Up and low

My illness means that I have my highs but most often lows even if I since 2006 been able most of the time to be at an even level. I’m well acquainted with the symptoms and I hate it when I can feel them come. However I have never experience what I’m experience right now: a manic and depression mix. I want to shop and shop and shop and shop and yet it doesn’t give me any satisfaction. My body is filled with adrenalin, heart pumping, I’m shacky. At the same time I’m dead tired, low and just can’t get anything done – or at least that is how it feels. All energy goes to handle work. Another symptom that is here is the need/desire for sweets.

I got my bonus yesterday. I have been thinking for a long time what I should do with it. It felt good to get it with this month salary and not the next one as I knew there were a few large sums that was going out: medication, yoga, hairdresser and several birthdays. Now I know that Stella will be feed and there will even be some left for me. J When I noticed the symptoms I decided that the best thing is to do something about all small “need lists” I have. By doing this I hope I’ll get my shopping manic controlled and I get what I need. If I have a list I keep to it when I get into the shop. A need list is where I note down things that needs to be changed, fixed or are missing.

I’m more worried about the upcoming (?) depression:
Will I be able to control my eating? It always gets much worse when I’m tired as now.
Will I see the fun and relaxation in my cross-stitching? It’s so easy to just leave it or sew one day, unpick the next.
Will I manage to continue to write? It felt so good to be able to write 1 new chapter after 1½ years.
Will I manage to keep in touch with friends? E-mailing is tough and takes energy. Just lifting the phone is just as hard. It is so easy to just close the shield.

Stella is my life saver when I feel like this. This morning she came and pressed her head against my body, a sign that she want to cuddle while I’m still in bed. This is something she does nearly every day and keeps doing until I finally get up. She gets me outside even if our walks go slow, extremely slow for being us. She is company and someone who needs me. She is there for me

Once Again

Since over a year ago we have to book our patients in the patient journal system that is hosted by one of our Health Care centres. It has made life much easier if any one is ill or book a patient in a colleague's book. I easily get a view over what I have booked. I get a picture of the time between my bookings etc. Our boss wants us to keep everything here so we don’t use “paper calendars” any more.

BUT

Yesterday afternoon it was discovered that a genda for today and the secretary did manage to print out over “logbooks” during the morning. t I also had a long list of patients that I needed to call and a large pile of paper work. Nearly all of these patients belonged (belongs) to this Health Care Centre. Alas I couldn’t do a thing!!!!

Now if it has been an interesting day today it will be even more so tomorrow. As I work with patients both at the clinic and in their homes I have now no clue where I’m going to be or at what time. Clinic patients will be easy to handle since I can walk out to the waiting room and ask if anyone was going to see the OT. If I’m supposed to at any ones home there will be a HUGE problem. I won’t know the time, address, what I’m supposed to do or if they are going to have relatives present, relatives that most of the time has taken time of work.

I work with patients. Today I knew what was in the calendar but tomorrow I’m completely blank. I do know that if I have a patient 8 or 9 it will be at the clinic so at those times I can easily go out in the waiting room and ask if anyone is going to see me. If I have clinic patients during all the day will be an easy problem however if I’m supposed to met someone in their home 10.15 or later it will be a problem. I won’t know who or where he/she lives. Worse of all is if they also have relatives that might have taken of time from work to be there.

How much easier life could be when all you had was calendar to book in!

Coffee break

In my job you now and then are offered a cup of coffee. Most of the time it’s easy to say no as they haven’t started to make it, it’s lunch time etc but sometimes like today you can’t. It’s the times when the patient or his/her relatives have already prepared it and set the table or when I know that I’m the only one “visiting” them that day. (A visit that they have to pay for.) I have even experience ladies that have sent the community caretakers to the bakery to get me something special. Now don’t get me wrong. I do enjoy these moments, they give so much information that otherwise might have been missed. It’s just that there are two small problems:
- I really dislike coffee
- I’m intolerant to gluten

Now I can drink the coffee although I’m quick to get something afterwards that will “kill” the coffee taste in my mouth. I am a tea drinker and will stay so forever. I want black tea with a hint of milk. Now I’m very picky with my tea. For instance I will rather have a cup of coffee than a cup of Earl Grey!

