Chronic Illness
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5 Ways to Slow Down
Right now my life feels as though its going about a mile a minute. I have no where near enough time in the day, or week, or month, to do all the things I want to. And the stress of that it starting to take its toll. I really need to try to slow down, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. Lately I’ve been trying to keep up with a lot, because there’s so much that I want to be able to do. I want to be successful, and healthy. I want to be a good person, friend and girlfriend. I want to improve my blog, writing…
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Living with a chronic illness is not ‘fun’
The title of this blog post may seem pretty obvious. You may have read it and thought ‘of course living with a chronic illness isn’t fun’, but its not the obvious I am going to talk about today. I often hear things like ‘at least you get to have a lot of sleep’ or ‘you get to spend a lot of time in bed’, as if these are things to be grateful for, or as if they are perks of my illness. And I know I am not alone in that. Comments like that arent meant to be offensive or insensitive. Often they are from people trying to support you,…
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Tips to help you sleep better
If you’re a spoonie like me (or even if you’re not) sleep is very important. It’s the time of the day your body recovers and rests ready for the next day. So when you struggle with sleep, it’s good to know the things you can do to sleep better. Due to ME/CFS, I spend my whole day feeling exhausted, achey and basically like I need a week of sleep. It’s very sacred to me, and bedtime has quickly become my favourite time of the day, because it’s the time I truly get relief from my symptoms. But being tired all the time doesn’t mean that sleep comes easily. In fact,…
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Acceptance is more than saying ‘Yes’
I’ve already talked about acceptance in my post about living with chronic illness, but it’s something that has really got to me lately so I thought it warranted its own post. One of the major parts of living with a chronic illness is acceptance. Whatever illness it is you’re diagnosed with, your life changes and you’ve just got to go along with it. You don’t get a choice in the matter, that’s just how it is. Bam. There you go. This is what your life is now. There’s a lot that changes, and a lot to accept. Side note: I started writing this before the lockdown so don’t worry, I’ve…
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More Than ‘Just Tired’
Life with ME is more than being 'just tired'. It's exhausting, and it's never ending. This ME awareness week I talk about the reality of living with ME.
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5 things I’ve learned from yoga
Living with ME/CFS comes with a long list of trials and challenges to deal with on a daily basis. Among them is the inability to exercise normally. Unfortunately, along with the sheer exhaustion it brings, another symptom is post exertional malaise. Put simply, the worsening of symptoms due to physical activity. For me, I find it quite difficult to predict, but I know one thing that causes it every time – exercise. Going for a run (or even a walk), doing Zumba, tennis, literally any form of cardio is enough to make me completely unable to function the next day. My body just shuts down, even moving takes too much…
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Lockdown Emotions: It’s okay not to be okay right now
The time we are in right now is strange. I feel like I’m in an alternate universe, where everything is reversed. Each day I sink further away from reality and my emotions just don’t know what to make of it. Let me tell you about today. Today when I logged onto my work PC I noticed I wasn’t connected to our network drive. Other people were having the same issue but were able to resolve it easily. My issue was not so simple. I tried disconnecting and reconnecting. I tried restarting my computer, twice. I tried disconnecting and restarting my computer before reconnecting. Nothing worked. If we were in the…
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How to survive working from home
Working from home full time is not something I ever aniticpated doing. Once upon a time it was a dream I’d had, so I could work full time alongside my chronic illness (who knew it was actually possible?). However once I found a job I loved, it was a lot easier to get myself into the office every day, even when I am exhausted. Now, like many of you, I have been thrown into the wonderful world of working from home, and just being stuck at home in general – although it’s not that much of a change for me. But it is a struggle. I’ve found it difficult, strange,…
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How to spend your rest day.
Today for me is a rest day. A day to rest and relax and basically do absolutely nothing. I’ve been feeling completely awful recently. My energy levels have plumeted to a completely unmanageable level, I’ve been making silly mistakes in work and I just haven’t been able to function outside of work. I can’t keep up with the washing or the cleaning, I’ve not been able to revise for my exam, some days I haven’t been able to shower. (Sorry work colleagues, but that smell in the office was actually me). I find it so hard to sit around and do nothing. My body may be tired but my brain…
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Living with a Chronic Illness, Every Day.
Looking through past blog posts I realised that I’ve talked quite a lot about life with mental illness, but I haven’t really focused that much on the other evil in my life: my chronic illness. I was diagnosed with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) over 3 years ago now, and it’s been a rollercoaster ride ever since. There are so many new things to get used to, treatments to try, lifestyle changes to make. It’s something that you just can’t prepare for. I do count myself as very fortunate, because I know so many other sufferers of ME who aren’t able to work at all, and many who are bed bound. But…
