So this is why I’m here; to compile a list of things that I’m hoping to achieve in the coming year.

1. I want to work to the highest of my abilities at work for the period needed to earn the promotion to a full member of staff.
2. I want to earn enough money to pay for a holiday to Parga, Greece for me and Richard.
3. To stick by my decision to have a birthday party. (Something I always avoid as I lack confidence in most areas and feel I don’t have enough friends to warrant a party. This will be a real hard one to stick by).
4. I vow to work as hard as possible regarding all of the Open University courses. I hope to pass the said courses with the highest grade possible.
5. I hope that in the upcoming year I can work as hard as possible to keep my health as stable as possible. This means that I hope to manage any activity that would strain my fatigue levels. (Not an easy resolution to stick too, but beneficial at the end of the year).
6. I wish to to take up Archery as a hobby. This involves completing a 5 week Archery course.
7. And finally (for now), I wish too be in a better financial situation at the end of the year than I am in now. I hope to start to save money regarding the chance to get a mortgage.

And there it is. The ‘start’ of my New Years Resolution list. Some of them are things that I’m really struggling with at the moment, for example wanting to keep my health at a stable level (it being something that I’ve struggled with over the past year especially). The Resolutions regarding my work (as a Customer Services Adviser) are also important to me. I really do want to work hard (with it being my first proper job). It also means that we will have virtually a full second wage coming in, so if I work hard enough and stick at it, i could bring in enough money to be able to afford a few luxuries.

Edit 6/1/10: Every week I read back over the entries that I’ve posted through that week. I like to make sure that the things I post are as accurate as possible, I guess, and sometimes I like to add to posts with things I’ve thought about after I’ve posted.

In this case, reading back over my new years resolution list, not only did I add a resolution, but I felt that my list didn’t portray that however normal those resolutions seemed, for me, they are a great deal. I can always hope, and dream, and really do feel if i manage my illness, that I can achieve a great deal. A ‘great deal’ for me is managing to work, and earn, and maintain/manage my health those things mean a lot for me.

There was also a few other things I wanted to mention (which I’ll go into briefly at the moment as I’m sitting at working updating my blog!).

Firstly is a Video created by a friend relating to M.E and being Bed Bound. It really touched me, and is something I know all too well as I have been Bed Bound in the past due to my M.E. All I ask is you give it a quick look, would mean a lot to us and our cause.

Sever M.E

I will also be adding a section to my Blog about M.E, and the Campaign for recognition and publicity. It will be linked to a YouTube channel, created by the Administrator of a M.E group on Facebook. The youtube channel will be used by sufferers of M.E to highlight the difficulties of living with M.E on a daily basis. I am also planning to post my own video to the channel when it goes live, so please watch out for it.

I’ve been pondering about posting this for several days now. I feel it’s important to portray what my illness is, and how it effects me, but it’s just super depressing, and I don’t want to bring down the tempo of my blog. But I’ve decided to go ahead and write this up, and hope it helps at least one person understand how debilitating it can be for us.

I suffer from an illness called Myalgic Encephalopathy (M.E). It’s also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (C.F.S), or Post-Viral Fatigue Syndrome (P.V.F.S). I simply refer to my illness as M.E as it’s so much simpler.

Some of the symptoms include sever and debilitating fatigue, painful muscles and joints, disordered sleep, and poor memory and concentration, just to name a few. In many cases onset is linked to a viral infection. Other triggers may include an operation or an accident, although some people experience a slow onset.

In some cases the effects of the illness can be miminal, but on the most part, lives are changed drastically: In the young, schooling and higher education can be severely disruped; in the working population, employment becomes impossible for many. For all, social life and family life become restricted and in some cases severely strained. People may also become housebound.

I’ve been trying to work out when I first fell ill, but it’s been such a long time it’s hard to pinpoint the date! I think it was 2005. I’d just started a new year at high school, and came home from the first day feeling a little hot and cold, a little fevery, and that’s where it began for me.

I suffered from what we presumed was the flu for the first two or so weeks after I fell ill. We had repeated doctor appointments as the weeks went by, and they couldn’t pinpoint what was actually wrong. They suggested varies theories, but none of them ever amounted to anything.

