Why hello there! Fancy meeting you this New Year’s Eve, come in, come in. And please excuse the sparkles! 😉
Christmas with Magic Dude’s folks was lovely. Okay,yes it’s true that I sat with my trusty hot water bottle most of the time, with my feet up on the footstool. And yep, it’s also true that I drank more fluids in one day than I can comprehend (pretty much equivalent to putting me on a rooibos tea drip)! And I admit that I tended to nod and pretend I understood what people were saying when I had no clue coz the multiple conversations had taken it’s toll and squashed any remaining ability to process information (unless someone said “Tea?” then the answer was easy)! And of course I thought of my missing family, but the choices of others are the choices of others. We need to hold onto who we are despite the losses and misunderstandings.
Part of who I am is the girl who always dressed up at christmas because, well, why not? I didn’t get to any other time and it felt nice to dress up. And this year I decided to have a giggle trying to make my fingernails look a bit festive. I was going for christmas trees and a snowman…
Yes, I do also paint the skin around my fingernails! It’s just easier that way!
Some bits of masking tape to leave a triangular shape to create the christmas three shape..
Christmas tree shapes, snowman shape with white nail varnish freehand (just blobbed two circular shapes!)…
Ta-daaaaah!
Of course that was my left hand… painted by my dominant right hand.
How do you think the snowman turned out when I had to paint the other one with my useless left hand? 😉
Like this…
Haahahahaaa! It was looking kinda good up until that point, eh?!
(S’cuse the chip, I forgot to take a piccy of the comedy snowman til after christmas)!
I tried to paint on some eyes and buttons but I just got big blobs of paint everywhere, then I tried to wipe them off and… well… snowman-in-the-fog anyone?! Or Magic Dude said it might be a vomiting-snowman? Feel free to add whatever twist you feels fits the, er, artwork! 😉
So, here I am on New Year’s Eve and I’m gonna keep it simple tonight – sparkles will do the trick.
Of course I can’t go anywhere tonight, so I’ll be sat on my sofa with Magic Dude and our Local Friend. Am I ready? I’m so exhausted, and fainty, and nauseated, and… Bah! I’m gonna do New Years Eve from my sofa and it’s gonna be sparkly despite all that.
Checklist:
– One ballgown (yes, ballgown. <pulls a determined face> ! )
– Sparkly nails that don’t exactly go with the dress because I’m such a rebel!
– Christmassy headgear
– Party hats on standby
– Non-alcoholic mulled apple juice for me
– Warm fluffy blanket
– Hot Water Bottle
– Random christmas nibbles
– DVDs to choose from already by the telly
Sorted!
So let’s have a moment in our own homes where we pat ourselves on the back for getting through last year, for smiling and laughing despite the downsides, for making friends online who understand, for finding the ‘me’ in each of us that the health stuff never reaches. You are beautiful. You are strong. And even if your nails aren’t sparkly tonight, your soul certainly is. Sparkle my friends, I will be thinking of you all tonight and wishing you well.
Much love from me to each and every one of you,
x
.
Elle and the Auto Gnome 
Hello Elle,
Just had to send you a huge ‘thank you” for your blog and do hope you are still keeping going with this as your last entry seems to be end of 2013! I am an occupational therapist in Australia (originally an Essex girl, but don’t own up to that too often) and have worked with people with complex pain problems for 20 years plus. I treat many people with CRPS at the severe end of the spectrum just trying to make sense of their weird and not at all wonderful range of symptoms and in one blog you have answered so many questions about issues such as frequent fainting and so many other ANS probs. What troubles me is that the message is still so hard to get through to fellow health professionals; the resulting distress for my clients/patients at feeling, as one of my them wrote to me tonight, “that they just think I’m nuts” , just compounds the problems. I am going to add your link to my website as this is such a wonderful, well-researched and eloquent site.
Take care and keep up the great work
Jane
Hi Jane,
Thank-you so much for the wonderful feedback. I began this weblog to reach out and share information with fellow patients, but to receive such positive feedback from professionals like yourself is so very encouraging.
Yep I’m still here, and I’m definitely not abandoning the weblog. 🙂 I’ve got big plans for making as much of a difference as I can but it’s been slow going the past few months, you know how the cold and rainy winter months in good ole Blighty can get and that dastardly CRPS doesn’t like them either! I’ll be back blogging on the site soon, in the interim few months I’ve been busy creating a CRPS FAQ (info snippets, links to website, research etc) for a support group which I help to admin’. I’m currently in the process of transferring the info’ to a page here on the website as well to make sure that it’s more readily available.
I’m totally with you on the concerns about getting info’ through to the less well-informed professionals. As a result, I’m partway through writing a paper to gather various information on CRPS into one place to allow access to a broader understanding more easily. There’s more things on the To-Do list after that too. 🙂
I am so so pleased that your patients have such an aware professional to have contact with. As awful as it is when professionals get the wrong end of the stick it really does make a massive difference if even one health professional has knowledge about the condition. If you ever want to chat / mull / bounce ideas or anything else you can always pm me on the weblog Fbk page, it’s a pleasure to meet you.
P.S. Don’t tell anyone but I’m originally from Kent 😉