Pandemic Positives

Posted on by Astrid

Today, Fandango asks in his weekly provocative question wehther the need to quarantine as a result of COVID-19 has made you a better person.

Lockdown here started in the middle of March with restaurants acutely closing their doors, school closures and, a week later, a no-visitors policy in nursing homes and care facilities. I couldn’t see my husband for nearly three months. Then we could see each other, but we had to keep our distance as much as possible.

Life more or less returned to some sembleance of normal at the end of June. Still, people are scared. I, not so much, though I do take COVID-19 seriously. There are still certain restrictions, most of which don’t affect me too much.

The main thing affecting me was not being able to see my husband. This certainly made me appreciate our very special relationship even more than I appreciated it already. I mean, I chose to go into long-term care last year, of course not knowing that this would mean not seeing my husband for a few months. However, I doubt most marriages would survive even that decision, let alone the consequences. I attribute the success of our marriage mostly to my husband’s everlasting love, but I do deserve some credit for it too.

In general, too, the pandemic has made me more appreciative of what I do have. I am physically healthy and so are my loved ones. In April, a man at the home below me died of coronavirus. Though he was in his 70s, this shocked me a little. My father is in his 70s too, so I’m all the more grateful to still have him.

Other than gratitude, I think the pandemic taught me some level of creativity. Before the lockdown, I found it hard to connect to my husband when I didn’t see him. Now we call each other multiple times a week and text multiple times a day. Of course, I could’ve done that before too, but out of need grew the solution.

I also read somewhere that some people are particularly happier now than they were before the pandemic. I have to say so am I. The reasons may not be related to the pandemic at all, as I’ve also finally settled into the care facility and such.

In general though, I think the pandemic has had and continues to have negative effects on the world, of course. However, if it affected me personally at all, it’s positively. By this I don’t mean my economic, social or health status, of course. Though I’m still financially secure and healthy, no-one knows whether this will remain this way given the huge economic costs of the pandemic. I’ve just become a more positive (or should I say less negative?) person.

Gratitude List (September 4, 2020) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all on this fine Friday. How are you doing? I’m a bit tired, but want to write anyway. Today, I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT) for a gratitude list. It’s been a while. Here goes.

1. Hamburgers! On Saturday, my husband took me to our house and we had hamburgers for dinner. I loved them, even though they’d come from the freezer.

2. Reading. At the beginning of the week, I did a lot of reading and had a lot of fun with it. I slowed down a bit (or a lot) as the week progressed, but am hoping to get some reading done over the week-end.

3. Steptember. I started the charity physical activity event for cerebral palsy on Tuesday. On both Tuesday and Wednesday, I got my 10K steps in. I also collected more than twice the money I’d hoped for already.

4. Going to the marketplace. On Wednesday, my staff took me to the marketplace. We bought chicken and fish for lunch and I bought a lot of candy. I particularly loved the chicken!

5. Paracetamol and rest. The next day, I was ill with a low-grade fever, nausea and diarrhea. It’s probably because I ate too much stuff on Wednesday. Thankfully, paracetamol helped some and so did resting.

6. Soothing music and blankets. I’ve been loving relaxing in my bed with a calming music playlist on on Spotify. I’ve also been loving being able to have blankets on my bed again without it being too hot.

7. Talking to my husband. He most likely won’t come by this week-end because of my fever, but I loved talking to him nonetheless.

8. Feeling better both physically and mentally. I’m slightly depressed and tired still, but the sickness has gone and I don’t have a fever anymore. That’s good, because otherwise I may’ve needed to be tested for COVID-19.

9. My staff. A staff I can’t really get along with well, is leaving at the end of the month. She’s going for early retirement, so really I should be happy. I wasn’t at first, because I’d gotten it in my head that she was leaving because of me. Thankfully that’s not the reason. I had a meltdown on Wednesday because of it and this staff tried to comfort me.

10. Okay weather. Yesterday, it was raining all day, but I was ill anyway. The rest of the week has been okay: not too cold or windy and mostly dry.

What have you been grateful for lately?

