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More thoughts on looking at my refelction

You may or may not know that I’ve been attending creative writing classes for the last few weeks. Last week’s homework (the topic I chose to do anyway), was to write about an event in the first person but to use the word ‘I’ only twice. After the vlog that I posted last week about how I see myself in my head and how I look when I see myself in a my reflection, I decided to write about looking in the mirror.

I’d like to share what I wrote with you.

 

Looking in the mirror is a very strange experience for me. It forces me to confront the impact that Cerebral Palsy has on my body, and that is not always an easy thing to deal with.

Although I would not swap my disability for the world and consider it to only be a side-note in my life, it means that the person who stares back at me in my reflection is not the woman my mind’s eye expects to see.

While my imagination likes to pretend the girl others meet stands and sits up straight with half-decent posture and a left arm that doesn’t naturally sit in a curled up position that is not the case. Staying away from reflective surfaces means my brain can keep pushing my disability to the back of my mind and focus on living my life to the full and gloss over the fact it might come up against limitations from to time. It that dominated my thoughts, what would be the point in trying anything?

Dancing is a favorite pass time of mine, during which my eyes often stay closed and my sub conscious conjures up images of the moves my body would love to make, if only my Cerebral Palsy would allow it. Alas, it does not, but that’s a moot point, if you ask me. Seeing myself as others see me does not upset me, but instead it makes me angry that my CP plays a far bigger role in my life than I would like to admit. You can call me disillusioned if you’d like, but my word of choice is indifferent, both towards my disability and the limitations it tries to impose on me.

No matter how hard it fights against me, it will never win. This girl will keep on dancing, not matter how it looks. She will use her body with pride because she loves it. As far as my self-image is concerned, there is no CP most of the time, just a girl who likes to throw herself into, and considers herself to be just as good (or bad) at dancing as everyone else.

Riding the merry-go-round

The thing about my Cerebral Palsy is that it sometimes makes me feel a bit like I’m riding  merry-go-round, but not one that goes at a steady pace and plays soothing music; one that goes far too fast and shakes you right down to the bones.

I feel like this blog has lost its positive attitude of late. I haven’t been writing about ‘fun’ topics. I feel like I haven’t said anything that might make you all smile for a couple of weeks now. Sorry about that, but when I started this blog I wanted it to be as honest as I could about my life with my disability, and that means that I have to talk about this stuff whether I like it or not. I don’t, as it happens, but I think you probably knew that already.

You see, I feel like I’ve been riding the merry-go-round lately. This happens sometimes. I get into a cycle where things don’t feel like they’re going great for me from a CP point of view, and I  just have to wait and ride it out until it’s my turn to get off again and things can get back to ‘normal,’ (don’t you just hate that word?), and I start to feel better both physically and emotionally.

It started a couple of weeks ago when I started having pains in my hip and I had to face up to the fact that I’ve been letting my physio slip. This week it’s my back that’s decided it’s going to hurt. Next week, my shoulders might well decide that it’s their turn to play up. Then again, they might not. It might be a different set of muscles or body parts, or I might feel fine, who knows?

Round and round I’ll have to go.

Round and round I will go, moving from physio and stretches to putting wheatbags on the sore area, all the while I will be continually asking myself what I might have done that’s caused this aches and pains. I’ll tell myself it’s not my fault, I’ll tell myself it is. If I can’t fix it, I’ll beat myself up over it. I’ll tell myself off for not having the answers even though I’m not a physio and no one expects me to have all the answers. Yet,  somehow, I expect myself to. I feel like I’ve been going through these cycles for so long and I should be able to stop them, but I  can’t. Maybe I’ll never learn how.

I’ll toy with the idea of asking for an appointment with my physio countless times, but I always feel guilty about asking for one. What if things aren’t as ‘bad’ as I think they are? What if I’m taking away a slot from someone who needs it more?

Around and around I’ll go, until things stop aching.

 

 

 

What a difference a week makes

You may remember that I spent most of last week’s post talking about the pain that I’ve been having in my left hip for a while now. I knew that I had to take a lot of the blame for this because I haven’t been keeping up with my physio or wearing my night splints as often as I should.

