What do you class as 'exercise'?
I imagine that the term 'exercise' has a hugely different meaning for me than it does for most of my friends. When I was a child, it meant practising gymnastics, going horse riding, running round with my friends or whatever else I could come up with at the time. As a teenager that did change a little, although I kept up the gymnastics until my mid-teens as well as adding in scuba diving - although I will admit that part of the attraction there was the club bar where they were happy to serve me despite my age. As a healthy adult I was happy to go walking, but refused point blank to run as it was something that I had always hated.
Now exercise can mean as little as sitting on a chair with my feet flat on the floor and simply straightening my leg several times. Like the majority of my friends with either disabilities or disabling illnesses I have to be careful not to get carried away and do too much. I did that back in 2008 when I was apparently improving a little; I got excited that I could walk - without sticks - for up to half a mile. I pushed it too hard, got carried away and ended up spending months in bed; almost back to where I started out.
Because I spend a ridiculous amount of time unable to get out of bed I have had to alter my expectations of what exercise is and try to be realistic about what I can and cannot do. It is hard not to get carried away; I have a tendency to get excited and think that I can do far more than I can. I forget about the consequences of my actions and put myself in a position where I risk exercise having a seriously detrimental effect on my health.
I am trying to be good however. I am starting out with quite literally a couple of repetitions of movement and very, very slowly building on it with the hope that I will get some improvement, however small that may be.
Wednesday 29 May 2013
Tuesday 28 May 2013
Phobias and how my worst phobia began
My big confession: I once left a country because of a spider; or, strictly speaking, a principality.
I have one of the most common phobias around; arachnophobia. Even just thinking about spiders makes me shiver and my flesh crawl as though hundreds of little eight-legged creatures are running all over my body. Believe it or not I actually have an even bigger fear, one that really came about while I was in High School; Crane Flies. I am actually more scared of crane flies, also known as daddy long-legs here in Britain, than I am of spiders and believe me that takes some doing.
I had actually thought that I was getting a little better with spiders, however when one approximately half the size of the palm of my hand ran across the living room floor two nights ago I screamed loud enough to wake the dead. Because the spider ran under the sofa and Pete was unable to catch him, I insisted on being taken into the bedroom and refused to come back in. Even now, two days later, I still keep on checking my legs to make sure that nothing is crawling on me.
I know without doubt though that I will never get any better with daddy long-legs. September is a hellish time of year for me, as it always spawns hundreds of them and they all seem to try and fly straight at my face. I said that this particular fear came about while I was at High School and I was being honest. For anyone that remembers what the layout was like at Crestwood School during the late Eighties and early Nineties, picture the grey mobile classroom building around the back of the school; I think it was near the domestic science classrooms. Come September the entire end of that particular mobile would be absolutely covered with daddy long-legs. When I say covered, I do mean covered. Quite literally heaving with them, barely a millimetre between each of those that were settled on the building, while others crawled over them to try and find a place in the sun.
For a period of time that mobile was my form room and I had to go into that building every single day. Later on I had lessons there one day a week, in the afternoon immediately after lunch. Anyone who remembers that particular lesson will remember me begging people to hold open the doors while I built up my courage to run from the side of the main building past the crawling end of the mobile, up the steps and through the door. Since then I have viewed them with all the fear attached to spiders, with the additional horror that they fly....
At one point my phobias were so bad that they were having a detrimental effect on my life. I worked hard to try and get over them, but only managed to get so far. I simply cannot get past this point and the reaction I had to the spider from two days ago (the reaction I am still having) has shown me that I do actually need to try and find a way to at least reduce the level of fear that I feel. So, if anyone out there knows a good method of dealing with phobias I would love to hear about it.
I have one of the most common phobias around; arachnophobia. Even just thinking about spiders makes me shiver and my flesh crawl as though hundreds of little eight-legged creatures are running all over my body. Believe it or not I actually have an even bigger fear, one that really came about while I was in High School; Crane Flies. I am actually more scared of crane flies, also known as daddy long-legs here in Britain, than I am of spiders and believe me that takes some doing.
I had actually thought that I was getting a little better with spiders, however when one approximately half the size of the palm of my hand ran across the living room floor two nights ago I screamed loud enough to wake the dead. Because the spider ran under the sofa and Pete was unable to catch him, I insisted on being taken into the bedroom and refused to come back in. Even now, two days later, I still keep on checking my legs to make sure that nothing is crawling on me.
