Jumbled aLl up fEelinG

In general I’m a person of habit and routine to some degree but also flexible, but I didn’t realise how fragile my usual habits are, how easily things are disrupted and how difficult it can be to get back into the familiar.  I cannot exactly blame anything (like Wimbledon, the weather or such) it all comes down to my own will power, which has been on the wane for sometime.  

My haphazard sleeping has become more erratic, might be because I have not been reading or because I’m too hot or because I am not sufficiently mentally and physically tired; I’m unenthused at meal times, which might be because I’m tired of my often used recipes; I’m not fussed about staying in or going out, whether there are chores or errands to be done or not;  I have almost finished the current crochet project, but it’s been a concerted effort.

I am not really sure how to go about un-diss-ing my combobulation. 

Even this blog post, I started it Friday but cannot get into my creative flow.  *sigh*

Right, it is no good, I just have to, even if the outcome is not a solution, no point procrastinating any further. It’s got to be done. 

 

Game, Set & Housin Duck

It’s taken me two weeks to manage a whole two rows of crochet, and that only happened because of rain delay.  Yes, I am a fan of grass court tennis, Wimbledon especially, with all the various court coverage on the red button, I’ve been quite spoilt. Eight hours a day of no fake or over exaggerated news, no ridiculous dramas, no pathetic storylines, no repeated repeat repeated.  Watching the delight of Henri LeConte in the Senior Invitation Doubles; the heckling audience member pulled out by Kim Clijsters, put in a white skirt and shirt to comply with the dress code and face a couple of her smashing serves; the serious tension of the tie break fifth setters; the speed and reflexes of the doubles matches.  Having a guess at the Hawkeyes challenges, with my best comment ever “Out? That’s so far out its in a cab on its way home!”. The delayed meals as I avidly watch the next point, that Nadal/Muller game resulted in a late night sandwich. It has been wonderful, restful, occupying and different.

What am I going to do now?

Needless to say nothing on my various to-do lists has gotten done, except great-niece’s birthday present ordered, delivered and in hiding (sand/water play table). 

For all those football fanatics who are bemoaning the tennis interrupting schedules – now you know how the rest of us feel when that poxy game dictates schedules for endless weeks and weeks and months!!

 Right then, my last strawberry yoghurt awaits.  Just fifty-weeks to wait, well there is Queens before that and Roland Garos before that.

 

FSH awareness – Oh I am so aware

Today is #WorldFSHDay …. I am one of the 2,000+ that has this condition. It dictates everything everyday and every night. There is no treatment, no management and no cure. Also there is little support, understanding or assistance from the people and organisations designed to do otherwise. It’s not photogenic, it’s not compassionate, it’s not escapable.

I pull no punches.  There is nothing remotely comfortable about the constant struggle to just exist.

Since it’s noticeable onset when I was 4 FSH has slowly robbed me of all my achievements, my purpose, my abilities and my pleasures. I can no longer work, drive, or play piano; be spontaneous, be independent, be principal in choices. Things I can do have a strict time limit otherwise there are consequences of energy and strength.  I can only go anywhere, do anything I want, if and when someone else is available.

What are you wearing today? Did you choose it? All my clothes are dictated by FSH, right the way down to my panties and bra. I never choose something because I like it.  Let’s move on to food, what made you decide on your lunch today? Something tasty? Did your decision depend on whether you can lift it to your mouth, or whether you can easily swallow it after chewing, mine did. 

Spend a moment considering this, try making a cuppa without bending your knees, hips, back, standing on tip toes, without reaching higher than your shoulders, using only your thumb and first finger to hold anything. That is the level of concentration and unsteadiness I live everyday, doing everything, anything.

A bad day is when it takes 3-4 attempts to get stood up from the three only places in the world I can (my bed, my toilet and my sofa spot), a struggle is when it takes 5-8 attempts, if it takes more than 8 don’t ask. My reward for the effort? To do it all over again and again and again, after all how many times a day do you stand from sitting?

It is a one way street, once a muscle set degenerates, there is no recovering it, it’s set to get worse. Tomorrow could be the day my muscles no longer support me, the next day could be the day I experience breathing difficulties, the day after that could be the day that……..you don’t want to know. Then again it could be next week, month, year, just one day.

Right now I am having to figure a solution about my desk. I cannot get up from the chair, but I do not know whether I can use a chair that rises. I have to find a local company that has such a chair that they can bring to my abode for me to try insitu. Then I have to decide whether it is worth the £3,500 ($4,500) expenditure, (plus service and maintenance costs).  Did you notice that paragraph said ‘I’? That’s because my needs cannot be met by the standard, limited catalogue of equipment available via my Occupational Health team.

Hey ho, must go, I need a pee and to make the journey productive I’ll put my mug and plate on the chair I use as a frame and hopefully get them as far as the kitchen.

Ain’t life fun!

 

Listless Listeria

Has it already been over a month? (Yeap) You sure it’s not been a couple of weeks? (Nope) Guess I should revisit my to do list then? (Yeap) ….. Hmm, this is not going to be pretty.