Gratitude List (August 7, 2020) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Happy Friday everyone! I still have a lot I want to write about, but it’s soaring hot here and my brain is melting. For this reason, I’m going with a relatively simple post and do a gratitude list. As always, I’m joining in with Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT).

1. Barbecues. My husband bought a mini barbecue last week and we had sausages on it on Saturday. To get some healthy food in us too, my husband served us both a full plate of cherry tomatoes. That was funny.

2. Ice cream. Lots of ice cream! Like I think I said last week, the freezer was still full of ice cream from my birthday and the previous time it was hot. Well, my staff bought even more and so we had ice cream for dessert or as an afternoon treat several days this past week.

3. New shoes. I ordered new walking boots on Monday and they arrived on Wednesday. They are a size bigger than the ones I had before, as those didn’t fit well anymore with my feet swelling. These are pretty cool.

4. Getting motivated to walk again. I signed up for Steptember, a sponsored walking/movement event in support of the cerebral palsy community. At first I wasn’t sure whether to sign up, as I can’t make it to 10K steps every single day of the event. However, my husband encouraged me. I can’t wait to start walking a lot again. Not now though, as it’s incredibly hot, like I said. By the way, I’m not sure there’s an English-language site where you can donate.

5. Liquorice. I bought a bag yesterday and had some tonight. Yes, I still had it unopened by then. Okay, full disclosure, I did also buy a bar of white chocolate and did eat that one, but oh well. Oh, how I loved the black liquorice!

6. Reading time. I actually finished a book this week that I’d started a long time ago. I loved sitting up late at night reading, as it was too hot to sleep.

7. My staff. I was feeling very much on edge for the first few days of the week. On Wednesday, I even had to take a lorazepam again to calm me down. However, all through it, my staff were so very supportive.

8. All the lovely comments I get on here. You all are so special. I’m also so happy to be motivated for writing a lot again this time around.

That’s it for now I guess. What are you grateful for?

Gratitude List (July 31, 2020) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

It’s a hot Friday here and I have lots of things I could be writing about. I choose to do a positive post though and share my gratitude list for the past week or so. As always, I’m joining in with Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT).

1. Noodles. One of the day activities staff made those for us on Tuesday and one of the other clients helped her. He was so proud of himself! I loved the noodles with chicken and veggies and of course satay sauce. The staff had chosen the mild satay sauce rather than the spicy one, but I liked it anyway.

2. Going to the marketplace. On Wednesday, a day activities staff took me to the marketplace to get some fish for lunch. I also got a large waffle.

3. Day One. This is a journaling app for the iPhone (and Mac). I finally got the premium subscription to Day One and am loving making a daily habit out of journaling. Because I have the premium subscription, I can also E-mail my journal, so if I write something on an E-mail list, I can later send the same message to my journal easily.

4. My blog. It turned two on Saturday. Though I haven’t been as active lately with regards to reading other blogs and for this reason, didn’t get the engagement I’d like on my blog either, I still love it. I do need to make a note to myself to check whether comments are enabled on my posts before publishing them, because WordPress seems to have pulled the trick of disabling comments at random once again.

5. The weather. It’s been pretty good all week. Today it’s a little hot for my liking, but it’s still bearable.

6. AC in the living rooms. Some company came to install it on Monday or Tuesday. Some other clients, whose rooms get particularly hot, also got AC installed in their rooms.

7. Walking. I managed at least two walks each day. Some days I didn’t feel like going for walks, but I managed to kick myself in the butt anyway.

8. Having some energy back. I was really low on energy early in the week. One night, I even went to bed at like 8:30PM. Thankfully, I’m pretty alert now, though I can’t for the life of me remember when exactly some things happened, like you may be noticing.

9. Speaking to my husband on the phone. He’s so lovely! He said half-jokingly that he’d look at my blog to see the keychain I’d made for him, as he hasn’t seen me in real life since I made it. Then we got talking about whether he reads my blog and whether I write about him a lot.

10. Reading. I am loving reading foster care memoirs again.

What have you been grateful for lately?

Thankful Thursday (July 23, 2020): My Care Team

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone! How are you all doing on this warm Thursday evening? I’m doing a lot better than I was earlier this week. I could actually do an early gratitude list, as there’s more than one thing I’m grateful for. A simple list wouldn’t do justice to how huge these gratefuls are though. Let me share. I’m joining in with Thankful Thursday.