After 2 or 3 months (I think!), they suggested PVFS. We didn’t actually realize at that point that PVFS was indeed the same as M.E. We presumed (as the name suggested), that I’d simply suffer from fatigue after the viral infection, and that I’d recover. At this point I was struggling greatly to get back in to school, I really did push myself as we didn’t realize that it could be doing more harm than good.

Life went on this way for several further months. By this point my knees had swollen (a swelling that has remained there for the whole period of me being ill). It prevented me from walking in the beginning.

Between the six and twelve month period I’d been referred to the pediatric unit at my local hospital. We really did have to fight for the official diagnosis. To be diagnosed you have to have been suffering for 6 months, and you have to meet a set criteria. Luckily I did eventually get my diagnosis, but we where always hoping up to that point that they’d realize they had made a big mistake and I was actually suffering from something that could be diagnosed by taking a test and that they would be a cure.

From there I was pushed to stay in education, which I did manage to a certain extent. I got to the stage where my year 9 exams had come around, and I had very limited knowledge of the subjects due to not actually being in school all that much. I managed to get through the exams though, thanks to help from my parents driving me to school pre-exam, meeting me for lunch, feeding me, letting me sleep in the back of the car, then getting me back in for my exams and picking me up afterwards. I wouldn’t have got through it all if it wasn’t for them.

After that things continued to slowly go downhill. We tried many alternative therapies, all to no avail. After two years or so we managed to get my medication stabilized, but it took a lot of experimentation on the doctors part as there were several medicines I was allergic to at that point.

There are many possible symptoms that you could suffer from, but it’s very uncommon to suffer from them all. It’s common for symptoms to change and fluctuate during the course of the illness.

For me, in the beginning my main symptom was the pain in my knees (as mentioned above). They’ve remained swollen to the current date. I found the best way to explain the type of pain it is for me would be to describe it as a deep burning sensation right in the bones. The pain also makes my knees very sensitive to the touch. Sometimes even my clothes touching the skin can cause me great pain.

The pain that M.E sufferers suffer from is not curable through pain killers, so what ever the amount ingested, it doesn’t touch the pain, so I mostly try to suffer without them aside from the medication I’m already on.

I also suffer from the same type of pain in my lower neck, and shoulders. This is usually made worse by extensive periods of sitting up at my PC desk, or driving. Saying ‘ it hurts’ is an understatement, I’m not sure I can really convey the levels of pain. The doctors did suggest morphine at one point, but my dad refused as he didn’t want my body getting addicted too it.

More recently I’ve also started to get pain in my ankles and feet (causing my feet to swell if I walk too far) and sometimes my hands (causing my fingers to swell, usually if I’ve driven too much or gripped on to something for too long a period).

As well as the above (early on in the stage of my illness), I was also suffering from the extreme fatigue (one of the main symptoms suffered by every sufferer). I wasn’t always able to walk out side without a wheelchair, due to the said fatigue. Today, I still have my wheelchair, but attempt to not use it (which definitely makes me relapse, but I try my hardest to be as independent as possible). I still regularly use my walking stick and crutches, but again, not as much as I used to. The fatigue can get absolutely terrible. The best way I can describe it is having your internal batteries run down to nothing, sleep then not replenishing your batteries, and having to get up the next morning again with no battery life. Going to bed at night knowing that I’ll wake up the next morning even more exhausted than the night before is soul destroying. My illness there for affected my sleeping patterns, at one point being nocturnal. Luckily though I’ve fixed my sleeping habits and I sleep now at relatively normal hours.

I also suffered from cognitive problems and sensitivity to light (meaning I had to wear protective sun glasses at all times; a symptom that luckily eased as the years went by). I experienced sensitivity to the smell of certain food, (I.e the smell of meat cooking), which often made me sick.

Other smaller symptoms at that time were sensitivity to temperature, usually meaning my body dealt with extreme hot or cold periods differently to that of a normal person. At some points I also suffered from a certain amount of hair loss.

Another point I wanted to make, was that of my problems with eating. Sufferers from M.E can go down one of two paths: One, not eating because of lack of apatite due to not moving/burning calories, or two, gaining weight due to eating and not being well enough to burn those calories. Sadly I went down the path of loosing my apatite, and a very long battle with my eating was the result. I lost a lot of weight, and fought with my problems with my eating for a very long time. It was a big cycle, I’d not eat because I wasn’t hungry, then I’d feel sick due to not eating, then I didn’t want to eat as I new I’d feel sick afterwards, and the cycle continued. This meant that I lost a lot of weight (being able to fit in to children’s clothes at one point). Without my mums help and encouragement with my eating, I think I’d probably be feeding by a tube at present (which is the case of some sufferers). Loosing weight also affected other aspects of my body, meaning certain things stopped functioning, something that I’ve only recently recovered from.

