of non-restorative sleep and all those constant pain signals that the brain has bombarding it 24 hours a day mean we're tired.
Not just a bit tired though, not the 'I've had a busy and satisfying day' kind of tired but the wake up in the morning more exhausted than when you went to bed tired.
The kind of tired where picking up a mug of tea seems beyond you.
The kind of tired where having a shower is the achievement of the day and requires a nap to recover from. Heck brushing my teeth and washing my face needs a thirty minute sit down to help me cope with the physical exertion.
And yes, there's more. Of course there's more.
But it can wait.
I'm tired...
I have very little energy...or spoons as we fatigue fighters will often refer to it and I struggle to cope with it. I was lucky enough to do a 16 day pain management programme at the Walton Centre for Neurology and Neurosurgery some time ago and one of the main mantras there is 'Targeting & Pacing'
But I suck at pacing. Oh I can set targets...but pace myself? Just over 3 years with this illness and I'm still not dealing with it very well... A talented tweep Matthew Watkins pointed me in the direction of Michael Nobbs another talented chap who's being creative despite having ME/CFS.
Michael's site is jam packed with useful tips for those of us short on energy, but it's also useful for those who are short on time. There's a free email micro-mag every 2 weeks to try to keep you on track and usually a podcast too. Well worth signing up for... (go on, click the link and leave me...)
So Sand the point of this post is...? Well, Michael suggests splitting tasks into 20 minute chunks...kind of. You need to click on his name above to read the post I'm referring to. So I regularly set a timer on my pc or whatever for 20 -30 minutes, but when it goes off I have a habit of ignoring it... Not good eh? A quick surf around and I ordered this,
Now then, would you ignore this cat? It has a very loud hard to ignore tick and jangles jumpingly when the times up. Alas it doesn't KEEP ringing which would be best for me, (you know, put it out of reach so it doesn't stop till you stop and get up to deal with it) but it is definitely harder to ignore than the feeble thing I have on my laptop.
Now of course I just need to remember to use it...properly.
I am a disabled artist & designer based in Liverpool, a coastal city in the North West of England.