First, I still need to update you all on my appt with my nurse practitioner and CPN on Tuesday. It went better than I expected. The outcome is that my nurse practitioner is going to talk to the psychiatrist and see if he can find us a psychologist to do trauma therapy and work on our emotion regulation issues. I don’t remember all the details of the meeting, but at one point, I/someone in me blurted out that we’re in Facebook groups for dissociative disorders. I quickly added that really that’s none of my nurse practitioner’s business, but still we feel a lot of shame surrounding this.

Then on Tuesday evening, a discussion erupted on Twitter about the ISST-D’s guidelines for diagnosing and treating people with dissociative disorders. There’s this article from 2001 that’s still being used to weed out alleged fakers. It uses such things as being open about your DID or trauma to people other than a few close confidants, showing no obvious shame when talking about your trauma, being in support groups for DID, etc., as apparent proof that you’re fake. Now I must say I’m still conflicted about going the actual trauma/DID assessment route, but this did trigger us. However, my support staff are on my side.

We were still recovering from the shame about all this when we heard the main good news I was planning to share here. I got a higher care profile allocated to me by the long-term care funding authority. I still can’t quite believe it, but I’m so happy. The application hadn’t gone out till last week, but this afternoon, my staff got a call that it’d been approved. I’m still waiting on the letter in my government inbox confirming it, but this is really good news. I now have the highest care profile for blind people in the long-term care system.

I was feeling a bit disconnected when I heard the news. Like I said, I still can’t quite believe it, but it’s such amazing news. I’m so glad my staff were so perseverant that they actually applied for this.

Looking forward to hearing what you all are grateful for today.

Gratitude List (July 17, 2020) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

It’s been a while since I last did a gratitude post. I’m feeling okay. Not good, not too bad either. However, gratitude will be helpful at any moment. As always, I’m joining in with Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT).

1. A good meeting with the cerebral palsy charity. We “met” online via Microsoft Teams last Saturday. It was nice to get to know some people in my area, as this was a provincial meeting. We’ll “meet” again online on September 5.

2. Paracetamol. I was in some pain over the week-end. Thankfully, some paracetamol did help.

3. Lorazepam. I took one last Saturday too, as I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and wanted to sleep well. I got an okay night’s sleep and haven’t needed to take more lorazepam since.

4. Jewelry-making. I didn’t do too much of it, but I did make a keychain for my sister-in-law today. For the rest of the week, I’ve just been looking at all the wonderful things I could do.

5. Physical therapy. This Wednesday, the facility’s physical therapist came by. We had asked her to after the meeting with the CP charity had made it clear that I have no reason to keep going on with pain if there are still options. The PT assessed me and concluded I have tension all over. She put tape around the inside of my right knee, because I overextend it otherwise. That’s helped some.

6. A weighted blanket. I had asked my staff a while ago to inquire about me getting a weighted blanket. The PT said she had one with balls in it on hand. I didn’t like that one, but we did set things in motion so that I can rent and maybe later buy a weighted blanket.

7. Blueberries and candy. I went to the local supermarket with a staff today to by candy, but also ended up buying blueberries. These are all eaten now. The candies aren’t yet.

8. My husband. I talked to him on the phone a few times this week. On Monday, I was quite upset because I feel I may be deteriorating. My husband reassured me that regardless, I am okay the way I am.

I can’t think of anything else and I realize some of these are really blessing-in-disguise type of gratefuls, but oh well.

What are you grateful for?

Gratitude List (June 20, 2020) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone! How are you all doing? I’m a bit tired, but not ready to go to bed yet. Instead, I’m going to write a gratitude list again. As always, I’m joining in with Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT). Here goes.

1. Sunshine. The weather was really good over the past week. We had some light rain some days, but most days were sunny and warm.

2. An anti-allergy medication. I have bad eczema that itched like hell for some weeks. I finally went to the doctor on Wednesday and got an antihistamine called desloratadine. It didn’t help at all the first few days, or maybe without the medication the itch would’ve been even worse. In any case, now it does seem to help.

