It’s strange how making one tiny change in your life has a roll on effect and slowly makes you want to change other things to. A couple of months ago I decided to grow my finger nails again, for most of my life I have had long nails, rarely just painted in just one colour, but usually with a black back ground and gold patterns on top. I had been painting them like that since the early 80’s, when I discovered a gold pen with a really find point on it and the idea appeared. My first attempt just washed off, from then on I got it right by simply setting them with hairspray, then painting over with clear polish, time consuming but it made them stand out, these days no one would even notice, but back them, trust me everyone did. There is no way that I could manage anything like that amount of creativity these day, the gold would be all over the place and I doubt that I could even get one flat layer of varnish without it being all over my skin, but my nails have caused some changes. I can only guess that seeing those nails, made me feel just that bit more feminine, for seven years I have been dressed in rather baggy but comfy clothing, with nothing about them to reminded me I am a female. I think I stopped caring as I was faced daily with seeing myself getting fatter and fatter, with nothing I could do about it and as my shape changed, so did my desire to feel good about my body. The day I had to remove 4 of my most loved rings, was the final straw, yes I still have several diamonds sparkling at me, it just isn’t the same, it is a bit like when I had to give up being outrageous so I could join the business world, I was having to put away a part of me.
Something about my nails and my unexpected weight lose of three quarters of a stone, made me feel less a lump and more a woman again, the feminine side of me had been sat in a box for a really long time. So last month for the first time since I have been housebound, I actually treated myself to some face cream/serum and I started putting it on every night. I was really surprised by how just taking the time daily to massage my face with a little cream, actually made me feel good about myself. There is something so different about spending those ten minutes actually doing something for your body, than doing something like reading a book, both are done for ourselves, but only one is done too ourselves, psychologically the difference is huge. So this month I bought some more, but this is one for night time, plus I bought some cleansers to remove the residue of the previous applications and I also bought some hand cream. I know that it doesn’t sound like much, or that any of those products could change anything, other than my skin does feel softer and possibly look a little better, but they really have. I have for years recommended to others that they take time to themselves daily, it doesn’t matter how busy my life has been, I have always spent sometime daily doing something purely for myself and no one else, but this just feels so different. I think I have found the true secret behind all those facial creams that they advertise as helping to make you look younger, what they actually do is make you feel better about yourself and when you feel better, you look better. Nothing to do with what is in any of those expensive tubes and jars, more to do with belief and feelings, but a little make belief never did any of us any harm did it and if I am right, well it could do a lot of good for a lot of people.
When Adam came home last night he arrived armed with goodies to eat, there had been a leaving do at his office and there was tons left over, if there is one food style I love, it is finger foods. I would rather have a dozen tiny different foods in front of me than a plate filled with a standard meal, there is something about loads of different savoury taste that makes me want to eat, so I did. I wasn’t past the first mouthful of a tiny sausage roll before I was once more gagging and Adam was looking distressed. I seem to have huge problems with anything that has meat in them, even sausage is to dense for me to be able to get it down my throat without spending ages trying to break it down into really tiny pieces, cake and pastry have a similar effect, but usually I can deal with them. It is almost as though the nerves in my throat are getting the whole message mixed up, instead of opening my throat to let food pass, it tightens and holds on to it. I am left with only one option and that is to bring the food back up into my mouth and I can then try and break it down a bit further before swallowing again. There is one odd thing that I have noticed and that is, it is more likely to happen if I am standing up, which I was as we were in the kitchen, once I was back on the settee, it was a lot easier. It really has put me off eating meat, which isn’t really a problem as I was never a great meat eater before, it’s Adam the carnivore that finds it odd.
Eating problems are common with people with MS, I frequently find myself trying to breath liquids, including saliva and it really doesn’t work. It is another symptom that I am really not looking forward to getting worse, as if it does they will then tell me that all liquids have to be thickened. I have tasted tea with the thickener in it and although I am not a great tea drinker, I would rather die of dehydration that drink that stuff even once. Thick tea just isn’t right and I can’t imagine what it would do to my nightly gin and tonic. These days the only liquids I do drink are my coke and my G & T, so before some bright spark suggests that I drink whilst eating, I honestly couldn’t as neither go with food and I haven’t drunk water since I was 10. For now I just spend my time eating slowly, choosing foods that break up under light pressure and make my life as easy as possible and occasionally doing exactly what I shouldn’t, but life has to have a little fun in it occasionally.
Adaptations to life are the things that I find most annoying about this whole MS thing, the things that other with breeze say, “well this is what you have to do from now on, as though our likes and dislike were irrelevant, or the fact we had tried and failed, wasn’t possible. Having any condition that butts heads with your life, seems to mean your life stands for nothing and we should be grateful that someone who knows nothing about us, has thought up a so called solution. That though is a huge subject, one I haven’t even mentioned before and I think deserves a post all of it’s own, look to tomorrow….
Read my blog from 2 years ago today – 28/11/12 – Getting ready
Two Rooms Plus Utilities 