Tag: Cerebral Palsy

My main pain issues January 2017

As you probably know by now, my cerebral palsy means that there is not a day in my life that is totally pain free. I don’t mind this. Most of the time it’s a constant level that is my ‘normal.’ When my pain is at this level, I find it manageable and it doesn’t stop me doing anything. It’s kind of like having the radio on in the background at the office. You know it’s there, but you kind of zone in and out depending how focused you are on your work.

The problem is that when a pain starts to bother me more than I would like, the things I do to combat it and make it manageable can sometimes cause other recurring aches and pains to spring up or intensify. Imagine you’re playing a game of Whack-a-Mole, only the moles are various pain issues and the machine itself is your body.

I’m kind of caught in one of these situations at the moment. The top of my back has been hurting again, so I’ve been laying on my front with a hot wheat bag on my back to stretch it out. It really helps, which is all well and good, but because it really helps I’ve been doing it a lot. This might sound like a good thing, and I suppose in a way it is. except that I’ve done in so much that I’ve over-stretched some of the muscles in my chest – again.

So now I have an aching back and an aching chest. Laying on my front  helps the back pain still, but aggravates the sore chest muscles – as does wearing a bra, but that’s a whole other thing.

I fall into this trap quite a lot. I think I’ve posted about it before even. The problem is that I have no idea how to get out of it now that I’m in it, or how to stop myself getting stuck in it. Do you know what I mean?

The challenge has been set

Well guys, there’s no denying that my updates on this blog have been very sporadic over the last two years or so. I met up with some friends last night. and we got chatting about the stuff I get up to online, when one friend, let’s call her L (hi if you’re reading this, by the way), commented on when I have and hadn’t been posting. Basically the whole conversation ended with me saying that I really do need to update more, and that I would do it every day for a week in an effort to kick-start my plan.

So, here we have it. I’m going to post every day on this blog for the next seven days, but not everything will be cerebral palsy-related. Some of you might think this is a great idea and some of you might get sick of me popping up in your various social media feeds, but I’m going to do it. You have been warned.

I have an acupuncture appointment later this week that I’ll be able to update you on, and at least one video that I need to get edited and put onto YouTube that I can share here too. If there’s anything you’d like me to write about then let me know.

See you tomorrow,

Nic x

 

 

November was indeed crazy!

Hey, remember how I wrote that blog post before November even started saying that it was going to be a crazy month, what with NaNoWriMo going and all my appointments and stuff? Well it turned out to be an even crazier month than I thought, what with NaNoWriMo going on, all my appointments, going to see one of my favouriate authors doing a talk, and my family re-homing a dog from some of our friends who couldn’t give her as much attention as they would have liked any more. Yup, you read that right Little Miss Turns-Into-A-Ball-of-Anxiety-Everytime-a-Dog-Even-Looks-At-Her now shares a home with a dog. And I love her. Well, I never.

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? My first day of NaNo was awful, and it didn’t get any better. It took me about two days to get what I affectionately call ‘NaNo Neck’ this year. That is what I call it when my neck, back and shoulders all hate me for pending too much time hunched over my laptop, which happens every year sooner or later. My plot was virtually non-exsistant (and still is.) I had several days where I didn’t write anything, but I dragged myself over the finish line with a few hours to spare. Here’s a YouTube video I made about the whole thing, if you’re interested.

 

Needless to say the month was a tough one in terms of my cerebral palsy, what with all the extra pain and the cold (omg the cold) but I did have my botox and they’ve ordered me some new boots to go with my calipers, which I needed as my old ones were getting holes in. Oh, and everything went fine at the dentist, which is always nice. Apparently I don’t have to go for another nine months now instead of six months. Yippee!

So, let’s talk about the dog now. She’s a six year-old shi tuz called Tallulah and at first I was really, really nervous about getting her. I’ve never had a dog before, and don’t know a lot about them, and the ones that I have been around have generally been bouncy or yappy or too playful for me to handle, and then of course there is my whole ‘cats are clean dogs are dirty’ thing that my brain thinks for some reason.

