It's been a while...

Well it really has been a while since I last posted. My "bump" is now three!!!

Pregnancy and Fibro do not sit well together, it is totally the hardest thing I have ever done and ended in an emergency C section. I never thought I would be well enough to have a child, and am so glad we decided to try when we did. It took a long while to recover afterwards, not from the section but because my body had put everything it had into making a baby. I have had several episodes of being bedridden, not great when you have a little one to look after. It put a lot of strain on my other half having to look after both of us. Mostly it's been a case of muddling through. Now that he's at nursery 3 days a week (and summer school too) it's a bit easier, and we have had more time to put into other things. I've been on a de-cluttering spree over the past couple of weeks, and all this organisation has made me want to start blogging again. I've even started bullet journaling! Pintrest is dangerous!! I don't think I will have time to blog every week as yet, but will try for once a month.
I'm working on a couple of knitting projects at the moment. A pair of mittens for a birthday present, a cardigan for a new baby, and a mitred square cushion cover. I've also been slowly getting back into doing other crafts which got put aside, such as card making and making small gifts. I have also recently started making up my own knitting patterns with a pair of fingerless mitts. I had been looking through lots of patterns for ways to use up leftover sock yarn in a simple mitt pattern but didn't like any one pattern so cobbled together different aspects of several. I'm going to write up the pattern over the next week or so and put it on the blog as everyone who I have shown them to has said how good they are and that I should.

The Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge: Day 2

Yesterday was the first day of the WEGO Health Activist Writer's Month Challenge, which of course I missed due to ill health! Oh well, better late than never. Today's prompt asks you to introduce yourself and your illness/condition. I have already talked a bit about becoming ill in my first post ( here ), but not really described what it is like to live with Fibromyalgia.
Pretty much everybody has felt physical pain at some time in their life. But usually it goes away. It's meant as a warning that something is wrong and needs to be mended, and when that wrong is mended the warning is no longer needed. But what if that warning system breaks? What if it doesn't realise that the injury or illness has been mended? What if it doesn't stop the warning pain? That's Fibromyalgia.
Or at least one of the theories of Fibro, because there are a few, but the one that makes the most sense to me. The fact is medical science does not know the cause of Fibro. Nor do they know how to cure it. A lot of doctors still believe that it is psychological. Quite how they come to that conclusion when presented with someone who is clearly in agony, along with all the other symptoms, baffles me. Fibro and ME/CFS are often linked to depression and so given a psychological cause. To this I say are you shitting me?!!! I am in pain all day every day, and you wonder why I am depressed???!!!!!
Now I have been lucky and have had doctors who have understood the condition, as much as it can be, and have tried to help me deal with it. Not everybody who has Fibro has been so lucky. Thankfully it does seem to be getting better now in terms of greater awareness and research. Doctors seem much more clued up about Fibro than they did even 5 years ago when I was diagnosed. I think this is because of the spreading of information by people who have Fibro and other chronic illnesses on the Internet. We are becoming Activists, actively researching and sharing our experience of chronic illness. Which is exactly what this challenge is about.
Today's prompt also suggests sharing other blog posts that you think will help the newly diagnosed. As I have only just started blogging I am going to link to a couple of other blogs that I think are helpful.

1. Chronically Crafty  has a very good post on getting a diagnosis for Fibro. She has other great posts on Fibro too so check it out.
2. It's not all Me, Me, Me's post on ME/CFS gives a lot of info on the condition and links to some good websites.
3. Another new Fibro blogger The Retired Bridgeburner has some very good posts about her experience of having Fibro.
4. And finally The Spoon Theory by Christine Miserandino. A great way of explaining to other people how chronic illness affects us.

If you are new to Fibro and/or ME/CFS I hope this post and the others I have linked to help you.

First Blog post!

After months of reading other people's blogs I have finally decided to start my own. A place where I can express myself and share my views and experiences. Being pretty much housebound is very isolating and has made me feel distanced from the "real world". Being online has helped take away that feeling to a certain extent. It's given me a way to feel connected to the "real world" again which I haven't felt in a long time. Five years to be exact. That's how long I have been ill. Actually that's not true, I have been ill much longer than that but did not know it. How can you be ill and not know it you ask? Very easily I reply, if said illness sneaks up on you slowly and gradually takes things away from you without you really noticing that you have lost anything or changed the way you live your life. I had carefully crafted my life around my illness without even realising. Of course I knew I was exhausted most of the time and could sleep at the drop of a hat, and that this had come on after I contracted glandular fever in my teens, but I never considered myself as ill. Actually I did my best to cover up my tiredness in case people thought I was lazy, I thought I was lazy. So I tried to work even harder to make up for my "laziness". Going to college, university, then working. I didn't even think about it at the time but the jobs I had were both part-time, enabling me to cope with my sleep patterns. To my family my sleeping a lot was a long standing family joke, but nothing to be concerned about. In my family you get on with things, you cope.
And I was coping.
Then suddenly I became much worse. I had a viral infection  which along with a year of doing too much turned into Fibromyalgia. I have been in constant pain for 5 years, but I know how much worse it could be from that first night. It was agony. Pure agony. My poor partner was terrified. When he phoned NHS Direct the woman advised him to give me a paracetamol!!! I would still feel that pain without the pain medication I am on. As it is the pain is bearable, mostly. But it has taken my carefully constructed life and turned it into one where I am not in control. I cannot do what I want when I want. I have to rely on others for most things. At this moment I have been in bed for nearly two weeks, unable to get up without help, unable to clean myself or get myself something to eat. The basic things we take for granted, until we can't do them. I have lost my independence. I haven't gone anywhere on my own for 5 years! I am very grateful and lucky that I have family and friends to help me do things, so many people have not. I could have it much worse. But I could also have it a lot better, and sometimes its hard to accept that is not going to happen. Not any time soon, perhaps not ever. I try not to think about that. That I could be in pain for the rest of my life.
And so I cope.
Because that's what I have to do to keep going. And I try to make my life as enjoyable as possible. Try to do what I can, and not regret too much what I can't. So this is my life and hopefully I can share some of it with you; good, bad and ugly. I promise not to moan too much, and to talk about knitting, crochet and yarn a lot!
I learnt to crochet as a teenager when I was first ill. My grandmother taught me and I have loved doing it ever since. But I couldn't get on with knitting. Never managed to pick it up, though I had several goes at it. I tried again after I became ill with Fibro and suddenly took to it like a duck to water. It has now overtaken crochet as my main hobby, and has even led me to trying out spinning my own yarn on a drop spindle. Though this is a new venture and I am still learning. I think I can see a spinning wheel in my future!