3. An antibiotic ointment. One spot, which the doctor initially thought was the result of an insect sting, got inflamed. Thankfully, with some Fucidin applied topically, the inflammation is a lot less now.

4. The night staff. A few nights ago, the itch was so bad and the inflamed spot so painful that I got really scared. I called for the night staff to apply some oily cream to the eczema. She did this, but I remained very scared. Somehow, I had gotten it in my head that I’d get sepsis from this. I pressed the call button again at around 2:30AM. The night staff was so kind and reassuring.

5. Alternatives to bread. I don’t really care for bread for lunch, at least not when topped with the ordinary kind of things you normally put on bread, such as cheese, peanut butter, etc. Thankfully, we had some lettuce left over from making burritos last week, so I had a salad for lunch one day. Another day, I had noodles.

6. Pancakes. Today, two staff came to our home on a voluntary basis just to bake us pancakes. They were so delicious!

7. Reaching my step goal. I reached over 12K steps (my goal being 10K) on three days this week. Today, I didn’t do so well, so I will still need to get some 5K steps tomorrow to break my weekly record of just under 65K steps.

8. The visiting rules at my care facility likely being relaxed as of next week Friday. The announcement will go onto the facility’s COVID-19 page on Monday.

9. My parents offering to visit me. I called my Mom last Sunday and, as we were discussing the visiting rules, my father asked if they could come too. I initially was a bit hesitant and I’m very nervous, but also excited. They will be visiting me next Friday.

Oh, and now I can’t think of a number 10, but whatever. I’m grateful for being able to express my gratitude. Consider that my tenth thankful. Besides, the number is just a suggestion.

What are you grateful for?

Gratitude List (June 12, 2020) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

It’s Friday again. I’m still feeling pretty off. I have a lot on my mind, but rather than dwelling on it, I’m going to write a gratitude list. I’m joining in with Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT) again.

1. Bookshare. This is a service that provides accessible eBooks to people with print disabilities. It costs $50 per year and my husband just renewed my subscription. I love it! Not all books are available internationally, but enough are that I enjoy the service.

2. Smoothies. A staff gave me a smoothie maker on Monday. I already had a blender, but this one is a bit smaller and comes with its own screw-on drinking bottles. I have been loving making my own smoothies! Particularly, I loved one with apple, cinnamon, almond milk and oatmeal.

3. Tacos. Or Tortillas or whatever these particular ones are called. We made those at day activities yesterday. We filled them with lettuce, chicken and pesto. My husband commented that pesto isn’t supposed to go on a wrap, but whatever.

4. Crafting a bit. The same staff who brought the smoothie maker, came again today and did some crafting with me and another client. We made some type of cards for a staff who earned her carer diploma recently.

5. Lots of steps again. I reached 10K steps each day this week except for today.

6. My former support coordinator. I texted her yesterday, half assuming she had deleted my contact info and wasn’t sure who I was anymore. Not so though. She offered to call me and we spoke for a bit.

7. My current staff. They are absolutely taking my care needs seriously. One thing I found out through my former support coordinator is that they’re considering applying for a higher care profile for me. This has me feel all sorts of things that I can’t describe on my blog in case someone from the funding authorities reads it. Particularly, I was scared this would mean a whole new long-term care assessmment, which would mean a risk of losing my care. My support staff did reassure me though.

8. My community psychiatric nurse. I tried to call her through the mental health agency’s secretary this afternoon, but the secretary had their automated lunch-break message on long past 1PM. I E-mailed my CPN and thankfully she got from my message that I wanted a call despite my not actually having asked her for one. She helped me process some of my feelings.

This is it for now. What are you grateful for?

Gratitude List (May 30, 2020) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Okay guys, I’m still feeling meh. I don’t know why, but it doesn’t really matter. I’m not inspired to write much of anything either, so what better thing to do than to write a gratitude list? I don’t promise I’ll be able to mention many things, but I’ll try my best.

1. Ice cream. Last week Thursday, another home that’s part of the care facility called for an ice cream truck to come by the facility. The ice cream truck owners had owned some type of merry-go-round or another fairground attraction before COVID-19 hit. Then they transferred to the ice cream business as away of making money. They advertise themselves on Facebook for being on-call if you have enough customers in a street. I love this idea and obviously the care facility has some 70+ clients plus staff as potential customers.