In the past at different points I’ve been bed bound and unable to walk (my bed at this point was downstairs), in hospital due to my M.E, and regularly in A&E. My dad had been my carer for over 2 years, my mum my carer before that, and now my boyfriend, who looks after me when I’m ill.

I’ve been pondering about posting this for several days now. I feel it’s important to portray what my illness is, and how it effects me, but it’s just super depressing, and I don’t want to bring down the tempo of my blog. But I’ve decided to go ahead and write this up, and hope it helps at least one person understand how debilitating it can be for us.

Puppy

I’m writing this from the comfort of my sofa, with Kira, our Siberian Husky puppy by my side, half sleeping, half playing, and George, not actually wanting to be social!

I’ll start with Kira. Choosing and buying her came out of the blue, but the idea of me and Rich wanting a puppy wasn’t a spur of the moment decision. We’d toyed with an Irish Wolfhound for quite a while; he’d had one in the past, and loved him dearly. I was a little worried about the size of some of the dogs he was interested in, and whether we could afford to maintain a big dog!

Over the weekend, we’d viewed a few animal shelters, but decided that that wasn’t the way to go. The animals were lovely, but we just didn’t find one we ‘gelled’ with. It didn’t seem that they’d ever feel like they were ‘ours’, and they were nearly always at an age where it would be too late to integrate him/her with George (which was really important).

We came away from the shelters feeling really despondent. We decided to have a look at the net when we got home, to see if there was any possibility of buying a puppy instead. We looked around, and focused our search in the end on Siberian Huskies. Rich was keen on the breed, so I happily went with it.

I believe in fate, and destiny and I believed right from the beginning that when we found the right puppy, we’d know. The first 20 or so adverts we viewed just didn’t feel right. They where either too expensive, or male (which we didn’t overly want), or in a location that just wasn’t practical.

We did finally come across one advert though, and we had a really great feeling right from the beginning. She was the last of a little from Leicester. When we initially phoned the breeder, he was very, very friendly. He answered all of our questions and was happy for us to go view her.

Leicester is only 20 minutes or so from us in Coventry, and we traveled up to meet the puppy. The area wasn’t what I was expecting; it was the poorer side of town, so we where a little apprehensive. When we met Kira, she initially seemed very sleepy (she is a puppy though so it was to be expected). Rich held her first, and she snuggled him, and when straight back to sleep. Then I held her, and she just sank in to my arms. She loved every minute of it, and we instantly bonded. I didn’t want to put her down!

We questioned the breeder, and all seemed to be in order. She eventually woke up and instantly jumped down to the floor and started to chew my shoe laces! Naughty Kira. We decided to buy her there and then. We loved her so much! She traveled home just perfectly, she lay down and went back to sleep. A big contrast to how George is when he travels, he gets super excited and barks the whole way!

She’s settled in extremely well She’s chewed everything, peed everywhere, made lots of mess, and spent all of her remaining time sleeping! She’s really settled in nicely, and is growing bigger and bigger by the day! It’s really strange seeing how she’s changing; just her facial features developing, and her coat colour.

She wont be fully grown until she’s 2 and a half years old (she’s 8 weeks at the moment). She’ll get as big as I am when she’s standing on her back legs. She’ll also need walking an hour or more a day (which will be Richards job as my health just wont stand it).

That’s all for now regarding dogs!
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Christmas

Christmas is closely upon us! ARG! I’m trying to work out how long I can put off Christmas for. Don’t get me wrong, when the day arrives, I love it, I just dislike how suddenly Christmas starts in August and September and my radio is filtered with Christmas tunes! Really frustrates me.

As far as plans for Christmas day though, I’m really conflicted as to where to be and what to do! I really don’t want my dad being alone at Christmas, would be so strange without him. As well as that though, I’m going to be super sad to not see my sister at Christmas. Boo.

