Fat Bunny

  • The Gall…

    Todays round of Doctors poking me, draining me has pointed the towards “maybe a gallbladder problem”, so I’ll be getting up at 5am to go get a dose of radioactive isotopes, and scanned around the middle.

    It’s nice that they are all taking an interest, but it would be nice if they could either fix the problem, or maybe stop sticking needles in me for a while.

    Oh and I had to pee in a jar.

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  • Throw Me Down…

    I don’t know if it’s the layers, the textures, or just the informal casual feeling, but I’m totally all about the throw rug.

    Comfort, cosy, calm… all the C words. All the years living in disorganized clutter (the bad C word) has given me a huge appreciation for the CALM part.

    There is also a bit of Sanctum Sanctorum going on, as I’ve definitely created a safe space away from the rest of the house. A place to retreat to when I get back from dealing with the maelstrom.

    I’m almost looking forward to winter…

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  • Where’s My Off Switch?

    It’s not having lots to do that’s exhausting me, it’s the constantly thinking about the things I have to do that really interferes with my life. I’m not great at just being in the moment and leaving stuff at work, and I really want to be. I’m either worrying about it or doing it, and when it’s done I just instantly start all over again.

    Sincerely Congrat-u-bloody-lations to those that can either switch it off, or compartmentalize jobs, study, obligations etc. but that isn’t me. If there are things that need to be done I’m going to have that going on in my head, even if there is not chance it’s happening today. If I have a job to do tomorrow, it is definitely going to be in my head all night, quite possibly ruining my sleep and making getting anything done the next day more difficult.

    I would give real world money to make it not the case. But I suspect unless I can ditch the Sisyphus boulder thing I’m heading for a Wile E Coyote boulder thing.

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  • No Prison Can Hold Me…

    My first day of house arrest is going well, I totally didn’t go shopping for food, and definitely didn’t spend any time cleaning. I mean putting on loads of washing and making the bed isn’t really cleaning is it? And it’s only real shopping if you use a trolley and not a basket. So as you can see idea of 2 weeks of rest is definitely going to be plain sailing weather.

    In all seriousness though I am taking it very easy, and not eating anything that will slow down healing. It’s just I am trying to ride that fine line between laying around resting, and laying around overthinking and letting my mind go into rooms it probably shouldn’t at the moment. I have about 7 books on the go at the moment, because I reached weird little bits in each that caused a bit of distress for various reasons. It’s a real talent to have a book on houseplants trigger uncomfortable memories, but I’m gifted.

    I’m also discovering that trying to take downtime a few weeks before Christmas is like playing the recovery game on difficult mode. Even in a world where there’s a shopping app for everything it still requires planning, and delivery times are rapidly filling. I may need to do a very early or very late visit to some shops soon to collect stuff that I can’t really ignore any longer. Wrapping paper and a Christmas tree are sort of the bare minimum for doing something festive, and I don’t want to waste a Christmas ever again.

    It’s inevitable that this will be one of those introspective ends to the year. With so much change and upheaval recently, I really can’t see how I will get to the new year without ponderous questions of the future swinging about and making a mess.

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  • Permission to Fall Down Sir?

    Up at 5am to drive a couple of hours for a doctors appointment, and people ask me why I’m not going to retire to a rural town, but I digress. My appointment this morning is for test results, because I’m incapable of just admitting that I’m falling apart without an official letter stamped in triplicate and nailed to the door of a church in Germany. Seems living on a permanent knife edge, eating only junk (and all your own feelings), saying YES to all requests, and working at tasks you have no appetite and little aptitude for, will wear you down a bit. And by a bit I mean a version of gastritis that causes pain, fatigue, and on one particularly scary day a bit of vomiting blood. My doctor has officially read me the riot act, and I’m going to need two weeks of drugs and food restrictions just to get back to feeling well enough to run other tests.

    I am pretty sure he knew I wasn’t going to slow down without actually being yelled at for being an idiot by a medical professional, or being forced to by ending up in hospital again. So he actually yelled, and tutted, and played the “you need to stop if you want to be around for your kids” card. Consider my card stamped and my leash yanked.

    I’ve filled my scripts, cancelled everything in my calendar, purchased a lot of beige food, and put a 2nd water jug in the fridge so I don’t run out of cold filtered H2O. It’s easy to be good when you feel horrible and everything hurts, the hard part is in a few days time when the antibiotics and anti inflammatory drugs kick in and I feel a bit better. But this time I’m going to be good, because it would be nice to be able to enjoy Christmas and not be a tired mess.

    Luckily I now have the permission to stop for a bit, permission I was not going to give myself, but now I have a doctors note to excuse me from sport Sir! And by sport I mean work myself into a state of physical and emotional exhaustion several times a week.

