My experiences putting all of me together to cope with chronic illness, depression, anxiety in a constructive way.
Morning Routine
Good Morning Folks :)
I recently read an article recommending routines. I don't remember if it was just for getting things done, being more productive, chronic illness, depression or anxiety. For me, a strict routine has never worked well. I have been able to hold to a loose routine but the details change. The last few months I've hardly had one at all.
The one routine I do keep up most regularly is my morning coffee. So I am going to go through my morning today.
I went to bed with a really bad headache last night. The last few days upset me and that's a pretty typical side effect for me. I was able to sleep pretty well fortunately. I used my mouthguard so I wouldn't grind and my headache is only a specter hovering back in the background. I sleep on a pretty soft mattress with a faux down topper on my back, mostly, with no pillow. I prefer to sleep on my stomach or side but it hurts too much after short time or I wake up with my arms numb from lack of circulation, so I sleep on my back. The alarm goes off for my partner and we snooze it a bit and finally get up and let the furbabies out and start our morning. My left hip hurts and my ribs are killer this morning.
I don't usually take much of anything for the pain because early on I found medications don't work well for me. I had no desire to keep having to take more and more. This morning the ribs are bad enough that I take another naproxen sodium. I took one last night for the headache. When I hurt enough I am unable to ignore it, it tires me out more quickly than the days I can almost pretend everything is more like it used to be.
I love good coffee. After my morning abulations I go fill my french press with water to rinse the old coffee out into the yard. This usually takes a couple trips. Then I put ceylon cinnamon, a couple cloves, nutmeg and my coffee beans in my grinder. The results go in the press and I put on water to boil.
In between all of this, I see what's up online and start this post. Morning kisses and teasing with my partner and reassuring the furbabies that we are indeed alive and well yet another day. I have opened the back door because it's another unexpected cool morning. It would be nice if it were to stay below 90F. Sam the cat, finally getting comfortable being here after almost 2 years has taken to exploring her domain outside. Her original owners had declawed her and she has always felt she needed to spend parts of her time outside. I have had her for about 9 years and 3 houses.
Anyhow the water boils and I pour it in the press, and a little in my cup to warm it. I get out the goat's milk, agave syrup, press my coffee, and empty my cup. I put some syrup in my cup, fill it just over half with coffee and add milk. Put the milk and syrup away and sit down with my coffee.
Sometimes sitting down feels so good. It's not usually comfortable for long but on days like today standing hurts more and sitting eases the pain in my side. My hip appears to have relagated it's aggravation to background noise at this point. Everthing from here on out varies pretty widely from day to day. I have a regular weekly appointment with my therapist every week and that's the only other mostly concrete part of my day/week.
During the appt with my rheumatologist he mentioned aerobic exercise as important. I try to stretch every day but I don't do aerobic anything like I should so that's on my mind today. I feel like maybe I'm past the worst of the diagnosis blues and recovering from being out and about two days in a row. We made plans last night to double date with another couple Sunday evening so I want to be rested enough to enjoy that. I need to get back to some serious writing too as my therapist emphasized yesterday that he feels it is an important break through we can use.
For now, getting up and around and writing this has worn me out. Time to rest a bit.
Be well,
Ms. Fortitude