I know without doubt though that I will never get any better with daddy long-legs. September is a hellish time of year for me, as it always spawns hundreds of them and they all seem to try and fly straight at my face. I said that this particular fear came about while I was at High School and I was being honest. For anyone that remembers what the layout was like at Crestwood School during the late Eighties and early Nineties, picture the grey mobile classroom building around the back of the school; I think it was near the domestic science classrooms. Come September the entire end of that particular mobile would be absolutely covered with daddy long-legs. When I say covered, I do mean covered. Quite literally heaving with them, barely a millimetre between each of those that were settled on the building, while others crawled over them to try and find a place in the sun.
For a period of time that mobile was my form room and I had to go into that building every single day. Later on I had lessons there one day a week, in the afternoon immediately after lunch. Anyone who remembers that particular lesson will remember me begging people to hold open the doors while I built up my courage to run from the side of the main building past the crawling end of the mobile, up the steps and through the door. Since then I have viewed them with all the fear attached to spiders, with the additional horror that they fly....
At one point my phobias were so bad that they were having a detrimental effect on my life. I worked hard to try and get over them, but only managed to get so far. I simply cannot get past this point and the reaction I had to the spider from two days ago (the reaction I am still having) has shown me that I do actually need to try and find a way to at least reduce the level of fear that I feel. So, if anyone out there knows a good method of dealing with phobias I would love to hear about it.
Sunday 19 May 2013
Photographs and memories of the farm
I have just spent a couple of hours looking through old photographs that I have stored on the computer and various online photograph sties - flickr and photobox are the two sites that I have uploaded to most often. I think flickr has almost three thousand of my photographs on there. My desktop computer has thousands more photographs on that I have not yet got around to uploading.
Recently someone commented to me that they felt that while digital cameras are a fantastic development and allow everyone to see their photographs instantly, we are missing part of what photography means; printed photographs, held in albums that we can look at, hold and take our time over. As I have flicked my way through hundreds of photographs today I think I have decided that I agree.
The photographs I took when I was a child were on film, I had a limited number of photographs that I could take - mostly because mom and dad were not going to pay for an infinite number of films to be developed. Because of that I took more care to only photograph the things I really wanted to. I am not saying my photographs when I was a child were perfect - in fact, far from it. But I think that maybe now we - or I - take so many photographs we fail to look at them. Maybe photographs that remain entirely digital just do not seem to mean as much as the physical photographs.
I do wish that I had taken more photographs on the farm (Llandre Egremont) when I was little. Up until I was around 12 or so the church, St Michaels, was still standing in the same field as the caravans. The graveyard was fairly intact and safe; several of the stones were raised, horizontal stones covering the grave. I suppose many adults would express horror at the thought of four young children making a tree house in a huge Beech tree on the edge of the graveyard and having mini-picnics sitting on the raised stones. We meant no disrespect, in fact we used to talk to the people in the graveyard in that wonderful, innocent way that we lose as we get older.
I have a photograph somewhere of the remains of the church the year we came back after the winter break and found it and the graveyard vastly reduced in size. I was horrified at the time - and to be honest I still am to a degree. The photograph shows my brother on a rope swing that we had hung from the beech in mid swing, one hand on the rope the other out to the side with a huge grin on his face. The church and graveyard with its newly bare earth sit in the background.
That tree was the centre of so many childhood fantasies and games; we would see how high we could climb up the tree, who would dare to jump from the tree on the rope swing - now that was seriously terrifying - and so on. I remember my brother and younger cousin building another tree house in a tree the other side of the field - I think it's another beech - this time with a huge wooden platform crossing several branches and a rope to help you climb up.
I must admit that my cousins did get up earlier than we did at the farm. While they managed to be up in time to collect the eggs from the chickens every day, my brother and I were absent half the time. I was always up to feed the calves though; there was no way I was missing that! Feeding the calves used to consist of mixing up the milk from a dry powder and popping it into a bucket. Persuading the calves to come to the gate and drink the milk was not always easy. Often you had to call some of them until they came closer, dip your fingers into the milk and into the calves mouth, slowly leading them down to the bucket of milk. The new calves were always so lovely and I am glad we were on a farm where they were looked after well, with plenty of room to move around.