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  • I Know how it Looks…

    A quick note about my use of tarot cards, because I know it seems to go against my personal lack of belief in anything system.

    I tend to draw a card each day as I have my first coffee, particularly if I have a question I’m pondering. Obviously I don’t expect the card to magically channel mystic forces to provide me the wisdom of the universe, although it would be handy, I’m just looking for a fresh way of looking at a question.

    As a prompt for problem solving, or deeper thought on a subject they can be surprisingly effective. Quite often in the past they have allowed me to look at a situation I find myself in a different light.

    So definitely not magic, just another tool to break me out of fixed ways of thinking. Though if pushed I will admit that occasionally I’ve used them to make a decision, sort of like a complicated flip of the coin, because sometimes you need a quick decision.

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  • I Get Knocked Down, But…

    [record scratch, followed by silence].

    Sorry Chumbawamba I’m not felling particularly resilient at the moment so I’m staying down.

    I don’t know if it’s exhaustion, illness, depression, or good old fashioned per Christmas angst with a dollop of grief, but I’m not up to pushing through it whatever it is. Maybe it’s all of them?

    I have a doctors appointment in a few days, and the note I’m writing on the back of my empty valium packet, with all my current symptoms and concerns is a bit longer than expected. I’m also worried about getting a reprimand for not going to the psych he recommended (or any other). Maybe if the PTS was all I had going on I would be more inclined to try and talk about it, but honestly I don’t need the hassle at the moment.

    My solution today is just to ignore stuff and lay down for a while…

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  • I Hate the Spoon Theory…

    The spoon theory if you don’t know is popular when explaining how chronic illness etc limits what you can do, usually to people who say things like “you don’t look sick”.

    Spoon theory explains what it’s like to live with a fatiguing chronic illness. You start the day with a set amount of ability to do things (spoons), and everything you do requires energy, from making breakfast to talking to people, the theory uses spoons to demonstrate how much energy such tasks require.

    Getting up, making the bed, may use one spoon. Apportionments, cleaning, or working may take four or more. People without a disability or chronic health problems normally wake with enough spoons to get through the day and not need to worry that they’ll run out of energy.

    But a person with a chronic health condition or disability will generally start the day wake with a limited number of spoons. Symptoms, as well as activity will use up those spoons throughout their day. If they use more spoons than they have, they may get exhausted and and not be able to do anything for the rest of the day. And if they push through they may have even worse symptoms and fewer spoons tomorrow.

    So why do I hate it? Well it’s definitely not because it’s wrong, or unhelpful. I hate it because having to explain a situation to people with an analogy is draining. I don’t enjoy being sick, and having to explain it to other people so they don’t think I’m being lazy or unsociable feels a bit like asking for sympathy. Which is more than a little humiliating, especially when they have that “you don’t look sick/disabled” mindset.

    It would be nice if we just accept that people knew our own limits and just let us get on with things without have to use our limited resources explaining things.

    Writing this probably took a whole damn spoon.

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  • Just the First Half…

    A common movie trope is the selfish single person finds fulfillment through love, or adversity. For example in the film “About a Boy”, Hugh Grants shallow playboy starts caring about people and makes his life complicated.

    I’m going to say the characters life in the first half of the film seems much more attractive to me at the moment, and if he had of ditched his judgmental friends that wanted him to “grow up” and be as dull as them he would have been much better off.

    I’m starting to think most Hugh Grant movies are based around the idea of somebody with a perfectly reasonable life starts feeling dissatisfied (quite often from external sources), and falls into complicated situations that probably won’t last.

    I’m a bit over living in interesting times. Can I just go back to living in that first uncomplicated half of the film please? Possibly without the 80s hair though.

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  • I Still Instantly think Dungeon Master…

    Even though I’m a long time twitter user I still find myself confused by some things that go on there. Maybe I functioned too long in a pre-social media world to feel completely comfortable separating etiquettes between digital and in real life.

    I know they call twitter a town square, but that implies people standing on soapboxes yelling about stuff, which definitely happens, but for social interactions I tend to see Twitter as more of an office or school environment. You’re out in public, engaging in discussions, informing yourself about things, while simultaneously getting on with your day job. You get to know your colleagues over time as you occasionally chat, and from listening to what’s important to them today or hearing their thoughts about something you say. It’s a casual place, but it’s nice open place with people around to keep an eye out incase someone gets weird, or the kind of weird you’re not into.

    Maybe that’s why I’m not a fan of people popping into DM mode instantly? It kind of feels like a stranger cornering you at a party away from the view of others. Twitter is many things, but it’s definitely not a noisy house party, and I’m not drunk. So leaping out of the bushes at me as I try to walk back into the party after getting a beer from the laundry tub full of ice is going to make me nervous. I’m not quite so delicate that I require a chaperone to protect me from the advances of eager suitors, although one to protect me from myself might come in handy.

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