In the end we kind of came up with some form of plan. Dad will spend the morning of Christmas day with my Jen, my sister. At mid day he’ll travel up to me and Richards (about a 2 hour drive). We’ve all then been invited to Richards brothers wifes parents (still with me?!) for Christmas day meal, which will be great, means I don’t have to cook, hurray! Boxing day will be spent at Richards parents for boxing day celebrations.

Thats what’s happening on the 25th! It’s all so new for me, we’ve never really made a huge fuss at Christmas. We’ve always had the family tree, and the meal in the afternoon, and presents of course, but that’s been about it! We’ve never really had boxing day celebrations, or new years celebrations, so I think I’m in for some fun this year!

As far as presents go, Richards sorted, dads sorted, mums sorted, as is her boyfriend, and my uncle/aunt. Still conflicted as to what to buy my sister, due to the fact my mum stole my present idea! What a coincidence! GRR! We had such fun laughing over that when we found out that we’d both decided to buy the same present for her, i’ll make sure she knows it was my idea first!
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Open University and job hunting

As i’ve already mentioned, i’m studying the first course which will count towards my degree. I received the results of my first assignment a few days ago, and and am pretty dam chuffed with the mark! I was scored 88% (The Open Uni works in percentages instead of grades..). I’m dam chuffed I have to say! There’s certain points I need to work on, so will make sure I sort those out for the next assignment. I also had my monthly tutorial last night, which meant I had to travel back east as I haven’t changed regions yet. I was feeling terrible and really didn’t want to go, but it turned out to be worth it and helped answered a few questions I had.

I am completely shattered today though. I’m in super amount so of pain after the 5 and a half odd hours driving yesterday (To my dads, to pick up his car, back to my tutorial, then home). Having some trouble walking as my knee and ankle joints/muscles have swollen and seized up. Is due to me overdoing it and I know I shouldn’t push myself in that way, but sometimes it’s necessary, at least once a month for my tutorial.

Due to part of my benefits stopping, (as I think I’ve already mentioned), I’ve had to start to search for a job, something I didn’t anticipate I’d have to do until after I’d finished my degree. I’ve applied to several retail positions, working on tills, and varies boring things.

I’ve also applied today to several Web Content Editing positions, which I have to say I’m pretty nervous about. Due to not finishing school though, I have little qualifications (pre degree), and have had no previous work experience, so I’m just not confident I’d land a job in the IT field (which would definitely be ideal for me).

I’m hoping to pick up some volunteer work over the next few months, and work hard, so I have at least some experience to put on my CV, as it’s looking rather bare at the moment.

Before I sign off, I’d like to thank the continuing support of the readers of my blog. There has been so many views, and comments over the past month, and it’s really appreciated. I have always said, and always will, that I write for me. I don’t do it to follow the crowd. I don’t limit my posts so it follows a set of ‘rules’ or ideals. I just write. It’s always been a release for me, a way to get things off my chest and document what’s happening in my life, and I think that’s reflected in the end result. So again, thank you for reading!
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The thoughts on my mind at the moment though are mainly linked to the dairy intolerance. I’ve officially been on the diet over 3 and a half weeks now (and Richard on his Wheat and Gluten free diet, but that’s a whole different story), and I defiantly think I’m benefiting from the change. I think if it wasn’t for the flu, I would be feeling a bigger change than I actually am at the moment. The flu kinda cancels all the benefits out.

The whole reason for the diet in the first place, was to try and combat my migraines (which I’ve been plagued with for 4 or 5 years). I had my first migraine 3 or 4 days ago for the first time since the diet change, and I was completely surprised! I usually get extremely severe ‘medical’ migraines, but this time, it was actually quite mild! I’m praying that it’s due to cutting out the dairy. But then there’s the whole question of, if its the dairy intolerance that causes them in the first place, why did I get another attack? I just don’t know, it could have been a whole number of things!

I think we’re coping with the change pretty well. The way in which I did the weekly food shop had to completely change though, I couldn’t buy anything really that I’d usually buy. The ‘Free From’ range in Tescos is pretty great, they do several meal options that don’t have wheat, gluten or dairy in (which works great for both me and Richard), but I’m finding it a little difficult creating different meals, so the food we eat isn’t the same week in week out. I’m thinking a ‘Wheat, Gluten and Dairy Free’ cook book might be on my Christmas list!

