I’m cold, the internet is once again causing me huge issues and I desperately want a shower, and as I can do nothing about any of them, it’s not the best start to the day. Waking up to a bedroom that was so cold, I didn’t want to get out from under the covers, isn’t really what I would expect at the end of April. At first, I was telling myself that it was just me, but the thermometer confirmed that the weathermen had been right with their forecast, a touch of winter has returned. In this house, it’s a huge touch, even when they get it right, they still somehow manage to lie. Yesterday, my internet service was rock steady, today, it has already been down for nearly an hour. I am really now at a lose, other than ripping out all the wiring and buying a new router, I don’t have the slightest idea left, as to how to fix it. And as for the shower, the new one is due to arrive today, followed by the plumber tomorrow, so we’re getting closer, but I lucked out there as well. None of which helps me at all, at this very second. I guess it just shows that all of us, healthy or ill, are always susceptible to outside forces, that we have no control over. I might be feeling crappy because of my health, but there is just as much a chance, that all of the above, is just pulling me down in a perfectly human way, something, that is actually very easy to forget.

Being ill, I know for one that I often forget all of that. It is always easier just to say that it’s the fault of my PRMS, or that maybe I’m just not quite getting enough oxygen. I feel rotten and I have a resident reason to do so, so why look any further? Why even allow for the possibility that it is something else altogether? No, it’s just easier to blame my health. Let’s face it, if you hadn’t had a shower for over a week, how would you feel? Yes, I’ve kept myself freshened up, and an extra layer of deodorant works wonders, but now that my hair is starting to stick to your head, well it’s not the best. Adam has offered to help me, but trying to lean over the sink, while he pours water over my head, just isn’t going to work. My body won’t bend that way, and the pain that it would cause me, well I’d rather my hair went dirty for another day. Logic, is one thing, reality, is a totally different. This is where being housebound really stinks and in more than one way. Anyone else would be able to deal with this situation with ease. Even if you didn’t know someone to ask, if you can use their shower, well there is always a swimming pool or a spa, you could visit, somewhere to go to get clean. I’m stuck, I can’t go anywhere.

The first thing I did when I got up this morning, was to light the fire. I couldn’t shut the living room door to keep the heat in, as I was waiting for the delivery of the shower. I knew that without a doubt, if I did, the buzzer would go and I either wouldn’t hear it, or I’d take so long to negotiate the obstacle course in my wheelchair, they would be gone, by the time I reached it. I so wish that the intercom was here by my desk, but it’s not, so I had to let the precious heat from the fire filter it’s way around the house. Is the picture starting to form, add in now the fact that my computer is frustrating the hell out of me, and life is just peachy.
I feel rotten, take your pick which is it, life or my health? At a guess it a good mix of both, but it’s taken this extreme example of my life, for me to start questioning more deeply, just what might be making some days harder than others. As I said, it’s always easiest to blame the obvious, the condition that is causing us pain, that we’ve lived with for years. Sometimes, we just have to accept, that like everyone else on this planet, life gets us down too. Those days when our tablets just don’t seem to be working as well as normal. Those days when we’re tired, when we don’t have the energy that we need, might just be being made harder because something else in our life is wrong. Just because we are ill, doesn’t mean we suddenly have become immune to reality. If someone in perfect health, was sitting here instead of me, totally unable to change a single thing I have written, I’d put money on the fact that they too, wouldn’t be feeling exactly at their best. The problem with reality is, just like catching a bug, if your already weak, it’s going to hit you even harder.
This last week would have tested most people. Yet, I am still expecting myself to be superwoman, despite the fact that I haven’t even been equal to her little finger for nearly a decade. Why is it, that that is so hard to accept? I suspect that I am no different from anyone else in my position, somewhere inside the mess that life has turned me into, I still can’t fully accept, that I’m no longer the me, that I once knew. Yes, I’ve accepted my condition, but that’s totally different from accepting that the core me, has had to change as well, and that’s really hard to do. Unlike someone who is facing old age and says that inside they’re still 20, accepting that your entire life has been changed by illness, so much so that the simple everyday pressures of life, are enough to actually make us feel worse, is a real biggy to get our heads around.

Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 29/04/2014 – Breaking the monster

There is something very odd about reading your own words back, especially when they were written a couple of years ago, it is like looking at yourself through someone else’s eyes as you had totally forgotten every word of it, but it is still familiar. I don’t read all the posts linked at the bottom of each page, just glance through them normally, but reading how I described things that were relevant to me at the time, is enlightening. I realise just how we all change, even over such a short period of time as two years and even when you are in your 50’s, when you would expect the changes to have either stopped or slowed down at the very least. I know that every bit of information we add to our knowledge daily has to change us in some way, that is just logical, but the fact……