What’s extra cool is that the other home called the truck people again on Tuesday. Now if I don’t have an ice cream tummy, I don’t know.

2. Reaching my step goal. I reached 10K steps three days this past week and so far got over 55K steps this week. Tomorrow I’ll probably have a lie-in.

3. An extra staff. Due to day activities now being provided at the home, the home staff were able to cut their hours a bit, because there was a lot of overlap with the day activities staff. As a result, they’re now able to have an extra staff for a few hours on Saturday. This morning, the extra staff took me for a 25-minute walk.

4. Bathing. This is one from last week, but on Sunday I took a bath. It was good and very relaxing.

5. Gutenberg. You know, the project that aims to digitalize no-longer-copyrighted materials and make them available to the public. I discovered yesterday that my reader app, Voice Dream Reader, connects to it too. I was able to download Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery off there. I think I prefer reading eBooks to audiobooks anyway.

6. Buying a new iPhone. I have been wanting to buy the new iPhone SE 2020 forever. That is, I’ve been looking at the possibility of it being released for at least half a year before it was released. My current iPhone, the old SE model, still works, but its battery is empty really quickly. Today I ordered the new one.

Originally, I had wanted my husband to install it. Then when I was skyping with my sister and mother, my brother-in-law chimed in and said it’s really easy to migrate from one iPhone to another. Now I may want to install the phone myself as soon as I get it and there’s someone sighted to oversee it.

7. Hearing my niece on Skype. Like I said above, this afternoon I Skyped with my mother and sister. It was fun. I hadn’t even had Skype on my computer till then, but I like it. I heard my niece on the other end of the screen. She did get a little whiny eventually, probably because she was hungry.

8. Seeing my husband! I saved this one for last, as it’s the best. Last week, the no-visitors policy was lifted at my care facility, so I was able to see my husband. He visited me again today. Like I said before, we can’t really be physically close, but it’s okay. I love you, hubby!

That’s it for now. As always, I’m joining in with Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT).

What have you been grateful for lately?

Gratitude List (May 16, 2020) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Goodnight everyone. It’s past 11PM here and I can’t sleep. I’m feeling rather hopeless. To cheer myself up, I’m joining in with Ten Things of Thankful. It feels like forever since I last did a gratitude list, even though I did one two weeks ago. Anyway, here goes.

1. Spotify playlists. I already mentioned the Cardio playlist on Thursday. Today, I discovered the Harp Music for Sleep playlist. It wasn’t created by Spotify staff, but whoever created it is awesome! I just tried falling asleep to it. That didn’t work yet, but it definitely helped me relax.

2. Lorazepam. As we speak, I’m recovering from a rather bad crisis. After an hour-long crying fit, I finally asked the staff to give me a PRN lorazepam and it helps at least a little.

3. Dancing. I mentioned this already on Thursday. Today I was in a rather low place and felt like lying in bed all day. I did manage to fit some dancing in though.

4. Pretty good food this past week. I had boiled potatoes only once and the pasta with tuna sauce I had today was truly delicious.

5. Whipped cream custard. To top it off, we had whipped cream custard for dessert today.

6. Insight Timer. Like I said earlier today, I plan on making meditation part of my daily routine. I listened to a body love meditation this evening. The instructor’s voice was a little off to me, but it was a great meditation.

7. A lovely card. Last Thursday, I got another card from the friend who lives in another home in our care facility. She had previously given me an Easter card. Now the card had written in it that she hopes to see me soon. (For context: due to COVID-19, we are currently only allowed to interact with clients and staff for our own homes.) The card was handmade and truly lovely. I will send her one (though not handmade) probably tomorrow.

8. Possibly seeing my husband soon. Currently, we are not allowed visitors at all due to COVID-19. Management though has said they’ll work out a plan on visiting next week. This may mean we need to see our visitors in an assigned room and may need to keep our distance, but anything is better than no visits at all.

This is all I can come up with right now, but it already helps. What have you been thankful for lately?