I Won!

All right, I'm not the only one, but still, it was fun to get the Sugar Doll award! Check out my post at the other Living The CFS Life blog.

Inch by Inch

New post on my other blog: http://living-the-cfs-life.blogspot.com/.

New Post

I have a new post on my new blog: http://living-the-cfs-life.blogspot.com/.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

I wanted to let you know that I'm consolidating all of my blogs under one account, so they are a little easier to manage. I imported this blog to http://living-the-cfs-life.blogspot.com/. Notice the only difference in the address is that I added dashes between the words.

I don't want to lose all my friends and followers, so I'll leave this blog up to redirect people to the new one. I hope you'll still come and visit me!

Past Fear and Frustration

I'm not happy with my many negative posts lately, but I understand where they are coming from.

You see, I thought CFS and I had an understanding. I play by the rules most of the time. Then, if something big or important comes along, I cheat! There is a mild punishment afterward, where I am immediately contrite and rest up for a day or two. CFS forgives me, and I'm back to "normal" within the confines of the rules.

And then CFS betrayed me. Or, perhaps it was the last straw. In any case, it stopped forgiving me, and left me sitting in the corner for a very, very long time. No amount of crying or whining has softened its heart and made it relent.

Thanks to Renee's recent post, I am now coming to terms with the fact that I am in a relapse, not a crash. I don't know how long it is going to last. I just know that this is my new "normal," and it's time to adjust my life accordingly.

If I look at it objectively, I can see what happened. Stress is the trigger for my disease. I can see how the unrelenting stress over the summer caused me to fall further down the slope. It terrified me, because I thought, what if I have another episode? What if I fall further? There isn't that much further to go. The next bout will send me to bed with severe CFS for sure.

Well, if that happens, there will be people to take care of me and my family. It is what it is, right? But I can't let fear rob me of hope. I need to continue to tackle this disease the same way I always have, and trust that I will eventually see improvement. Inch by bloody inch, that is.

So, I'm going to change my attitude! I will wake in the morning and force myself to physically smile. They say the physical act of smiling triggers endorphins. I could use some endorphins. I'm going to focus on gratitude, because I have so, so much to be grateful for! Of all the things that CFS has stripped me of, it has taken nothing from me of any real importance. I am loved. I am happy.

Some good news: I don't have to work at all the next three weeks! That should allow me to stick to a routine and consistently stay within my energy envelope. It this experiment is successful, I may not have to go back to work at all. :)

Yeah, That Was Humiliating

Since my health has deteriorated, my husband has been trying to convince me that I need to start using those motorized shopping carts you see at the store. I agree with him, of course -- my shopping trips are killing me, but using those carts would be like admitting that I'm ... disabled. It would be acknowledging that I'm not doing well and that perhaps I'm not getting better as quickly as I thought I would. Maybe I wouldn't exactly be giving up, but I would be giving in. But surely it would be helpful if I didn't have to walk up and down the aisles, right? Right?

Um, wrong. Yesterday, I finally decided to give it a try. I took my 16 year old son with me to help. He had used the carts before due to an injured foot, so I asked him to show me how they work. I nearly crashed into several people right from the start. I kind of got the hang of it, and we went to the produce department. I sent him scampering in different directions to get the items I needed. I tried to wheel myself to items that were at eye level. It was clumsy and awkward.

And yes, people stare! They stare a lot. Except they do it in a way that they think makes them look like they're not staring. They avert their gaze if you glance up at them. They become very interested in onions.

I was flustered. I passed by items I needed, and then had to back up with that annoying garbage truck beep announcing to everyone that I didn't know what I was doing. I felt like I shouldn't stand up to reach for items on a top shelf, because then people would know aha! I was a fraud! I was a perfectly healthy individual who had no right to be zipping around in one of those things.

I ended up missing a few things that were on my list because I just wanted to get out of there. The entire visit took quite a bit longer than my usual visits, because those things just don't go that fast! I've concluded that the stress from the experience was just as damaging as the exertion from walking the aisles.

Lesson learned.

Getting My Feet Wet

Well, I said I was going to start taking my writing seriously, and so I've begun! On my writer's blog, I've posted the beginning of a new short story. I would love to have you check it out and give me your impressions -- did the opening effectively "hook" you, were my descriptions effective, did it leave you wanting to read more?

Check it out at:

http://shelli-proffitt-howells.blogspot.com/2010/01/calling-all-critics.html