The other problem is a bigger issue. It’s so hard to get an 85 year old lady to understand why I can’t eat cake or cookies. That generation is so accustomed to serve 7 sorts of cakes and/or cookies. I do tend to lie sometimes by saying that I’m a diabetic – something they do understand but – yes there is a but – many then want to make me a sandwich instead. All this has made me an expert in nibbling a cookie. Oh I can get it to last forever! If I’m lucky it won’t be noticed. It’s worse when the patient has Danish or anything else from the bakery) or relatives present.

Today I had two cups of coffee!

Stella

The week that has passed was tuff at work so I had decided to take it easy this weekend. Well, Stella’s ides of extra sleep was exactly an hour. At 6 she decided it was time for a cuddle and I could feel her head buffing against my side. Normally it will help that I tell her to go to bed but not today. I managed to prolong the getting up with about 30 min.

It’s not that I mind getting up early and out for a walk. It is so beautiful in the forest when you can see the yellow horizon and it’s quite. Stella always traces something and today she almost pulled me off my feet. The early hour on a Saturday and the cold, -9C, made sure that we were all alone, that is from human beings.

Stella has found a new “friend” in the park where we walk nearly every day. It’s a dipper and plays in the water. On the bird board it says that it’s a temporary visitor during winter. It will fly a bit up the stream, land in the water and go with the stream until it reaches a stone or something else it can sit on. From the stone it will fly upwards again. Stella will stand on a small island barking and waggling her tail. How she spots the tiny bird I don’t know. If it wasn’t for the snow I would never see it. Today however the bird was gone. How she steered out over the river. And there weren’t any squirrels either.

Now I have just stood and fried liver. I really hate liver but Stella loves it so say what I wouldn’t do for her.

Can it cure?

As I’m writing this I have the telly on. They are showing a program called “Spa of embarrassing illnesses”: It is quite interesting. Not the illnesses but what is done at the spa. The holistic approach to their problems is different to what the world I’m daily is in would do. We had a discussion at work at Friday about this and I guess that we as occupational- and physiotherapist are more open to it. I know many doctors who would tell me that this is all a “humbug”. I, however, find it interest and really would like to give it a try. Perhaps my tiredness and sugar addiction would go away. And what about my intolerance towards gluten? First step would be that I really make that call and ask for the ayurveda consultation I have been thinking of since I started my yoga a year and half ago. I’m just so scared of what Mattias will say. He is the person who does the consulting and he is also my yoga leader. I’m sure my tea will be on the banned list.

Animated Movies

I have loved animated movies for as long as I can remember. Disney + Pixar and DreamWorks present a fantasy world that can be hard to achieve in “real” movies.

I do have several of Disney’s classics and added with DreamWorks the collection I have large collection of movies. I am picky thou. I don’t buy everything: only what I have really liked or sometimes missed when it was at the cinema. When it comes to the classics I do prefer the “old” once – the once that I saw at the movies when I was young. I do have a few of the newer once too but those are bought after I have seen them. Today in the mail today three of Disney’s early classics 6, 8 and 11 and Wall-E came . Wall-E I missed and I do hope it is as good as it seemed on the trailer for it. I think I'm going to have a very relaxing weekend!

My collection of animated movies is different than the other DVD collections I have. The animated once are all bought in Sweden so the figures speak Swedish. I have chosen to do so that the kids can borrow them. However on each DVD is also the English spoken movie and it is always a possibility to choose if I want subtitles or not. I guess this the best of all worlds.

So am I missing any classic? I got some I would like in DVD instead of VHS and some that I can’t get hold of but haven’t given up on yet. I really would like to have Fantasia that was done 1940 and I would like to have Alice in Wonderland. Well some day perhaps.

One thing leads to another

It’s amazing how you can start doing one thing but end up doing a lot more. I had for a very long time thought about cleaning out old folders in my bookcase that I haven’t looked in for years – I’m not even sure I have looked in them since I put them there. Any way while doing this I got a lot of empty space so I decided to reorganise my books so that for instance my Victorian and Wild West material were more close to my desk, all travelling books together, you get the picture. As I started this I realized that it was dusty – extremely dusty. Suddenly it hit me that even if I did a thorough cleaning of the room when my hall was done (I used this room as storage and did the sawing of the hall floor in here), I didn’t dust the books! I guess I wasn’t meticulous as I thought. Or perhaps – which is more likely I was lazy! So I have now started to dust the books and sort them. On the floor there are some neat piles: books that are going to the Red Cross shop, books that fit our waiting room at work, things that are going to be tossed and a few folders with vegetarian dishes that I’m going to offer a vegetarian workmate.

