Fibro Blogger Directory

This is the first in our series Fibro Bloggers and their Stories, where you can get to know more about our Fibro Blogger Directory members.
This week's story is from Glenys, who lives in Australia and blogs at Morning Cuppas With Glenys where she shares her daily life as a christian woman living with fibromyalgia and other chronic illnesses. During my time reading her blog she has gone from travelling around in a RV to now living in a home. Here is what Glenys has to say...

I have been pretty much bedridden this last week. For the first time I feel a little life in me so I am going to try to catch up on a bit of housework. I am really concerned about doing too much and burning out again, inducing another fibromyalgia flare. So I have to consider that as I plan my return to domesticity. I don't want another setback that puts me to bed again. It's all about spoons!

The journey back to domesticity is not without peril. There is a fine line between adequate expenditure of energy and exhaustion. Exhaustion can sneak up on you and bite you on the heel when you least expect it. Each day is a challenge as you will see in reading this post.... this is a typical day in the life of a chronically ill wife.

You can be managing quite nicely, up to your chin in folding clean clothes on your bed, when suddenly you wake with a start to find that you have fallen asleep and dribbled all over your husbands' underpants and shirts. Or you can plunge your hand into a sink of the cold and slimy water for soaking dishes left over from yesterdays' dinner that were supposed to be done as soon as you got your second wind after cooking last night. Only the second wind didn't come: not even a breeze!

Vacuuming can take forever as you find that the bag needs emptying and you can't find a new one and as you search, you smell a rancid odour from the washer, where you find yesterdays' wash finished and patiently waiting to be hung out. The washer is reset to rinse the smelly load but you forget to look for the vacuum bag as you fret about how many spoons it will cost to hang the clothes out.

Starting to feel anxious and overwhelmed, you decide to have a cup of tea. A donut in the pantry calls your name and as you open the microwave to heat it, you are surprised by your bowl of porridge left there at 6 am when you got your husband's breakfast. Pulling a tissue out of the box, you have a little cry into your cup of tea as you munch your donut. You are hungry because you didn't actually eat breakfast after all.

Sick at heart and already feeling tired, you decide to just chuck the clothes in the dryer, soak the dishes in fresh hot soapy water for washing later on in the afternoon and you have a nap... after all, a nana nap will help your brain fog clear and you can catch up then. But the afternoon brings it own set of woes as you wake feeling worse.

You consult your menu list only to find that even though you intended to get the meat out to defrost this morning, you had suddenly felt compelled to double check that you had taken your meds and then you forgot about the meat. With your confidence rattled, you wash the pans that are needed for tonight's cooking and resolve for the hundredth time today to do better.

Eventually the day draws to a close with the evenings' dishes soaking in the sink ready for that elusive second wind. And as you feed the cat and take your evening meds, you wonder if tomorrow will be any better...Lying in bed and in a funk bordering on depression, you start to pray for strength for the morrow and a restful nights' sleep. Only no thoughts come to pray with sense and you are swept into a fitful sleep on a long sighhhhh.

So ends another day and domesticity is still far far away.