As soon as the calves were old enough they went out into the fields. All the cattle were free-range, living in large fields where they were free to roam around. Now and again we would help the farm bring the cattle down from a particular field to be checked over by the farmer or a vet. Of course, it is a beef farm and they are not there just to look pretty. They do end up going to market and from there to slaughter. We went along to the cattle market a couple of times and I have to say that I enjoyed it. I always fully understood the purpose of it, even when I was little. I think we all did. I saw chickens killed, plucked, gutted and prepared for the oven. I fished in the river with my dad, or my mom, caught fish and saw them either thrown back or killed and prepared for the table.
I loved being on the farm and I wish that I could do now what I did in my childhood.
Recently someone commented to me that they felt that while digital cameras are a fantastic development and allow everyone to see their photographs instantly, we are missing part of what photography means; printed photographs, held in albums that we can look at, hold and take our time over. As I have flicked my way through hundreds of photographs today I think I have decided that I agree.
The photographs I took when I was a child were on film, I had a limited number of photographs that I could take - mostly because mom and dad were not going to pay for an infinite number of films to be developed. Because of that I took more care to only photograph the things I really wanted to. I am not saying my photographs when I was a child were perfect - in fact, far from it. But I think that maybe now we - or I - take so many photographs we fail to look at them. Maybe photographs that remain entirely digital just do not seem to mean as much as the physical photographs.
I do wish that I had taken more photographs on the farm (Llandre Egremont) when I was little. Up until I was around 12 or so the church, St Michaels, was still standing in the same field as the caravans. The graveyard was fairly intact and safe; several of the stones were raised, horizontal stones covering the grave. I suppose many adults would express horror at the thought of four young children making a tree house in a huge Beech tree on the edge of the graveyard and having mini-picnics sitting on the raised stones. We meant no disrespect, in fact we used to talk to the people in the graveyard in that wonderful, innocent way that we lose as we get older.
I have a photograph somewhere of the remains of the church the year we came back after the winter break and found it and the graveyard vastly reduced in size. I was horrified at the time - and to be honest I still am to a degree. The photograph shows my brother on a rope swing that we had hung from the beech in mid swing, one hand on the rope the other out to the side with a huge grin on his face. The church and graveyard with its newly bare earth sit in the background.
That tree was the centre of so many childhood fantasies and games; we would see how high we could climb up the tree, who would dare to jump from the tree on the rope swing - now that was seriously terrifying - and so on. I remember my brother and younger cousin building another tree house in a tree the other side of the field - I think it's another beech - this time with a huge wooden platform crossing several branches and a rope to help you climb up.
I must admit that my cousins did get up earlier than we did at the farm. While they managed to be up in time to collect the eggs from the chickens every day, my brother and I were absent half the time. I was always up to feed the calves though; there was no way I was missing that! Feeding the calves used to consist of mixing up the milk from a dry powder and popping it into a bucket. Persuading the calves to come to the gate and drink the milk was not always easy. Often you had to call some of them until they came closer, dip your fingers into the milk and into the calves mouth, slowly leading them down to the bucket of milk. The new calves were always so lovely and I am glad we were on a farm where they were looked after well, with plenty of room to move around.
As soon as the calves were old enough they went out into the fields. All the cattle were free-range, living in large fields where they were free to roam around. Now and again we would help the farm bring the cattle down from a particular field to be checked over by the farmer or a vet. Of course, it is a beef farm and they are not there just to look pretty. They do end up going to market and from there to slaughter. We went along to the cattle market a couple of times and I have to say that I enjoyed it. I always fully understood the purpose of it, even when I was little. I think we all did. I saw chickens killed, plucked, gutted and prepared for the oven. I fished in the river with my dad, or my mom, caught fish and saw them either thrown back or killed and prepared for the table.
I loved being on the farm and I wish that I could do now what I did in my childhood.
Monday 13 May 2013
Memory, distortion and a fantastic childhood experience...
Pete and I were talking about memories last night and how our perceptions of events can change over time. We have a couple of very obvious examples where extended family members tell people that they did something that they could not possibly have done, due to age or other factors. I am sure that a lot of other people can think of similar examples too, either friends or family members that tell the world that they did something selfless or had a worse upbringing than they did and so on and so forth.
I did a course a while back, called Understanding Global Heritage, through Open University where memory and the effects of time were discussed as part of one of the units. I found the concept of memory distortion (article on memory distortion) particularly interesting, especially as it is something I have witnessed first hand. I have kept a diary - on and off - for years and tend to make quite long, detailed entries for significant events. One particular conversation with an individual was something I had found extremely distressing at the time and so had written down everything the person had told me. In great detail. Several years later we were discussing the events in general terms and I raised the particulars that the person had told me. They insisted that they had never told me, that these events had, in fact, never happened and that I was obviously making this up. At the time I was both shocked and confused. I started to doubt my own recollection of the conversation, until I re-read my diary. Now, no doubt I had my own perceptions of the conversation at the time and these formed part of the diary entry, but the conversation and events in question did most definitely happen. I was actually quite worried about the person in question until I read through the module unit and did some research of my own into the subject. I still worry a little because of the actual events, but a lot less than I did initially.
