#WeekendCoffeeShare (November 18, 2023)

Hi everyone. I have barely touched the blog lately, but it’s not because I’ve been uninspired. Rather, I’ve mostly been doing other things online. Before I abandon it altogether, I thought I’d write a post though. I’m joining in with #WeekendCoffeeShare. I’ve had my last cup of coffee for the day, but thankfully my assigned staff ordered my favorite soft drink, apple and peach-flavored Dubbelfrisss, so I’ll have that in a bit. If you’d like one too, join me. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, first I’d talk about the weather. It’s been raining all day today and, though we were supposed to have a daytime high of 12°C, I don’t know when that was supposed to have been the case as it’s been around 7°C each time I looked at the weather on my Apple Watch. I haven’t been outside at all. I mean, I can bear the cold, but rain, yuck! I can tolerate it when it starts raining midway through a walk, but when it rains as I leave the house, I usually turn right around. Consequently, I didn’t meet my movement goal on my Apple Watch today at all. In fact, I’m pretty sure I hit an all-time low, but frankly, I don’t care.

The rest of the week, though we had some rain, it wasn’t constantly pouring. Though some days I needed to get out my winter coat, most days the daytime temperature wasn’t too cold either.

If we were having coffee, I’d cheat a little and tell you all about the meeting I had last week with my assigned staff, support coordinator, behavior specialist and my mother-in-law. Okay, who said you can only talk about the past week during a weekend coffee share? Maybe I did. Anyway, the meeting started out with my assigned staff complimenting me on how I do accept men and unfamiliar staff now. This rubbed me the wrong way, as the day prior he’d pretty much given me no choice, so what was I to do? I’ll see tomorrow whether they’ll go the full length and assign me a male staff for my ADLs (which is a big no for me), as then the female staff who normally always assigns me temp workers is working the morning shift with a male temp worker. Said temp worker is familiar with everyone here, but I am honestly quite sure she’s going to assign him to me for my morning routine anyway. Let me just say I’m going to throw a big hissy fit if this happens.

Other than that, the meeting went okay. We talked about my day schedule, which is okay in terms of how many hours of support I get but far from ideal in terms of how it’s cut up into small blocks. Since my ExtraCare (one-on-one) funding hasn’t been approved yet for next year, we’re waiting to see what happens to that to change anything. I’m pretty fearful the Care Office doesn’t consider every single moment the staff spend with me as ExtraCare, as, well, it isn’t, but the manager does. Oh well, we’ll see.

We also talked about my wish to start therapy again for my trauma-related symptoms. Upon further thought, I realized I need to work on stabilizing first before I start EMDR or whatnot. The behavior specialist is going to write an application. I am also going to work with my assigned staff on my signaling plan, which details how I can best be supported during each phase of emotional (dys)regulation.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share about my dietitian’s appt on Wednesday. It went pretty well. I am currently at a healthy weight and within the weight range I agreed upon with her. She did finally admit she doesn’t know why I’m not gaining weight when I’m having quite a lot of food in excess of my food plan. I honestly currently have far too many other things on my mind to care about this too. I mean, yes, I’m scared, but I’m scared for a lot of other reasons too.

How have you been?

8 thoughts on “#WeekendCoffeeShare (November 18, 2023)

  1. Sounds like you’ve been doing quite well lately, which I’m happy to hear. 🙂 It’s great that you want to do some therapy, but also that you don’t want to rush into it before you’re stabilised. I hope it all works out. The signalling plan also sounds like a very helpful thing both for you and the staff and hope it will indeed turn out to be helpful.

    I’m no dietician obviously but I guess it doesn’t necessarily have to be a scary thing that you’re not gaining weight when eating a lot, if you’re in the healthy weight range. I mean, the body changes constantly, perhaps you’re having some sort of phase where your metabolism is simply faster. All sorts of hormones can also have a huge influence on those things of course. I guess aside from your all-time activity low on the Apple Watch this week you do move quite a lot these days, so maybe that’s also playing some role. Hopefully it’s nothing to be concerned about. 🙂

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    1. Thank you so much for your kind comment and I apologize for being so late to get back to you. For whatever reason, the Jetpack app once again wouldn’t let me reply to you on there. I am indeed hoping the signaling plan will be helpful, as currently staff, though they are well-meaning, really seem clueless as to how to help me when in a crisis.

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    1. Thanks so much. I am happy to report the female staff helped me with my morning routine herself on Sunday. When I thanked her extensively, saying that since she worked with a temp worker she could’ve assigned him to me, she replied that it was as clear as could be that I would get a female staff for my ADLs.

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  2. Thank you for the coffee Astrid. It sounds like many have taken blogging breaks recently for one reason or another. I know I’ve been absent from a few link ups that I normally take part in. Sometimes we just can’t do it all.

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    1. Thanks for stopping by and for understanding. I’ve been less active on my blog ever since moving to the main institution last year, but had really hoped I’d get back into the groove once I’d adjusted to my current care home.

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