But for now I think I’m going to have a rest and enjoy the last holiday day before going back to work tomorrow.

Are you smarter than a fifth grader?

I was watching a show on the telly yesterday. Simply described it is adults answering questions from first to fifth grade. If they managed all the way it would be 10 questions + one extra. To their help they had “five” classmates that would be able to help them three times (copy, peek and save). Each classmate was only to participate on two questions. The sum of money was high compared to other game shows I have seen. Anyway the questions and the answers brought many musings to my mind. Is it really so that we as adults losses so much knowledge that we can’t answer the questions that 10 year olds don’t have a problem with? Had producers simply picked out “poor examples” of adults? Does the mind blank out that much? There was a woman who couldn’t tell which continent also was a country. She answered North America. Another one didn’t know which country lays about USA. I do admit there were some questions that were hard like the geology one. There also a math question that got the best out of me but that I think was mostly because I’m 100% sure of how long a feet or a yard is. The kids were really good. Their answers were unveiled and 98% of the questions all the kids gave the correct answer.

So are we smart as a fifth grader or would we have to admit defeat?

Shopping

It’s amazing what a red sticker can do!

Yesterday I went into one of my favourite “gift shops”, Slottsateljen. After Christmas they always have their Christmas things on half prize. I bought little things that can be hung as a decoration on presents but my “barging” was an advent lamp to have in the window. Normally I wouldn’t buy an advent lamp even to the barging prize but it was 50% off and I had been looking at it before. Well, that was/is my excuse. And today I nearly went down and bought one more – for the other window!!! (lol) I have also bought some Christmas wrapping paper – reason I have to send gifts so early to US. The paper however has Disney figures on it aka for the kids. Wonder if Maryann will like that?

Going back to the Big Valley world again suddenly created a need for new books about the Wild West and the Victorian era. At the book topic no new books (that I didn’t know of) had turned up since I left last time. This meant that I have been looking at both the American and British Amazon sites besides High Plain Press. Lots of interesting books but right now I am a bit weary of ordering anything from US due to the VAT. 200 kr is nothing when shopping books considering that the fare also costs. It doesn’t matter that the books I have found are pretty cheap. However I did put them on my wish list so that I can check them out later.

Now that the book shopping was put aside – for a while – I started to go through the links that were in the study. And I created more work for myself since I then decided to make my own catalogue/file. When I have done all 17 pages I’ll add the ones I have saved as favourites and voilà an easy place to find information that I need and easily save more. And no more frustration over the time consuming search in the Study or unfunctional links. And hopefully the need for new books will be "killed" for a while.

Another thing that also happens around New Year and after summer vacations is that several magazines send out letters wanting you to subscribe to them. I got a bunch of 4 different yesterday. Very interesting gifts but they still ended up in the dustbin.

Then the cross-stitch catalogue turns up and it really creates a need for more kits. Not that I need any, I have a draw full! I managed to quickly put it aside and to delete both Past impressions and Wimble bee e-mails about discounts that came this morning.

Snow

We had an early start this morning since Stella hadn’t been out since 5 pm yesterday. I can’t get her to go out when they have started with the fireworks. The smell of smoke makes her refuse to step outside the entrance door. I don’t mind being up early. It’s so lovely to walk in the forest and see the sun slowly rise in the horizon – first a purple shade, then it turns pink to end as a light yellow. However after 2½ hour outside in -6 my butt is cold and it’s nice to get inside for a cup of tea. Stella could probably stay out longer. She is so busy studying rabbits, squirrels and birds that are in the park and in the forest she is tracking something.

I watched a DVD yesterday about the snow that fell on 4-7 December 1998. The snow was so very local. Towns about 50 km from Gävle hardly got any snow. We got 1½ m.

Gävle were an isolated city and the only way to get by was on foot, skies, scooter or the military caterpillars that were brought in. The town was so quiet; people talked to each other, selves of fresh food in the stores were empty.

It did bring many memories that I thought that I had forgotten. However it was a situation I hope I never have to experience again.

Looking out today it’s a totally different situation. There are parts that have a thin coat of something white. Pavements and streets covered with ice or are bare. I guess that is one reason to why I really have enjoyed the forest walks this weekend. It feels more like winter there and no ice.