It also made me think about the events that have taken place in my own life, things that I remember (or how I remember them) and stories that I have been told by people who are no longer around. I do not want those stories to be lost; I want there to be a record of them somewhere real, not just online but something tangible. I have decided that I am going to buy a nice, good quality, attractive note book and start writing down all those events that I can remember, all the stories I have been told, so that there is a record of them. Even if the only person who ever reads it is me, at least I will remember the events the way that I remember them now and not further distorted by time and place.
One of the greatest sets of childhood memories that I have is of growing up spending almost all of every school holiday in Wales on a farm in Pembrokeshire - or Dyfed as it was when I was very little. To have grown up being able to collect eggs every morning, to help feed the calves buckets of milk, help herd the cattle, go to the cattle market with the farmer and his wife, pick fruit and veg, ride on a tractor and oh, so much more! I had the greatest time imaginable when I was a kid and I have to say that I am so glad that I had the opportunities that I did. I would not have traded my time on the farm, which I still go to by the way, for anything. While friends would maybe go off for two weeks in over-crowded Spain, with 'organised fun' (I cannot think of anything worse) I got to explore a fantastic farm and have a truly amazing childhood. I want each of those memories to stay as fresh and true as I can make them. Although I wish I had written some of them down sooner, I think that I am going to have a great deal of fun remembering and getting them down on paper now.
I did a course a while back, called Understanding Global Heritage, through Open University where memory and the effects of time were discussed as part of one of the units. I found the concept of memory distortion (article on memory distortion) particularly interesting, especially as it is something I have witnessed first hand. I have kept a diary - on and off - for years and tend to make quite long, detailed entries for significant events. One particular conversation with an individual was something I had found extremely distressing at the time and so had written down everything the person had told me. In great detail. Several years later we were discussing the events in general terms and I raised the particulars that the person had told me. They insisted that they had never told me, that these events had, in fact, never happened and that I was obviously making this up. At the time I was both shocked and confused. I started to doubt my own recollection of the conversation, until I re-read my diary. Now, no doubt I had my own perceptions of the conversation at the time and these formed part of the diary entry, but the conversation and events in question did most definitely happen. I was actually quite worried about the person in question until I read through the module unit and did some research of my own into the subject. I still worry a little because of the actual events, but a lot less than I did initially.
It also made me think about the events that have taken place in my own life, things that I remember (or how I remember them) and stories that I have been told by people who are no longer around. I do not want those stories to be lost; I want there to be a record of them somewhere real, not just online but something tangible. I have decided that I am going to buy a nice, good quality, attractive note book and start writing down all those events that I can remember, all the stories I have been told, so that there is a record of them. Even if the only person who ever reads it is me, at least I will remember the events the way that I remember them now and not further distorted by time and place.
One of the greatest sets of childhood memories that I have is of growing up spending almost all of every school holiday in Wales on a farm in Pembrokeshire - or Dyfed as it was when I was very little. To have grown up being able to collect eggs every morning, to help feed the calves buckets of milk, help herd the cattle, go to the cattle market with the farmer and his wife, pick fruit and veg, ride on a tractor and oh, so much more! I had the greatest time imaginable when I was a kid and I have to say that I am so glad that I had the opportunities that I did. I would not have traded my time on the farm, which I still go to by the way, for anything. While friends would maybe go off for two weeks in over-crowded Spain, with 'organised fun' (I cannot think of anything worse) I got to explore a fantastic farm and have a truly amazing childhood. I want each of those memories to stay as fresh and true as I can make them. Although I wish I had written some of them down sooner, I think that I am going to have a great deal of fun remembering and getting them down on paper now.
Friday 3 May 2013
When I first explain 'trade-offs' to people they often think that it sounds dreadful. For me though trade-offs work like this: EG I know that if I do 'A' then I am going to spend 'X' amount of time unable to get out of bed - is the trade-off of doing 'A' worth it? If the trade-off is worth it, then I simply go ahead.
