Gratitude List (January 17, 2020) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

It’s been forever since I last wrote a gratitude list. This past week has been truly mixed, but I still feel there’s enough I can be thankful for. I’m joining in with #TToT again.

1. Domino’s Pizza. Last week, I went home to my husband for the week-end. When we were in the car, my husband asked me what I wanted to eat for dinner. I said “Pizza” and my husband in turn asked me whether there’s a Domino’s in Zevenaar, the city closest to our home in Lobith. I said there is. However, we’d been taking an alternate route to Lobith, so my husband said we wouldn’t drive through Zevenaar, so did I mind getting pizza elsewhere? Then he started teasing me, saying stuff like “You’re still a bit sick right?” and wouldn’t it be better if we had macaroni with lots of veggies. Eventually though, he did drive to Zevenaar and we had Domino’s pizza. I loved my chicken kebab pizza!

2. The flu being gone. I feel pretty much as well as possible now.

3. Meeting the neighbors. On Sunday, our next door neighbors organized a New Year’s gathering for the people in our street and the surrounding neighborhood. My husband and I are new, so as a kind gesture to me, they had each person in attendance introduce themselves and also describe the appearance of the person next to them. I liked it. The neighbors seem nice. I at first wasn’t too sure how much to disclose about my situation, but eventually did manage to explain some without launching into some type of self-centered and depressing monologue.

4. The soap making plans. I told you about it already on Monday. I’m hoping my husband will be able to bring my supplies tomorrow. He did ask me to think of another activity we can do together in Lobith, since I asked him to bring all my supplies. I after all didn’t feel it’d be a good idea to let him sort through my stuff. Now that I think of it, several ideas come to mind.

5. Ylang Ylang essential oil. I had this in my diffuser on Monday night when I was too hyper to sleep. It’s a lovely scent.

6. Over 8,000 steps on Tuesday. I walked three times. The other days have also been relatively good in the activity department.

7. The peanut butter-chocolate smoothie bowl we made on Wednesday.

8. Chatting to some fellow clients. Like I’ve said before, most people in my home are non-speaking and severely intellectually disabled, but there are some clients in other homes and at day activities who can speak and with whom I can have a normal by non-disabled standards conversation. I had some nice interactions this past week.

9. Lorazepam. Like I said yesterday, I was in a bit of a crisis. Thankfully, the PRN lorazepam I took worked.

10. Getting my Braille display fixed. Some dots had been stuck up for a few weeks. I thought the thing just needed cleaning, so I was hesitant to call the company to get a tech guy to come over. Turned out two cells were broken. I’m so happy the thing is fixed now. I did okay reading with these few dots stuck up, but still, it was a bit annoying.

What have you been thankful for lately?

Another Crisis

Posted on by Astrid

As those who’ve been following along with my writing will know, I was in a bit of a crisis on Monday. Tuesday and yesterday were better, but today was bad again.

It started out with a horrible nightmare last night. I still can’t shake the thought that I’ll be kicked out of the care facility sooner or later and that was what the nightmare was about. I woke up all sweaty and fearful. I called the night staff to calm me down.

Then by mid-morning, I felt rather insecure. My day activities group is divided into two subgroups. There are three full-day staff for these two subgroups combined, plus one staff who has the short 10AM-2PM shift. Today, one of the three staff who would otherwise stay the entire day, had the short shift too. I didn’t mind as much, as still each subgroup would have one staff for the full day. Then one of the regular staff, who would stay the full day, had to attend to a client one-on-one. The would-be third full shift was a sub, so she needed help doing lunch. So at the end, my full-day staff ended up helping her in the other room and the short-shift staff was attending to my subgroup on her own. She had to help people get around, to the bathroom, etc., too, so I was feeling rather left out. Everything went a little chaotic and that led me to enter the orange phase of crisis prevention.

There are three or four phases: green for adequate coping, yellow for mild distress (this one is sometimes left out), orange for serious distress and red for crisis. I was eventually able to go back to yellow as lunch was served and I ate.

Then I wanted to go into the snoezelen® room to further calm down. However, the music, though it was my favorite calming record, was way too loud. After some time, I ended up having a severe meltdown. I wasn’t able to calm down once back at my group.

In the end, I decided to take a PRN lorazepam and go back to the home to lie on my bed. I slept for two hours straight. Now I’m back to green again.

I’m joining in with #FOWC, for which the prompt today is “Crisis”. The prompt couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time.

Peanut Butter-Chocolate Smoothie Bowl!

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all, how are you? I had a better day yesterday than Monday. Didn’t sleep much at all Monday night, because I was so excitedly browsing sites for soap making recipes. However, I wasn’t really tired or grumpy at all.

