My Everest…

I woke up later than usual this morning.  I will blame that on the time change so I’m a bit topsy turvy today.   I go through my usual motions washing, dressing, and breakfast.    However due to my late morning wake up I have skipped my first thing in the morning coffee which i will blame my morning on as well.  As I am having my breakfast and checking what’s on the schedule for today I notice that we have bananas that are past their prime. Well, it’s either do something with them or freeze them.   I opt to do something as I don’t have a busy day and I already have a pot left to clean in the sink from last night.   This is purely my fault as I could have washed it yesterday however I opted to be lazy.  Anyone who knows me knows I hate leaving anything in the sink overnight or during the day it’s my pet peeve…like I said my own doing!   Might as well make more dishes and clean them up all at once, was my thinking.   So I pulled out a recipe for some oatmeal banana muffins and begin.  Everything is going fine. I have my ingredients out and measured. I pour vanilla extract  in the bowl then I start to put my banana into the bowl with the vanilla as I do that the banana plops into the bowl it hits the bowl onto it’s side spilling the fragrant, black brown, sticky vanilla extract all over me, the floor and my nice white kitchen cabinets.

Why may I ask, does such a small amount of liquid have to make such a huge amount of mess?  I immediately leave my baking reach for the paper towel that of course has to run out at that moment and start to clean!   My inner mind is like WTF why?  You just want to do something else and there you have it …more work than necessary.   So I managed to clean up the mess off the cabinets which I was most worried about.  As I was not sure if vanilla extract stains, then the floor and the counter top.  I’m done with this by now….but I need to finish my baking.   I enjoy baking but not right now, not today! I’m frustrated.  I don’t think there is love in the muffins I baked.   I just put everything together and toss them into the oven.  As for the ever growing pile of dishes that were to be hand washed….but can really go into the dishwasher.  That’s exactly where they went.  I shoved everything that was there in the dishwasher without a care and turned it on.  Made myself a coffee and sat down for a few minutes.   About 15 mins into my chill time my hubby calls just checking to see how my day is and how I’m feeling.  I cut to the chase, tell him I’m having a shitty day, tell him about my kitchen clean up and he knows there will be no other productivity out of me today!  Hey, everyday can’t be fantastic! 

Shit happens and we just need to deal with it.  It’s how you deal with life’s twists and turns that make it interesting!  I can usually tell how a day is going to turn out by how it starts with me. My body and I are in tune in that way.   I know that if I wake up and I’m dropping things from the crack of dawn then I’m going with dropsies all day.  There are days that I find that I seem to love to bump into things, if that’s the case then it just must be my magnetic personality!    Or if it’s just plain old clumsy like today then we will go with the flow and just take a beat and chill.   Tomorrow we will be back in tune and the balance will be restored. 

Please don’t wake me up….I really don’t have anything on the go today so just let me sleep until I get up myself.   Yes, some days I do have that luxury! Others not so much. The reason why I would love to sleep in occasionally is that a lot of the time I have a hard time falling asleep.  So when the Sandman finally decides to visit I milk it for all I can.  Why do I have such a hard time falling asleep?   Some people will say it’s coffee.  I will tell them to go away as I only have 3 cups a day and yup it’s my only vice so let it be!   It’s not the coffee!   It’s what I call my choo choo train of thoughts!  Sometimes it’s like a gift that keeps on giving. During the day, it’s busy with other stuff, but at night thinking is my brain’s it’s only job right? so it’s like it turns on hyperdrive and says oh you need to do this and that, don’t forget this.  Long time ago it used to wake me up in the middle of the night with some fantastic ideas that I would forget in the morning so I started getting up and. In the middle of the night grabbing a pen in the kitchen without the light and my glasses on and scrawling something on paper.  Yes I would know exactly what I wrote because I would remember it.  After a while I got smarter and put a pen and paper in my nightstand. My husband would be like what are you doing??? It’s ok, don’t worry about it.  I came up with some great ideas, let me tell you ! Now I do have the occasional idea running thru it at night most of the time we have other thoughts.  Worrying about appointments, Just things to do or remember even if it’s written down or in my calendar on my phone for mom, husband, myself and kid as well as extended family and friends.  My husband has gone through skin cancer diagnosis, my brother in law prostate cancer, a close friend breast cancer, all of this thru covid and them going through all of the procedures alone,  sometimes it all keeps me awake just thinking about it all. They are all doing well now so that is still back of mind but always there somewhere. Me and my huntington’s is always back of mind…..thoughts of my dad when he had it.  Then sometimesI bring my nemesis  to play during the night like he always does if i’m not doing well the flare bear, and you toss and turn and you contemplate whether to take more meds or to stay the course and keep laying in this spot or will turning over be better or worse?   Constant assessment!  He came to visit last night, cuddled with me in his usual spot between my shoulder blades.. Right before bed I read an e-mail that I got angry and stressed about and all night I couldn’t sleep because of it.  I tried deep breathing to calm it down.  I honestly thought I was going to have a good cry …nope.  Just rode thru it and eventually fell asleep but it wasn’t restful at all. If you ever ask my husband how I sleep he will tell you I sleep like a log.  I can take her out and put her on an air mattress in the middle of the lake and she wouldn’t know it!   I would agree with that when we are out camping, 100% I get my best sleep out there,  so does everyone..because there is no stress!  He will also tell you I snore (a lot) ok sure I know I snore as to the amount I could not say.  However he is a light sleeper so he wakes up to any noises in the house.  As the kids are not living with us he has moved to the other bedroom.  So he gets a restful sleep as he needs to work in the morning.  I get it !  This is my life in a nutshell.  Since he has vacated the bedroom… I have tried to play sleep apps and sometimes they work. Sometimes they are just silly and get you in the mindset of why am I bothering listening to this?  So it’s a wash with me but if I don’t get quality sleep does it affect my pain?  Yes it does!     

When I went to physio today he started like always, to assess me from the second I started to walk.   He looks at me funny and I say what?  Your walk is different today, he says.  I just shake my head like why am I not surprised?   The first question!   The very First question…..how was your sleep?  I proceeded to tell him it wasn’t good and we went from there.  So do I really need to tell you the importance of a good night’s sleep when it’s the first question asked of a care provider.   Sleep is key!  If you are not getting any then you will be a hurting unit the next day or for the next several days it all depends on you.  So try not to let the external forces of life get the better of you before you go to sleep.  My battery needs a good charge and just like a cell phone, if its not getting a steady source of power going to it,it won’t charge properly and it won’t work.  That’s what happens with me as well!   It’s like there’s a short in the system!