Dancing on ice

Brrrrrrr.

It's been snowing here in Coventry and it looks beautiful when your watching it fall from inside the warm of the house heating on full blast, blanket on and a mug of hot chocolate in your hands.
However, snow can produce a whole new set of challenges in itself! The school run takes longer and becomes the school slide. I have had my mum do it for me too scared of slipping and falling over and injuring myself.  The girls thankfully were at school and nursery as usual but I received a text to say they needed collecting early due to the weather. Now if your reading this from anywhere other than in the UK you would think that with buses stopping, massive delays, deliveries not turning up etc that we're having blizzards? Well you would be wrong, the UK can grind to a halt with just 2 inches of snow!


                       

The white stuff.
So the girls came back early from school and nursery and despite my fear of falling in the snow I am still a big kid at heart and love the snow myself. I wrapped up warm and took the girls outside for a short time to play in the snow.

                          

                                     

                                     

                                      

                           

                           

                               

I was frozen to the bone I really don't know how as a child I used to play out so long in the cold and snow and not seem to feel the cold! The girls really had fun and I know they appreciated me making the effort to come outside and play too. I am paying for being out in the cold now though as my joints are really hurting from the cold!

                        

Flare.

I have just been in a huge fibro flare probably caused by a number of factors. I know for a fact the weather isn't helping the cold and damp really gets to my bones and causes pain. I have also been quite busy which hasn't helped and not properly pacing especially with the girls being off over the Christmas holidays. It always catches up with you. I have also been under a lot of stress which really doesn't help fibro.

                         

During a flare my pain levels tend to go through the roof and become hard to manage. For me my migraines also peak to agonising levels too. My glands also become swollen and very painful especially the ones under my armpits so bad I want to rip them out. Nothing helps when it gets so bad you just have to try different things. I also tend to crash out and sleep a lot at times like this.

                         

One of the most frustrating things during a flare is the fibro fog. I know the word I want to use but either it doesn't come out or a random wrong one does. This is all usually accompanied by lots of arm flapping and waving as if that will make the word magically appear out of thin air! Luckily the girls often know what I mean and we laugh about the silly wrong word I have used. The other day I was asking Lillie to pull the custard together! Custard incase you didn't know was curtains! It's ok when this happens when you are with family or friends that know you well enough but it can be quite embarrassing when you do it in public in a shop or something.

                            
Strength.

People with chronic illness and disabilities are often underestimated. In fact I think we often underestimate ourselves too. But we are strong. We maybe limited on what we can do physically but we have an inner strength. We have our health ups and downs, live with awful pain yet we still fight on.  Whatever it is it keeps us going. We are strong and we are capable and able of doing things it may not be what everyone else does or in the same way but we can still do certain things! Disabled doesn't mean boring!

For me my strength comes from my children. They are my reason I keep going. They bring me joy and happiness. We have great fun as a family and there is certainly never a dull moment. It is hard work being a single mummy with Fibro and we have all had to learn to adapt but we are getting there now and finding ways to make things work for us!