Today was even better. On Wednesdays, the staff interns at day activities usually do a cooking activity with me, as most other clients are off to a weekly music performance in the assembly hall. I hate the music performance but love cooking, so that’s a win-win. One of the interns changed her schedule, so isn’t on on Wednesday anymore, but the other still is. Today, we made a smoothie bowl. It didn’t turn out as well as I wanted. Particularly, we used a little too much milk.

What We Used

  • 1/2 cup milk. The original recipe had us use 75ml of oat milk, but I thought that would be too little. Apparently not. Half a cup, so roughly 125ml, made the smoothie a little too thin. As a side note, we used regular cow’s milk.
  • 1 1/2 bananas. We used one for the smoothie bit and the other half on top.
  • 1 tablespoon peanut butter. The recipe I used had us use two tablespoons, but I think that would’ve been way over the top.
  • 1 tablespoon cocoa powder. I can’t remember how much the recipe said we needed to use.
  • A handful granola. This is spread on top of the smoothie.

This made for one large bowl.

How We Made It

First,, I peeled the banana and cut it into slices. I had the intern do the half banana that would be used on top, as I doubted my slices would be thin enough. Then, I scooped the banana, peanut butter, cocoa powder and milk into a measuring cup. I then mixed it using an immersion blender. I have a regular blender at the care home, but had forgotten to take it to the day center. The intern poured the mixture into a bowl and we added the granola and sliced half banana on top. You can also add coconut chips.

How Did It Taste?

It was delicious! Like I said, it was a little too thin. I had expected the thickness to be like custard, but it was more like a milkshake. The chocolate and peanut butter tastes were really well mixed. The smoothie almost tasted like chocolate-coated peanuts. There were hazelnuts in the granola, which tasted extra good when combined with the smoothie. Overall, I loved the activity and the result.

Linking up with the Wednesday link party.

PoCoLo

A Mixed Monday

Posted on by Astrid

Today is a truly mixed bag! I started out feeling relatively well. The flu seems to finally have left me, although I still sound a bit hoarse. Then in the morning I ate just a little too much sugar-free liquorice. This type of sugar-free liquorice has manitol in it, which works as a laxative. If I eat moderate quantities of liquorice, I’m totally fine, but if I eat too much, I get like the worst diarrhea imaginable. I thought I hadn’t eaten too much, but apparently I had. If my husband reads th is, he’s going to say he warned me.

I was still relatively okay during the morning. Went for a short walk. Then in the afternoon I didn’t feel well. This usually affects my mood before I’m even aware I’m physically unwell. I started to get really frustrated with how quickly my iPhone battery level would go down, which honestly isn’t that quickly at all given it’s an older model. Then I started to get annoyed with my fellow clients’ sounds. My fellow clients are all non-speaking, so it really is no wonder they make sounds. Just because I can’t understand them, doesn’t mean they need to shut up. Finally then I got annoyed with my staff having mindless chatter while I was trying to indicate I wanted help finding something to do. I found a simple shape-sorting task eventually, but it didn’t satisfy me. In this sense, it frustrates me that I need the level of support and low-stress environment geared towards people with severe intellectual disabilities, but at the same time need much more stimulation. My range of understimulation and overstimulation even seem to overlap a lot, so that my window of tolerance is very narrow. I try to tell myself I just need to accept boredom if I want to keep my level of support, for if I am judged to be too much of a handful, the result is likely that I get less support. That being said, telling myself not to be a pain in the neck doesn’t mean I actually am not a pain.

Finally, I started talking to my assigned staff. We agreed to try out soap making again someday soon. It’s something I enjoy and is a relatively quick activity even if I need hands-on assistance, that will nonetheless satisfy me for a while. I will ask my husband to bring my soaping supplies when he next visits me.

When I returned to the care home, I browsed my favorite soaping supplies store. I was talking to my assigned day activities staff about also knowing how to make lip balm. That’s an even easier activity that can be made more complex by using individual oils and butters rather than ready-made lip balm base. While browsing the store website, I came across a starter kit to make your own bath bombs. I’ve been wanting to do that forever, but since the goal up till recently has always been full independence, I thought this wouldn’t be a suitable activity. When I get back in the swing of soaping, I may buy myself the starter kit. It has some supplies I already have, such as colorants and fragrance oils, but you can never have enough of those. We have a bathtub at the care facility, so I’ll actually also put them to use.