The trade-off of having the bathroom done is worth it. I have not been able to sleep for several days so I am a little hyped at the moment because I am running on exhaustion fumes. I thought that the trade-off of going to see a good friend that I have not spent enough time with recently would also be worth it - and it most definitely is. I know that the combination of these things will have a knock-on effect on me, but so what! It is my choice and it is the right one for me. Okay, so I might not be able to get out of bed for a couple of weeks, but I have a new bathroom and I have had nice afternoon. Now THAT is most definitely worth it!
I also have some gorgeous flowers to show for my afternoon, from A Cottage Garden in Wolverhampton. I always have such beautiful flowers from there and they last well, which makes a big difference. They are currently sitting on my altar at the moment, brightening up the room.
These are the flowers
People talk about 'pacing' when it comes to chronic illness - and they are right. In theory. It is, however, incredibly difficult to 'pace' your activities when you basically only have bad days. For me on many days the term 'activity' can only be applied to the huge effort involved in getting out of bed and going to the bathroom. Yes, there are days when I can get out of bed and even the rare day when I can make it out the flat. I am lucky.
I am lucky in more than one way; I have an amazingly supportive husband who does all those things that I cannot. He does the housework, the cooking, the shopping and so on, as well as having always worked full time. The amount of work he does for me would cost over fifty-five thousand pounds per year if care had to be paid for. People like my husband save the tax payer an estimate £118 billion every year. Imagine what would happen if people like him went on strike and the country had to actually look after sick and disabled people like me properly....scary thought, huh? Not least for me.
Anyway, enough of the politics. I admittedly do rather hate all the 'big' parties, but do not want to talk about them here.
So, back to pacing. Is it possible to learn to 'pace' properly? You know, although I have heard of a few people that have had success, most of the people I know have struggled with the concept. They have found that the reality of life is that there is no choice other than to try and do as much as you can on the 'better' days otherwise things simply do not get done at all. The theory is that by sticking to a certain level of activity on both 'better' and 'worse' days that overall you will not only find that you start to be able to do more, but that you will get more done overall. But people do not work like that. We, or most of us, find it difficult to leave something that needs doing when we have the energy to do it.
I think that pacing is brilliant in theory, but I am not sure that I can actually come anywhere near to doing properly in practise.
The trade-off of having the bathroom done is worth it. I have not been able to sleep for several days so I am a little hyped at the moment because I am running on exhaustion fumes. I thought that the trade-off of going to see a good friend that I have not spent enough time with recently would also be worth it - and it most definitely is. I know that the combination of these things will have a knock-on effect on me, but so what! It is my choice and it is the right one for me. Okay, so I might not be able to get out of bed for a couple of weeks, but I have a new bathroom and I have had nice afternoon. Now THAT is most definitely worth it!
I also have some gorgeous flowers to show for my afternoon, from A Cottage Garden in Wolverhampton. I always have such beautiful flowers from there and they last well, which makes a big difference. They are currently sitting on my altar at the moment, brightening up the room.
These are the flowers
People talk about 'pacing' when it comes to chronic illness - and they are right. In theory. It is, however, incredibly difficult to 'pace' your activities when you basically only have bad days. For me on many days the term 'activity' can only be applied to the huge effort involved in getting out of bed and going to the bathroom. Yes, there are days when I can get out of bed and even the rare day when I can make it out the flat. I am lucky.
I am lucky in more than one way; I have an amazingly supportive husband who does all those things that I cannot. He does the housework, the cooking, the shopping and so on, as well as having always worked full time. The amount of work he does for me would cost over fifty-five thousand pounds per year if care had to be paid for. People like my husband save the tax payer an estimate £118 billion every year. Imagine what would happen if people like him went on strike and the country had to actually look after sick and disabled people like me properly....scary thought, huh? Not least for me.
Anyway, enough of the politics. I admittedly do rather hate all the 'big' parties, but do not want to talk about them here.
So, back to pacing. Is it possible to learn to 'pace' properly? You know, although I have heard of a few people that have had success, most of the people I know have struggled with the concept. They have found that the reality of life is that there is no choice other than to try and do as much as you can on the 'better' days otherwise things simply do not get done at all. The theory is that by sticking to a certain level of activity on both 'better' and 'worse' days that overall you will not only find that you start to be able to do more, but that you will get more done overall. But people do not work like that. We, or most of us, find it difficult to leave something that needs doing when we have the energy to do it.
I think that pacing is brilliant in theory, but I am not sure that I can actually come anywhere near to doing properly in practise.
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