• Work on the web site – phase one done, phase two being mulled over.
• Carry on with crochet project – tedious brick wall hit, stuck.
• Try and keep things tidier – that never lasted.
• Research Greenwich trip – tickets bought, all ready.
• Clear and tidy desk + draws – wellllll, should do better.
• Chase up Neuro Consultants Letter – hmm, not even started.

Okay the web work was a big job (pages of alterations, additions and amendments), phase two is reworking the photo section. Another big job as the new photo albums need adding, each separate photo needs resizing, often © marking, as well as captioning.

Desk work has a new problem, I cannot get up from the seat. I’ve been tentatively googling disabled office chairs as I’d like one to raise me to the standing position, but they are pricey and I need to try insitu, see what other issues it throws up. Then I could spend a lot more productive and play time at my computer rather than the iPad.

I’m slightly side tracked by sourcing a mobile beautician who can come and scrub the be-heck out of my tootsies, make them happy. 

Must dash – the late evening sun shine is across my feet causing my eyes to close and mind to wander.

 

What’s my X for?

Well, a little around three hours ago Prime Minister Theresa May has called for a General Election and I am already tired of the media reporting and I’ve got another seven weeks until Election Day  (June 8th) and the harping and bemoaning after the result. Is there such a thing as election reporting fatigue?

But this does drag up a recurring question – exactly what am I voting for with my all powerful X?

• Is it Mr(s) Somebody
• Is it Mr(s) Somebody representing This Political Shambles Party
• Is it This Political Party
• Is it all of the above
• Is it none of the above coz we don’t know

People griped about not having voted for TM to be PM, well I’ve never had a paper asking me to select a PM. I’ve also never had a tick box for a coalition so absolutely nobody ‘elected’ the Government in 2010.

So, batten down the hatches for political fliers filling up the recycling bin. Go raid the charity shops for cheap DVD’s to avoid the endless media drivel. Deactivate your social media accounts as opinionated ‘erberts get hot under the collar over trite trivialities.

Already the media reporters have nick-named this the #BrexitElection, well only if you (the media) harp on and don’t give equal time to issues such as education, NHS, social care, police and justice, defence, taxation, benefit system AND how changes can be implemented, costed and monitored. But I am a stupidly common sense semi-intelligent person, so I know that ain’t gonna happen.

*sigh* if I go missing again, I’ve gone into hiding, or hibernation, or been committed…

 

I Think I Am Bad For Business!

Whilst twiddling my thumbs in the wee small hours, a thought percolated in my noggin. Apart from the last place everywhere I have ever worked no longer exists!

While at school the obligatory two-week work experience was done in the admin offices at the local psychiatric hospital. Many years ago the former naval hospital was refurbished into numerous plush, sought after, town houses and apartments.  During my studies at College to get letters after my name I worked for a period of time at a fabrication business, which was taken over by a larger one and then everything moved away (also the winter snow meant College closed but I still went into work through the snow drifts).  After completing my courses (and getting those letters after my name) I went to work in a section of the Department for Education, hmm, yeah, well, that was partially disbanded and partially amalgamated with other sections.  Off to a speciality advertising agency, if you needed your logo and details printed on things, we sourced it, pens, key rings, clothing, carrier bags, travel adaptors and umbrellas, manic in a word, well it was the eighties. 

When that went to the wall, off I hopped to a temping agency, that too no longer exists, nor do the companies they sent me to, from holidays camps, to builders merchants, to security companies, to car sales, to ship chandlers, to law firms, accountants. Some were for a week or two, some were months or longer, most were where the first temp ‘upset’ things so I was the rescue party.

Next stop a Baronial Estate, the job I enjoyed the most, it had the greatest variety. I’d grown up with the family, it certainly topped up my anecdotes supply.  Recently the new 4th Baron (I worked for the third) has decided to no longer operate that area of the various businesses on the Estate, another one closed.

I’d moved on to a couple of companies contracted to work for the Ministry of Defence, both now gone and forgotten.  Finally onto another Government Department section, which is still shuffling the bureaucratic red tape even if the actual building I worked in now has a different function.

Hmm, I wonder where I could put my ‘business black widow’ skills to good use, join the Labour Party maybe or the Trump Administration, how about the banking industry ……….. then again, it might be a wise thing I am now classed as “unfit to work”, I doubt the post brexit economy could cope with me.

 

Father Time Is Doing It Again…

Only last week it was still January, next week is half-term for the school kids and marks the middle of February!

After watching Big Sis take down the decorations on 2nd January it felt that Christmas was still in the air but watching a programme that I recorded before Christmas, seeing the festive adverts again it felt as if the season of Nöel was something coming in the (distant) future rather than the recent past.

2017 is going to do it too, isn’t it?  That thing where January has seven weeks but the rest of the months will only have three. It’s awful, just six weeks until the clocks change, a little over four months until the longest day. The year is going to zip past if I don’t try and get a hold of it.