There were a few teething problems so I kept things quiet about her online until we had them a bit more under control in case it turned out that we weren’t the right family for her and she wasn’t the right dog for us. Anyway, things have settled and we’re keeping her, although things still aren’t easy because the poor little thing is undergoing a phantom pregnancy (she’d just had her last season a month of two before we got her) and the poor thing is very sad and confused about why she doesn’t have puppies yet.

So, that was the hectic month that was Novemeber. Hopefully I’ll be back a little more regularly now. How are you guys?

Life Update September 2016

Oh my gosh I’m not gonna lie, I actually have no idea where to start with this post. There has been so much going on lately. I think I’m just going to break everything down into sections, or as best as you can with a life update anyway, and hope that it makes sense.

Cerebral Palsy Stuff

This is the most obvious place for me to start, but it’s probably the hardest.

I’ve been having a pretty bad CP month to be honest. I tried to do what I said I was going to do in my last blog and exercise more to try make myself feel better. I feel like it made things worse and didn’t really help with my aches and pains. Things have been a bit better over the last couple of days even though I’m full of cold. I’m hoping I can take this as a good sign because being ill usually makes bad CP days seem even worse. I’ve decided that I’m not going to push things too hard until I’m better, and then I’ll just have to see what happens.

Writing Stuff

Writing and editing is still happening. Even though I’m working on a massive edit of one of my novel projects I’m still trying to write long form here and there too. The editing is taking up lots of time and energy, but hopefully it will be worth it in the end.

I’ve recently got into watching slam poetry videos on YouTube, and I’ve decided that it might be nice to try enter one myself next year. I’ve not written slam poetry before, but I’ve been practicing and I’m enjoying it. Hopefully, I’ll write something I like enough to post on YouTube soon.

YouTube Stuff

I haven’t uploaded on YT in a while, but I have been going back through my old videos and starting to add subtitles. It’s going to take ages, to get through them all, but I will do eventually.

I think that’s it for now, how’s everything with you guys?

I just couldn’t go any faster

Yesterday was weird. It was weird for so many reasons, but rather than go into all the reasons why here I’m just going to talk about it from a cerebral palsy point of view. And yes, I am aware that the idea of having a ‘weird’ CP day, (as opposed to, ya’know, a bad one), is a pretty weird thing in itself.

Annnnywaaay,

Long story short yesterday involved quite a bit more walking than I’ve probably had to do in a while. I don’t feel like I’ve done anywhere near enough of the stuff lately, which is a whole other blog post in itself.

In truth, it was nowhere the most walking I’ve done in a day, and it didn’t even make me that tired (score!) but at the end of the end I wanted to walk quickly to so that I could catch my bus without having to wait a whole hour for the next one.

Well, I tried to up my pace, but I just couldn’t.

I felt like I was doing all the right things to speed up, but my legs just would not go any faster no matter what I did. Now, don’t get me wrong, moving fast under any circumstances other than a spider landing on my head just doesn’t happen when you’re me. I know that I walk really slowly compared to the average able-bodied person, but I can push myself to go a bit beyond my natural pace when I want to.

Yes, I had done a lot of walking, but I hadn’t pushed myself that hard. I’d taken it slowly, on purpose. I felt tired in a way that I could do with a nap, but not in a my-legs-might-just-be-about to drop off way.

I’m not sure what was going on. Have any of you felt anything like this before? I don’t know if it’s because my fitness levels have dropped, or because my bag was really, really heavy. Maybe it’s just because I’m getting older. I just don’t know. I’m trying not to worry about this too much. If anything, I need to use it as motivation to get more exercise.

On a more light-hearted note, I made a video the other day at 5am when I couldn’t sleep. Some of you might enjoy it as it’s about writing, some of you might not. Either way, I’ll leave it here it case you want to watch it:

 

Thanks for listening,

Nic xx