Well, what a difference a week can make.

I’ve put a lot more effort in, especially over the last seven days and it seems to be paying off for me. I’ve been spending more time sitting in positions like long sitting and sitting cross-legged to help give my muscles a good stretch, I’ve been trying to massage my hip myself. I’ve made a real effort to wear my night splints more too.

To ease myself back into having them back on again, I started out just wearing them for a couple of hours during the day while I was resting and reading or watching TV, and then I spend the whole night in them last night. I had the best night’s sleep I’ve had for a while and I woke up feeling the benefits of both that and my muscles having had a good stretch. I’ve noticed that my ankles have been feeling a lot less tight over the last couple of days too so I’m already feeling the improvement. This is one of the best forms of motivation for me.

My hip still aches a little bit, but it’s better than it was. Let’s hope I’m on the right track now.

Time for a reality check, again

As much as I hate to say this, I think it’s time that I sat myself down and gave myself a good talking to.

My left hip kept bothering me again last night, and my left ankle has been feeling tighter than usual for a few weeks now. I know that this i partly my own fault. Because of my Cerebral Palsy I have aches and pains every day. Most of the time, they don’t bother me too much, but every so often they get more severe for various reasons. The fact that I haven’t been keeping up with my physio as much as I should. or wearing my night splints as often as I’m supposed to lately definitely doesn’t help. I know that.

The thing is, when the pains get worse and I notice that my muscles are feeling stiffer than normal it upsets me, and I spend the first couple of weeks of the process telling myself that it will pass on it’s own and bury my head in the sand. It’s never easy for me to admit that I’ve been letting myself down  by not doing the things I need to do to keep myself as mobile and pain free as possible. I know it sounds like something I should do readily and without question, but when I consider the fact that I have CP to be such a  small part of who I am as a person, doing all the physio and the stretches isn’t always at the forefront of my mind. Not until the pain hits, anyway.

Then, when I do notice that I’ve started to let things go and the impact that  it’s having on me; it hurts. Not just physically but emotionally too. It’s a reminder that there will be times when my disability has a larger impact on my life and my body than I would like, and that I will always have to work to keep them at bay as much as possible.

When I  was little doing lots of work on standing up straight, my family would tell me that I had to work really hard at pushing my knees back because that would help me push any operations back that I might need when I was older, for as long as long as possible. I knew lots of people with Cerebral Palsy who  were having them or had already had some and I didn’t want to have any if I could help it. When I notice things tightening up or hurting more I’m reminded that I’ll never be able to stop that big push.

I know as I get older there are things that I can do now that I won’t be able to in the future, that happens to everyone, disability or, not, I know that. However, on days like today I’m all too aware that it could happen faster and sooner than I would like if I’m not careful. It could even happen without me really noticing if I don’t pay enough attention to my physio, and that is hardest thing to deal with of them all.

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All I can say is, that I am Nic, and yes I have CP, and I may not always push a hard as I can, but I will not give up entirely. Not now, and hopefully not ever.

 

 

Let’s talk about sleep

It’s currently 4:24 AM as I’m sitting typing this but it won’t be by the time you get to read it.  I’m having one of those nights where I can’t sleep because there’s a nagging ache in my left hip that won’t go away. This has been happening quite a lot over the last couple of months and I’m not sure why. I’ve been meaning to mention it to my physio but it always seems to stop around the time of my appointments so I always forget. I must remember next time.

I’ve been awake for ages now and I’ve tried laying in all different positions and do as many different stretches as I can think of but it won’t budge. It never does. I just have to wait until I get so tired that I fall asleep anyway.

It’s not all bad though. I’m not kept from sleep by aches and pains very often, (hardly ever until this one started showing up) so I can’t really complain. And I’ve already had a few hours shut-eye tonight.

It’s now 4:36 and I’m rambling. I can barely keep my eyes open and I’m sure this post will be full of typos when I check it again later. I’m going to go back to bed now.

Sweet dreams, everyone.