In the evening, I was so excited I wanted to tell my home staff about the soaping idea and the bath bomb craziness. Then however the staff were talking among themselves for like an hour. They weren’t talking about clients, but still I beat myself up over wanting to interrupt them. That led to more frustration and overload and I eventually ended up banging my head. I feel incredibly annoyed with myself for being an attention-seeker like this, even though I didn’t act out when I thought the staff were looking. They eventually were though. Now I’m not sure whether this will eventually be used against me to kick me out. The staff said no, I won’t be kicked out, but in the end if I don’t change will they not reason life isn’t better in the facility for me? It is better, generally speaking, but I still struggle a lot.

My 2020 Word of the Year

Posted on by Astrid

And I finally feel well enough to write what I hope to be a coherent post. Last Wednesday, I wrote one too, but I barely remember it and someone commented that she could feel the flu through the screen. I had a relatively mild case, as I only ran a fever for two days I think. I still have a sore throat, some mild nausea and feel generally unwell, but I’ve at least been able to stay up all day.

We’re already almost half through the first month of the year. This week though, Kristi over at Finding Ninee is hosting Finish the Sentence Friday with the theme of your word for the year. These are, like I said last year, always posts I dread making, as I’m never quite sure life will happen as I imagined it would and then I end up beating myself up. Like, in 2018, I chose “Be” as my word even though it was to be the most eventful year in quite a while. I was just very naive. This year, if I choose a similar word, intending life to go on as it has for the past few months, I’m sure I’m creating a bad omen. Then no doubt will I be kicked out of the care facility. Yes, I’m pretty superstitious like that.

So for this year, a lot of words floated through my mind. “Mindful” and “Calm” did, but I was sure the passivity of them would create a bad omen. “Growth” doesn’t feel right, as that seems like the opposite in some way, requiring me to make progress in some yet undetermined respect.

So, the word I’m picking for this year just popped up into my mind as I sat down to write this post. It is: WELLBEING.

Now let’s hope I don’t get into some type of life-altering health crisis this year. Then still if I do, I can still focus on my wellbeing within the limits my body will set.

#IWSG: Inspiration to Start Writing

Posted on by Astrid

It’s not the first Wednesday of the month, but the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (#IWSG) day got set for today anyway because last Wednesday was New Year’s. I should really start to schedule these posts in advance, as right now I’m sick with the flu and not in the mood to blog. I mean, yesterday I ran a fever. Probably the days before too, but I didn’t have it checked then. Today I’m fine temperature-wise, but I still feel generally awful. I spent the entire day in bed.

This month’s optional question is what inspired you to start on your writing journey. The short answer is I don’t know. I’ve wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember. My parents did encourage me, even though looking back I was a pretty awful fiction writer. Either they didn’t notice, which I doubt as my Mom read a lot, or they didn’t want to discourage me.

I first started writing actual stories and even what could’ve turned into books had I finished them when I was around thirteen. I don’t know what inspired me to draft those first manuscripts.

In the summer that I turned fourteen, I discovered my favorite Dutch YA author, Caja Cazemier. She was definitely an inspiration for me. A few of my stories actually contained a lot of plagiarism from her.

And then I discovered the Internet and I started writing for an audience. Well, at first I didn’t really care about an audience. My original online diary had about five readers including my parents and the site I hosted it on, didn’t have a comment function. I actually moved it to WordPress inspired by some criticism I’d gotten from my parents about it.

I’m not sure what else to say right now. I am currently very much inspired to continue writing by the people I meet online. I can’t even imagine writing without an audience in mind anymore.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (January 4, 2020)

Posted on by Astrid

Even though I don’t join in nearly every week, I really missed the #WeekendCoffeeShare crowd over the holidays. I’m so glad the linky is back, so I’m joining in today. Grab a cup of your favorite hot or even cold beverage and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d say that I prefer water or green tea today, as I’m sick with a nasty cold or mild case of the flu. I can still drink coffee, but it doesn’t taste as good as does water or green tea.

My father-in-law was sick with the flu over the Christmas break. He ended up needing to go into hospital on the 27th for dehydration. Thankfully, he’s back home and slowly recovering. Then over New Year’s, my husband got sick. I seem to have caught it from either of them, but my mother-in-law says it’s a “men’s flu”, in that women don’t get it nearly as bad as men do. I’m hoping she’s right, although of course I hope my husband and father-in-law make a speedy recovery too.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that despite the flu going round my family, we had a good New Year’s. My husband and I went to his parents. One of my sisters-in-law joined us after dinner. I spent the evening mostly reading, while still sitting in the same room as everyone else, so that occasionally I could socialize.

If we were having coffee, I’d say that my 2020 is off to a pretty good start. I came back to the care facility early Wednesday afternoon, because my husband needed to drive me back. I relaxed some over Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, although on Thursday and Friday I did have day activities.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I’m feeling productive in regards to finding a solution for getting to my husband by public transportation. I had a bit of a crying fit last night because I thought we wouldn’t find a solution and I would struggle to see my husband regularly. My support coordinator E-mailed the behavior specialist though to help us think out a solution.

