Having worked the entire bank holiday weekend, I’m shattered and filled to the brim with bricks/wood/steel beam measurements.
Not the best position with an MS-brain like mine.
During this relapse, The Boss has been picking me up and dropping me off for work as my legs go a bit wonky and my head is somewhere in the clouds.
Lovely. Not only do I save petrol, I also cleverly factor in Gumtree pick-ups, such as yesterday;
‘Um. Boss. Y’know years ago we did that job in that street opposite that car place?’
‘Oh, yeah? That was ages ago?’
‘Yeah, should we drive past? See if they did that thing we mentioned?’
He finally twigs. I come clean.
‘S’was on Gumtree. Same road. Free plant pots. Silly not to really?’
And so it was, I picked up loads of free plant pots on my way home yesterday. Excellent. I had used my powers of innate perception.
I hate my routine at the moment – work, home, work, home. With a relapse, there’s no space left for anything remotely meaningful.
Except random free offers of plant pots. I spent a happy half hour scooping earth I’d bought two years ago into a free pot. There was a worm in every handful. But I was kind of happy.
Perception. I could look at it one way:
Tragic divorced single parent with an incurable neurological illness, nudging late early 40’s.
Or:
Exuberant, vibrant, independent 43 year old parent of an awesome Teenager, with an abundance of spirit … and MS’.
I mean me; I’m talking about the same person.
And that’s why I’m trying to re-frame my life – if I see myself one way, people react. The other way, people react. So, maybe I should shove all my sad-person preconceptions to one side and big myself up for once;
‘Fat MS womble, taking on the world?’
I’m embracing the F-Word at long last – Campath-Induced Grave’s Disease be damned …
p.s. this post derives from a random conversation with The Boss about the remote possibility of me venturing in to the dating world again …
I say exuberant vibrant etc etc … get that tinder app installed and start swiping ?? …. think of all the stories you’d have to blog about … we’d all be hooked? I’ve been getting out and about walking in sunshine trying to get some vit d? Good weather deffo makes me happy x
You’re right – I’d have loads of blogs!!
The sunshine is wonderful, especially if I’m outside at work. I feel really lucky that I’m not in an office. Mind you, when it’s chucking it down, I don’t feel quite so lucky 🙁
X
You are both people, but this neurological stuff means you have good days and bad days, I have had a rare degenerative neurological condition similar to MS for 20 years. I work but really struggle, my hobby is learning Spanish and I do what I can. For sure I miss the things I could do but can’t any more, but I enjoy what I can do.
You are doing really well, working and having done a master’s wow!
I live in London and I would be very happy to pop down to Cardiff to have lunch with you some Saturday afternoon.
Thank you!
I’m impressed with you learning Spanish. I’ve always thought it was a difficult language?
I like what you said about missing some stuff, but enjoying what you do. I guess that’s what I meant about perception, in my roundabout way!
It would be lovely to have lunch sometime?
x
Barbara, I’m at a loss. Do you mean that your boss can read your mind, or that he knows you so well that he knew you had an ulterior motive? I call it pyschology, when you know someone well enough to know how to ‘wheedle’ someone around to doing you a favour. He sounds like a really nice man, that boss of yours.
Enjoy your gardening. What are you planting?
Yup, psychology as well I guess!
What I meant was that although this relapse has been dreadful, I’m trying to change my perception of it. If I can’t do much, what can I do? Bit rambly!
The Boss is fab – we help each other out a great deal. I reckon he’d be lost without me!
I had a real sense of achievement by repotting a sad-looking little tree that was outside my back door. I’m not sure what it is, but it looks so much happier in it’s new pot with fresh earth. I see it every morning and it gives me a lift. Small things, but they mean a lot.
x
I guess you’re right. I didn’t quite understand the post (a bit slow at times). At one time we took accomplishing small things as normal and it was the big achievements that made us happy. Now any little achievement is a great accomplishment. For my ‘feel good’ moments I am still knitting, but only first thing in the morning before my left arm gets tired, also the poetry.
I have been researching my family history for nearly 40 years and have collected quite a bit of information, but it was in a bit of a mess. I knew where everything was, but no-one else would know, so I decided to put it all together so that my daughter wouldn’t have to sort it all out when the inevitable happened. After that was done I typed it all out with the thought of having it printed into a book. That never happened, but I put all the pages (quite a lot) into a book-form so it is easy to read. I did send copies to relatives of the branches and got good feed-back, which made me feel that I had accomplished something worthwhile. I don’t know if I would have had the time or patience if I hadn’t been house-bound. So that was something positive, I suppose.
Sorry for the long comment, my husband does tell me that I go all around the houses when I’m trying to explain something.
Take care and enjoy the day.
That’s a really interesting point you make about how we used to look for the big achievements, and now the small.
I’m exactly the same. Not so long ago I would have tidied my front garden in one go, ready for Spring. Now, I’ve had to divide it up in to ‘twenty minutes here, twenty minutes there’. It might have taken me a lot longer, but the result is the same.
Your family tree sounds really interesting and the fact you have made it in to a book is fabulous! I think it’s a lovely thing to do for your daughter. And as for the knitting, wow. I was never a great knitter but it went by the wayside once I had a relapse in my hands. They’ve never been the same since. Now I do tapestries. I find it really relaxing and I get a lot of thinking done while I’m stitching away.
I’m working from home today as I’m quite tired, but it gave me a lovely opportunity to pop over to a friend’s for coffee. Now it’s back to budgets and concrete 🙁
x