Chronic Voice Prompts: Meeting, Tweaking, Working

Time for November Chronic Voice’s blogger prompts!

1. Meeting
2. Advocating
3. Tweaking
4. Working
5. Curating

Meeting:

So my father has moved provinces and just recently arrived. My spouse and brother helped him move into his place. I was there, but obviously unable to help. Still, it was great to see him. We will meet up again soon. And he is visiting my other brothers. He moved back to be around us all. And I think it will be a good thing for him.

Also meeting up with a friend to play cards once a month or so. As long as I take all my meds before… I can last a bit with lesser symptoms. Just a bit dopey. Always a bit dopey… then totally woozy and spaced out as it picks up speed. Still meeting up with friends every so often is breaking up this isolation from not able to be out and about long or stand long.

Tweaking:

I am editing my latest fantasy fiction novel while doing the yearly NaNoWriMo to write 50k a month. It just needs a little final edit tweaking. I doubt very much I will be able to edit much or well with this brain haze so constant.

Also tweaking my exercise. With this vestibular disorder, I haven’t really done much and exercise is impossible in the main sense. And this made my Fibromyalgia pain go nutbars. Too much rest. So I have started my lay down physio… just wee bit and a day of rest and wee bit again until I build up strength. Immensely painful at the moment with this flare though. Anyway, I will slowly tweak that as I go along. And one hopes at the best time of day for this vertigo and dizziness I might work up to the stationary bike. Because if the FM is this bad when I go to vestibular rehabilitation I am going to have serious issues doing things through the pain. So little by little do some lay down things and maybe some chair yoga,

Working:

Well, I am not working unfortunately due to the vertigo and symptoms and inability to drive. And it has been almost a year off without any funds to help live… to which I am so very thankful for family helping me out during this difficult time. But I go for more testing and then treatment in 3-4 months at a clinic so we will see how the vestibular rehabilitation goes. Doesn’t have to be perfect… just lesson it to manageable would be nice.

So having nothing to do and everything makes me worse, well the things I have focused on in my window or productivity has been writing. About the only thing keeping me sane even though it is just a lot harder to just do. Gives me a sense of accomplishment and productivity. That is why I am trying to participate in the NaNoWriMo event. I want to but we shall see if I can be on the computer enough to get the daily count or focus well enough to fiction write. I love participating though and maybe I will not win this year but at least it gives me something to focus on.

And I got a Chromebook (early Christmas present we got on my Airmiles) and it is great to be able to write on the couch and lay down if I need to. It is really helping out. My old laptop was heavy, large and slow. So it made it really hard to lay down and write. This makes it so much easier. And laying down I feel better, mostly, like it really tones down. I don’t know why.

So that is currently my work. Just gotta find something that gives you a sense of purpose. Been thinking about that a lot lately. The things we use to help us cope and the long-term coping where we find new strategies to help us. Having something to do is very important. And having self-compassion for yourself when you cannot work or drive is important. I know things will one day get back to the normal chronic pain game instead of that plus dizziness… just have to have the resiliency to get through it and along the way just try to do a little a day. And rest the amount I need to.

Other Chronic Voice posts:

Chronic illness prompts: Slowing, evaluating, explaining

Chronic voice prompts: reconnecting, sharing and relaxing

Chronic Voice Prompts: Figuring, completing, boring