If we were having coffee, I’d want to share all about the books I’m looking forward to reading. I didn’t read at all today, but over the holiday break, have truly been enjoying reading. Of course, my virtual shelves are still stacked much fuller than my slow reading pace can follow, but so what? I’m a collector at heart, after all.

How have you been this past week and over the holidays?

Five Books About Life as a Doctor #Connect5Books

Posted on by Astrid

I love reading books in which people share about their real life, including memoirs and diaries. I am also very interested in medicine. Today, I am joining in with Connect Five Books and sharing five books about life as a doctor.

1. For the Love of Babies by Sue Hall. This collection of stories from an American neonatologist is truly wonderful. I read it when it first came out in 2014 and it was one of my quickest reads at the time. As regular readers of my blog know, I was born prematurely and spent three months in the neonatal unit myself. However, in this book, Hall also shares about babies born with genetic syndromes or those born addicted to drugs their mothers used.

2. Cook County ICU by Cory Franklin. This book covers nearly fifty years of medical practice, from the author and his father, in an intensive care unit in Chicago. Franklin shares his experience becoming a doctor in the ICU very candidly, including how a supervisor tried to ruin his career because Franklin dared talk back to him. You’ll also read about some fascinating patients, such as some of the early cases of AIDS, before it was known to be AIDS.

3. Doctor’s Notes by Rosemary Leonard. This is a collection of stories by a south east London GP. I took a lot longer to read it than I did the above two books, but once I got into it, it was truly enjoyable.

4. Do No Harm by Henry Marsh. This is a book by a neurosurgeon. I have read a few chapters, but can’t seem to move along in it.

5. Tales From the Couch by Bob Wendorf. Okay, I’m cheating here, as Wendorf isn’t a medical doctor. He’s a clinical psychologist. However, psychologists in the United States are often referred to as doctors too. Each chapter in this book focuses on a particular psychiatric condition. I haven’t read much of this book either yet, but would like to.

Do you enjoy reading about people’s real life or about medicine?

My Hopes for 2020

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and a happy new year to you all! I’m wishing all my readers the best for 2020. May this year be filled with health and happiness.

Like last year, I don’t really do new year’s resolutions. That is, I’m calling them “hopes” as to have them give me less pressure. This may be a stupid mind trick, so that if I fail at all of them at the end of the year I can just say I wasn’t really meaning to stick to them. Well, anyway, here goes.

1. I hope to find a way to keep my marriage as strong as it’s now whilst I’m living in the care facility. This mainly means I need to find a way to keep seeing my husband despite the fact that I won’t have the ParaTransit to travel one way even once every other week. I really need to find a way to learn to travel by public transportation. The thought of which overwhelms me. Then again, the consequences of not making this work, are far, far worse. I have very conflicting feelings about this whole situation, which I won’t be sharing here.

2. I hope to settle in at the care facility, both the home and the day center, and find a routine that keeps me happy.

3. I hope to keep going for a healthier lifestyle. I first hope to be more mindful of my food choices. I mean, I did okay’ish over the holidays, eating far less than I would have had I not had it in mind that I ultimately need to lose all the pounds I put on. However, I still ate more than I should have.

I hope to stick to my habit of drinking two liters of fluid each day. I have occasionally lost track when at my husband’s, but did welll over the past month otherwise.

I really want to get into an exercise routine. I have a gym in mind that I may want to join in February (because everyone else joins the gym in January).

4. I hope to stick to a regular writing and blogging schedule. I won’t push myself to blog everyday or the like. I mean, I could be joining in with #JusJoJan again and I know the rules aren’t strict so this post counts too, but I think I’d rather jump in when a prompt speaks to me. I aim for a minimum of two posts a week, unless illness or technical problems get in the way.

Dreaming bigger, I hope to write another essay that could be published in an anthology in 2020. I mean, I’m still excited about the one piece I had published in 2015, but there must be more in store for me.

5. I hope to read more. The year is off to a good start, as I finished a book (okay, one I’d started reading in 2019) today. I really want toventure out into the book blogosphere, even though I have zero intention of becoming a real book blogger.

6. I hope I can get into a better self-care routine. This is really an excuse for me to explore more of mindfulness, essential oils, relaxation, etc. I often think that I need to be productive all day. Then recently I listened to a Podcast in which the presenters explained the importance of daydreaming. They linked a lack of it to dementia, which has me scared like crap, because whenever I’m not doing anything in particular, I tend to fall asleep. They didn’t say whether you can train yourself to daydream or whether this helps, but it can’t be bad.

What do you hope to achieve in 2020?