Persisting Pain

My entire life, my mum has always thrown a big Christmas dinner. My grandparents would come round and we would eat her delicious food that she had been preparing for days and watch Christmas TV in our pyjamas. However, both my mum and I have multiple chronic illnesses and so this got more difficult to manage every year. A few years ago we had to make some changes that we had never planned to do, but it has turned out so much easier. We decided to start going out for Christmas dinner, at first to a local restaurant and this year we are booked into a carvery. We had always thought of Christmas as a stay-at-home, family day and thought that going out for it would take away something that made Christmas day what it was. If anything, however, it has made our Christmas day so much better! Instead of spending all of our time and energy making a massive meal that involves days of prep, pulling out and setting a table big enough for everyone, and then clearing it all up afterwards, we can...

The festive season is a time that almost everyone looks forward to. However, when you have a chronic illness, the holidays can be a difficult time for many reasons. Everyone’s illnesses affect them differently, so here are a couple of the ways that my health can taint Christmas for me: As you may know from previous posts, I have a stomach condition called gastroparesis. This means that my stomach is partially paralysed and this can cause issues including sickness, fatigue, loss of appetite, and food intolerances. Almost every holiday is focused around food, and this can make it difficult for me. A lot of the time I cannot eat without throwing up everywhere and when I can eat I am limited to small amount of specific foods in the hopes that it doesn’t make me sick. I can also be sure that if I eat I will be plagued with abdominal pains for hours afterwards. As a big foodie, this causes me enough problems on a normal day; at the holidays, this is downright awful. All of my illne...

There’s a few things that most people with chronic illness learn after some time being ill – you will lose friends, maybe all of them; you will spend a lot of time stuck in the house; and you will get extremely lonely there. Staring at the same four walls of your bedroom or living room, no matter how many TV shows you have to binge-watch, will quickly become incredibly boring. A lot of my old hobbies have become unmanageable due to my health, and so I have tried everything – painting, bead-art, movies, TV, books (when I have the energy), blogging, games, embroidery, crafts, and so many other things. But even an introvert like me needs human company. I don’t have much family that I see – my mum, cousin, and boyfriend that I live with and the my dad and sisters who I see as much as possible. And I’ve lost most of my friends as a lot of teenagers – and people in general – don’t understand and, therefore, don’t have the patience for chronic illness. They would invite me out an...

Having a chronic illness isn’t easy, but it helps to keep with you a few things that can make it at least a little more manageable. Below are 8 things that I take out with me wherever I go that can make things a little easier: 1. Instant Hand Warmers My pain can flare up at any moment, and so it is good to have small, simple ways to ease it a little. Heat helps, but I cannot take a hot water bottle everywhere with me. Instead, I carry about some of the clickable instant hand warmers that people normally use during the winter. These are easy to carry around and activate when I need them. To reset them, I simply boil them when I get home. BONUS: use them just after you have boiled them and then activate them later on to get two uses out of them each time! Make sure not to burn yourself though. 2. Spare Tablets So often I forget to take my tablets, and so I have a little strip of each of my tablets kept in a purse when I can easily take around with me. This means that ...