This will be my last post for CFS Squared - Tales of CFS. I have enjoyed writing here, for the past two years. But it’s time for me to move on now.
I must say, that this last word stuff is a little daunting. I kind of want to sneak away - and leave you with fun and quirky posts. But, I owe more than that to all of you, and to myself.
On more than one occasion, I have written about Do No Harm. I am going to share a little secret with all of you. Writing and/or following a health blog about chronic illness eats away at the energy you have. It most certainly eats away at mine, which is why I don’t read illness related news blurbs or other blogs. Spending so much time thinking about your illness and how others cope = self harm.
What we should be doing is enjoying life. We should be singing songs to our friends on the phone, hosting dance party in our living rooms, reading Dr Seuss to our favorite 3 year old, playing catch with our dog and his best tennis ball, and throwing fancy dinner parties where we serve pizza and KFC with very expensive wine.
We need to savor the small stuff. Stop analyzing every pain and cough.
Sure, reading about how other people cope with their issues can be somewhat helpful - but this journey is about learning what works for you. My tricks won’t work for everyone. Just like yours won’t always work for me. The best thing to do, is to get out there, and start figuring out what helps. The only way to do that, is to just do it. Be your own Nike advert.
Reading about recent developments for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or Fibromyalgia, is not going to help you get well. The latest drug may make life slightly easier for a little while, but will most likely become less effective. I will say one last thing. And this will be the most important advice that you will hear….
What does good in bed mean to me? When I’m sick and I stay home from school propped up with lots of pillows watching TV and my mom brings me soup — that’s good in bed. ~ Brook Shields
Ever notice how susceptible you are to exhaustion and illness, when exposed to something dark or depressing in culture or via some form of media. Lately, I have entered a fairly dark period in my reading and movie watching choices. As a direct result, I have been slightly depressed, and been sleeping a lot more. Also I have been feeling the effects physically.
I have never really been one to jump on the whole chick lit bandwagon. Yes, I have read some. But overall, my library is somewhat lacking in this genre (unless you include Jane Austen books - and I suppose she can qualify).
In the last month, I have read books about:
the Holocaust (via graphic novel and from the voice of the survivor/descendant)
World War II (from the soldier’s perspective)
stealing orchids
fighting in the civil war/falling in love with slaves/effects of the family waiting for the father to return
participating in a book club (token chicklit)
death
supporting artists and the drama that goes along with it
and weird sci-fi ish kind of stuff that I am not able to describe.
My movie choices have been even darker.
Am I choosing these kinds of things to read and watch, because my mood is dark. Or is my mood (and health) in a dark place because I am choosing to bring this stuff into my life.
When I am aware of the darkness of my mood, I try to do things to make me feel better. Really, who wants to feel bad all the time? I didn’t even realize I had entered such a dark period, until a friend commented on what I had been reading.
Well no wonder I feel so tired.
I am not really too interested in reading about clothes shopping, and being a nanny, or whatever is super popular these days. But what I have been absorbing has definitely had an impact on what has been going on with me. So perhaps its time to put the books down for awhile (just a temporary solution until my balance returns).
As for the movie watching. I am never going to curb that habit… I just love them too much. But it wouldn’t kill me, to watch something a bit lighter. Something that doesn’t involve suicide, mental illness, dysfunctional families, mass murder rampages, drug abuse, or any other equally depressing subject. Maybe I will reintroduce some Samurai flicks into my evenings. There is nothing depressing about those!
So how about you? Are you aware of what you are absorbing? Can you connect your intake of culture and media to how you are feeling?
Last week, my medicinal indoor herb kit arrived. I opened it up - and started right then and there. My enthusiasm for this idea knows no bounds. Out of 12 herbs, I chose to grow Valerian, Lemon Balm, Milk Thistle, Echinacea, and German Chamomile.
After a week, some of the seeds have started sprouting…which proves that at least my thumbs are partly green. I took some fantastic pictures, but alas the usb port on my camera cable is bent, and so all pictures will have to wait, until I replace it.
Hopefully they will keep growing….I am getting really excited about it, and can’t wait to start using them. The one thing I have learned already, is to make sure you mark your rows. I neglected to do that, and now I don’t know which herbs have sprouted and which haven’t. A mistake that will not be made on my next attempt. Oh well, its all a learning process.
Will report more on the garden in a couple of days.
In the meantime, to tie you over-here is a picture of what Lemon Balm is supposed to look like.
As I write this post, I am wearing a pair of Pinhole glasses. When I first discovered this product, I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. A few weeks later, I received my pair of glasses and not only was I skeptical, but I had thought I had time traveled back in time to 1984. I am fairly sure that I had a similar pair, when I was a kid. Although I suspect they were for purely aesthetic reasons.