Eating out is a whole different story though. We went to a Chinese noodle bar yesterday (which was great!), and somewhere along the lines we think Rich consumed Wheat and Gluten, and I felt pretty sick, so not sure If something I ate was dairy. Gets us down so we don’t eat out that much any more (which saves money for sure).

When we moved in, we had to decide whether we wanted to go with Sky, or Virgin (for the TV, broadband, and phone line), and we where initially leaning towards sky, until we had looked in to Virgin. It was Richard’s dad who first mentioned Virgin, and with the fiber optic broadband line with the faster Internet definitely leaned us towards Virgin. There TV system also seemed much better than Sky. I think sky is so over publicized.

We’d arranged for the Virgin installation. Unfortunately they couldn’t install until two weeks later (one week more than Sky had quoted us for), but we took that option because of the better services we’d hoped to get. Two weeks later, no sign of the installation guy, so we called up virgin for some advice on what had happened (a call that I later found out cost me £17….), they informed us the installation had been postponed for another two weeks due to an unforeseen problem. They apologized and later offered us £25 off of our first bill because of the hassle they’d caused, but to be honest, after the customer service and the cost of the phone called, I’m really not happy. We’d hoped they’d offer us more than Sky could in every way possible, but it seems that that ideal customer experience just isn’t possible. I think they are all just out to make money, like any other company.

Sadly we hadn’t been feeling that well really the weekend before we got the keys. We presumed it had just been a cold, and tried to get on with the weekend. We attended a family fireworks display that weekend, and we hid at home on the Sunday as we really where starting to feel rough..We managed to get the keys and get all of the stuff moved in on the Monday. By GOD was that a task. I’ve never known moving to be so stressful!

We did though, sadly, start to get sicker the next few days after we moved in. Rich had it worse than I did initially, and I decided in the end to call NHS direct (the out of hours doctors surgery), and they advised we called the flu pandemic line and was later diagnosed with Swine Flu. Great! All of the family we came in contact also fell ill (Richards parents, and brother and his wife, her sister and their parents. Somehow my dad avoided the whole thing!). I’m still feeling the effects of it (due to my M.E/C.F.S).

Since moving in, we’ve done very little, really. I started my search for a small part time job due to loosing my Income Support benefit. The search is going as well as to be expected. Due to having little work experience and only a handful of qualification due to my illness, I’m not holding out hope that I’ll get employment straight away. Theres a few jobs I’ve got my eye on, which would be perfect, but we’ll just have to see how fate deals its hand.

We managed to get our feet on the ground. We picked up a rug for the living room, and a coffee table relatively cheaply. We also bought a 2 piece suit for £100 at a second hand store (a charity which is a great cause). We’d already got quite a bit of the other stuff, although had to spend out for a new fridge/freezer and a washing machine, which couldn’t really be avoided.

The living room had been redecorated before we moved in (the owner paid for that work). The carpet is DISGUSTING though, so hence we bought a rug to cover some of it! The kitchen is just tiny. Theres room for a cooker, and a tiny amount of work surface; Coventry is a mining town, so the houses tend to be small, and the kitchens even smaller. We have three bedrooms, two of them doubles pretty much the same size, one of them having a double bayed window (which we’ll probably use as the master), with a small single. The single is larger than what you’d usually get in a house in this area though. The bathroom is also small (but does the job), no shower though, which is slightly off putting.

The garden space out side is what sold the property too us. Its a corner plot (which is rare, we where just lucky I think!). The garden starts at the front, and runs all the way around to the back which has a decent sized lawn. Theres also a shed, and garage, with space for a car in front. (We have the two motorbikes in the garage, and my car in front of it). Finding a property with not only a garage, but off road parking, is just, non existent . It seems people where just too off put by the decoration!

The decoration upstairs is just.. terrible. The owner wasn’t willing to paint up there. The bathroom has wallpaper half way up, which is slightly moldy and needs repainting (the carpet in the bathroom is slightly stained too, but will be better with a bath mat). The hallway, I can’t describe. The painters only painted half way up the stairs, then claimed they ran out of funding and didn’t take the painting any further up! The hallway upstairs will need to be repainted, it’s mainly just the stair rails and the doors (which are pink). The first double bedroom is a creamy yellow, and livable, but the master bedroom was PINK! Oh the curse of pink bedrooms.

