Happiness

I simply CAN'T contain my happiness which is frothing and bubbling away inside and needs an outlet - I KNOW - me HAPPY who'd have thunk it after such a tense week!

Why am I so happy?  It's simple really, I used my money from Christmas and ordered a hoody from the uber talented and exceptionally lovely Mama Chills Dizzyjam store and have been hopping from foot to foot excitedly since then watching the post and awaiting it's arrival  eagerly AND it arrived via Mr Posty this morning, after ripping it open I put it straight on and am now wearing it with pride plus being exceptionally irritating by showing it off to anyone and everyone who comes my way whilst grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

Funny how something so simple can really lift you though, don't you think?  This week has been tense and emotional for us - very difficult for the girls with low energy and high anxiety and I had been feeling quite flat up to now.  So something like this just picked me up and made me smile.

Me wearing my hoody...

The beauty of this design is it conveys how I often feel, exhausted and drained of energy and quite literally running on empty, as are the many sufferers of M.E. and I am hoping by wearing it I will spark off conversations that I can then use as a tool to raise awareness about M.E. and get the word out there that it is real, not psychological but  a very cruel and debilitating physical illness which is more common than people think.

Our lovely ME Paediatric Consultant used the analogy of a cars fuel tank to explain fatigue to my daughters -  a normal person has a strong fuel tank, free of holes which they fill up overnight when they sleep and so it is full of fuel (energy) in the morning, it steadily reduces throughout the day and then when they sleep it refills again overnight.  If you have M.E. your fuel tank is full of holes to start with, so in the morning you wake up it is only half full because it has been leaking overnight due to the restless sleep which brings no refreshment in the morning and is a feature of M.E.  Then throughout the day more and more energy leaks out through the holes and so for every small exertion you make your energy or fuel is drained faster than it would a healthy person whilst also taking so much longer to refill, leaving you very often on empty before the end of the day and unable to do anything at all.  Then overnight when you sleep your fuel tank doesn't quite fill up as much as it did the previous night leaving you with less fuel for the next day and so on - which is why they crash and why pacing is so very important (although hard for a teen to do). 

Pacing is when you acknowledge your energy limitations and only do what you know you are safe to do within your limits, to stop before you feel tired and rest.  Taking lots of intermittent rest periods is very important and not to push through the tiredness as it will only make you ill.  The girls are slowly learning their limitations and how to pace - it is very hard for them though as it means for example only seeing a friend for half an hour and then going to rest, instead of seeing them for a few hours at a time - but it works and so they are working at getting on top of it.

Have a fabulous weekend peeps - I'm off to bake the girls a scrummy gluten free vanilla sponge cake.

See you laters

~ Blessings ~

x~X~x