Now, it must be said that I have no problems with my eyesight, with the exception of being a little light sensitive. I work in a very bright office during the week, and so there are days when I wear sunglasses indoors. I wasn’t sure if I was the right person to test this product out. So I passed them around to various coworkers who have some vision problems.
Out of six people who wore them - one person loved them, and thought that it actually would help him. To be fair - he is the only person who gave them a fair chance. He wore them the longest, and looked at different things (computer, the newspaper, outside), to see if it would make a difference.
Three out of the six people just couldn’t get past the appearance of these glasses. The lens is made of perforated plastic, so you are looking through many dots. So they weren’t prepared to really get the experience. They did report that it didn’t make their vision any worse - or cause any other symptoms such as headaches.
Two of the six people, couldn’t remark on how effective these glasses are, because their vision is so bad - and these glasses are not for everyone. So really, they weren’t fair test subjects.
The last test subject is me. Here are my findings:
These glasses filter out a lot of light. So in my very bright office, these glasses were quite helpful
I had to slow down my reading speed a tad, just because the glasses are foreign to me, and it took some adjusting. This is not at all a negative. Slower reading speed means higher comprehension. In fact, I accomplished a whole lot more than I usually do, and that is due to wearing these.
When sitting at my computer, changing head position from looking at the screen to looking at a report on my desk, would make me a little dizzy. So when I had to do a lot of switching back and forth-I just chose to remove the glasses. But when I am working on just one activity, such as writing this blog post-they work great!
The pin-hole glasses are not to be worn in a dark environment. Which is why they are perfect in an office setting. The entire time I wore them, I was headache free - I am attributing this to the spotted specs.
Definitely image is a lot clearer when wearing them.
It does take quite a while to get used to looking through polka dots. But once I adapted to the change, I became a lot more focused (vision, brain power, everything).
These glasses will reduce peripheral vision, so make sure you do not wear them while driving or operating machinery.
When I started writing this post, I had an unbelievable hang over from lack of sleep. I have worn these glasses now for almost an hour, and not only is the fogginess completely gone, but my energy has started coming back. Now, I am not claiming that these glasses will completely combat Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but they have helped with my visual focus. This is a huge step in the right direction.
If you want to know more about what Pinhole Glasses can do for you, go here.
If you are interested in obtaining a pair, you can order some through Pinhole-Glasses-Direct
I found a short Disney film from 1953, on How to Get to Sleep. It has loads of ingenious ideas. Most of which backfire for the dog named Goofy. I love that he hangs a picture of someone yawning on his bedroom wall. I am definitely going to incorporate that into my bedroom decor.
There is a new poll up on the sidebar. This week’s question is “Do you sleep when you have nothing better to do?”
Could you be doing something better with your time? Sleep isn’t always the right answer with a condition like CFS. Vote in the poll, and let us know what your sleep patterns are like.
If you feel like contributing more of an answer, feel free to leave a comment on this post.
I prefer waking up to classical music every morning. It helps me wake up in a good mood, it lets me focus, and it gets me thinking first thing in the morning.
However, if I decided to purchase an alarm clock that didn’t play music. I would choose this. Just because I would wake up laughing every morning (and that right there makes it the perfect alarm clock for someone with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). I have no idea where to purchase it though.
Today’s theme is all about the alarm clock. I have posted a poll in the sidebar, asking if you use an alarm clock in order to wake up.
Please vote in the poll, and then come back here - and let us know what effective method you use for waking up on time…if you use one at all. If you don’t have a method, that’s fine too - just let us know how you wake up.
I have a lifestyle where I rely on the use of an alarm clock. I hate being late for anything, so time pieces are very important to me. I use a simple clock/radio for when I am home. But have been known to use alarms on my computer or cell phone (when I remembered to use it). Once upon a time, I used to rely on the sun. However, the sun doesn’t shine in my neck of the woods very often - so that method didn’t last long, after I moved here.
I have previously written about how I use my current alarm clock in a positive way to rouse me from sleep. However, I have just come across one, that appears to harm people. Even people without a sleep condition. For me, it would make me absolutely crazy.
When the alarm goes off -it shoots 4 puzzle pieces into the air, and then makes this horrible honking sound until you put them back in the proper place. How ridiculous for someone who lives with brain fog during the middle of the day, not to mention at 5 am. Most of the time, I am not able to answer the phone, when I have been asleep - how do you expect me to complete a puzzle?
Although, I do think the idea is a fun way to get up - it is absolutely not the right alarm clock for me.
So tell me, what is your most favorite way to get up in the morning?
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