We’ve started to paint out the master bedroom (as we’re currently living in the back double). The walls took two coats of cream, and the ceiling also two coats of white. The ceilings and skirting boards and rails where stained a nasty yellow colour due to the previous tenant smoking in the bedroom so it all needed re painting. We’re hoping to get the second coat of gloss on today or tomorrow.

As for property repairs, when we moved in 3 of the lights down stairs didn’t work, so we had to call in engineers to fix it. The fire had been condemned shortly before we moved in, so we had to fight for the owner to provide an electric heater as the central heating just wasn’t cutting it and we where pretty cold the first few days! The garage door also needed replacing, which has now been done. The roof in the conservatory is also now leaking, which we’re told isn’t repairable, so the whole roof needs to be replaced. URG! Chances of the owner paying for that is slim though. The guy that came to look at it said it would probably take over a day to repair if it wasn’t replaced. This all means we can’t lay our carpet in the conservatory, which means it’s being unused at the moment.

Apart from all of that, we love the place! We had some problems with some kids on the property the first day we moved in (which ended up with the police being called, but that was quick and painless with Richard working in the force). The next door neighbors also seem slightly.. annoying. They keep throwing moldy bread in to the garden which the dog keeps eating, and then they keep us up at night with knocks and bangs and shouting, but, we can live with it at the moment!

As for this weekend, my dad arrives today, and we have a local rock concert tomorrow with family, which should be a lot of fun!

For now, I’ll leave it there, that pretty much covers everything that’s been happening the past few weeks.

Adios (for now!)

The past few days have been pretty hellish even by my standards (I can put up with nearly anything, but sickness and migraines is just horrible). I gorged out on a big jacket potatoe and a whole tub of cottege cheese (I new I wasn’t feeling so great after dairy, but didn’t think it would do me much harm..) and ended up with my head over a bucket and a nasty migraine all day Wednesday. I really was sick. In the end we called NHS direct (the Uks out of hour doctors services), and got some amazing advice from the nurses.

It appears I’ve been having problems with a dairy intolerance for many years now, but the doctors never actually put two and two together. Great.. my trust in doctors diminished even further. So the past few days I’ve been doing my best to implement a dairy free diet. Parts of it aren’t as hard as you’d think, the soya milk alternatives can be pretty nice (certain makes are nicer than others), and the dairy free butter doesn’t seem to be too bad (the dairy free cheese I’ve yet to try..), but the hardest part for me, is finding food that doesn’t actually contain milk. It’s just crazy! It isn’t as simple as scamming the label and looking for just ‘milk’, milk not being listed and me being able to pick up the product. I have to check for 13 or 14 different ingredients that all contain the milk protein. SO FRUSTRATING!

My dad also suffers from the same type of problems that I do (migraines linked to consuming dairy products, general ill health, fatigue, joint pain), but he’s chosen to eat up whats left in our cupboards until he fully transfers to the dairy free diet. Me though, I’m not wanting to wait, so I’ll start the diet straight away. I’d rather not be ill again like I was the other day, that’s for sure!

I’m told that I need to implement the diet for 1 to 3 months before I will be able to tell if it’s improving my health. I guess that’s not so much of a problem really. I’d keep the diet in place even if the only thing it clears up is my migraines!

I think at the moment I’m worried about eating away from home. We enjoy our take away, or.. at least we enjoy eating away from home, and I’m just worried about the places where I won’t be able to read the ingredients label. I think I’ve basically decided though to avoid the food if I can’t see whats in it. I did my research, and found out what I can and cant eat from my favorite fast food restaurants, and will ask the chefs at the other places I tend to eat at, just to make sure there’s things there I can safely consume.

It’s all complicated stuff really.

I have a good few weeks coming up (I’m actually quite excited). Tomorrow we’re heading to a big market during the day (It’s huge, and soo many stalls, I love it!) with Matt and Kate (two of mine and Richards friends). Then in the evening all four of us will be going to the cinema, and on to a restaurant for some food after that (which I’m rather nervous about but.. we’ll see).

November 5^th Richard’s family are holding a bonfire night celebration (which my dad is coming over for, yay) and the 6^th we have a family wedding (which I still need to get my cocktail dress altered for). After that we have a spare few weeks, I hope!

For now I think that is all.