Health and Halloween

October is always one of my favourite months of the year. The nights get longer, the weather gets cooler and mumma starts adding dumplings to our dinner to fatten us up for the winter. 

It's always a super busy month for me as its full of birthdays, oh so many many birthdays. Growing up, this meant sweets at school more or less everyday day; now it means lots of lovely meals out with friends and family, cocktails and wine. After a month full of baking cakes and writing cards for other people I get to celebrate my own birthday at the end of the month- I turn 22 on the 26th October, put it on your diaries folks. 

As well as all the autumn cuddles and birthday parties, October brings with it... Halloween. I freaking love Halloween. In less than 2 weeks, I will finally get the chance to wear the costume I've been planning for weeks, and I cannot wait. But before then, I'm gonna snuggle up with a nice hot chocolate and a toffee apple and force my boyfriend to watch Hocus Pocus. It's one of my favourite ever films, and as far as I'm concerned, it's just not Halloween without it. 

What I'm Watching

What with my graduation, the weekend in Brighton and all the catching-up with friends and family that comes with returning from uni, I've had a pretty busy time of it lately. There I was, plodding along, thinking my M.E was behaving itself incredibly well and coping with all I was throwing at it far better than I could have hoped. Then bam. Turns out it wasn't coping too well after all and the post external malaise has hit me pretty hard this week (if you're lucky enough to not know what this is, then check out my post on the symptoms of M.E here for a little heads up). If you're a fellow spoonie then you'll know just how gutting this can be. Though we're used it, every time the dreaded PEM hits it feels like a million steps back along the road to recovery. And to be honest with you, I'm really pretty bad at coping with it. Yes, I try to push through though I know I shouldn't, I cry though it just makes me more exhausted and I fret that I'll never ever feel any better... so much for the positive attitude, eh. 

But ultimately, eventually I give in. After a good talking to from my boyfriend or mummy I manage to get myself back on the positive bandwagon wagon and see each episode of PEM as a simple blimp along my long and bumpy journey. So what's a girl to do when she can hardly get out of bed? Why! Sign up for a Netflix account of course! So while I've been holed up in bed with some chocolate and a fan, I've spent my week catching up with some of my best loved shows. These are some of mine, what are some of yours?

Graduating and Growing Up

For the last three years I've been pushing my poor little spoonie body to its limits studying for my English degree. It's been hard, and I questioned many times whether I could really do it, but all the hard work has finally paid off and earlier this week I graduated... with a 2:1 nonetheless! 

Those of you who've donned your gowns and mortar boards to wave goodbye to your university careers will know just how busy and stressful this day can be (or is that just me and my unorganised family?), and for those of you who haven't, it's a pretty jam packed and demanding day! And while I could barely move by the end of the day and the post-external malaise hit me like a ton of bricks, it was oh so worth it. Though I graduated along with my class of around five hundred people, I felt like a bit of a star for the day... there was photos, champagne, Pimms, more photos, cake, yet more photos and a delicious meal at what I can only imagine is the best burger joint in Britain- if you life near Nottingham and haven't paid Annie's a visit, then you simply have not lived. 

Health Update: July

Happy July Everybody! 

We're now officially over half way through the year, the longest day has been and gone, and next Christmas is now closer than last Christmas... Crazy right!?

While this blog is here to note most of my daily goings on, from baking to chilling in bed with with a hot water bottle and a good Efron classic on my laptop, its main purpose is to chart my life with, and hopefully my recovery from M.E. Therefore I figured it was about time I actually got round to writing about the current state of my health, which with any luck, will start to improve over the next few months/ year.

Wind back to last Summer and I was probably at my lowest. I was suffering from severe symptoms, mainly fatigue and pain, more or less every single day. I was barely sleeping and to coincide conveniently with the best and hottest British Summer I can remember, my body decided that it simply did not like heat, not one little bit. I was spending a lot of my time in bed and the thought of having to make it through another year of uni filled me with dread.

Whizzing back to the present, and Summer 2014 sees me feeling soo much better. While my health is by no means great, it is, touch wood, certainly improving. June was a pretty roller-coaster month, with my body having to contend with deadlines, exams, my graduation ball and leaving university as well as all those other exhausting day-to-day activities. Obviously my poor sick little body couldn't cope with all this and there was days when then post-external malaise was simply terrible. But on the whole, I came out the other end.

Busy June:
Graduation Ball, Celebratory trip to Bakewell and 'we've finished exams!' drinks.

As we enter July, I'm in a much better place- physically and mentally. Having finished uni for good *gasp*, and having finally fully committed to being a full-time sick person, my body is under the least stress in years, which is so far giving me a much needed boost. However, despite taking various mediations to aid my sleep, I still have sleeping issues and I still wake unrefreshed. And although I'm experiencing less aches and pains daily, I still experience extreme fatigue after a simple lunch date with friends. This time last year, everyday was a bad day, but now I'm getting an impressive 2-3 good days for every bad one. And while these good days may not be 'good' by a well persons standards, they're something to celebrate for me. For example, over Easter I had a whole week of good days, a whole week- I actually nearly cried out of happiness (or maybe I did... bad memory).

So as we enter the seventh month of the year, I hope this new month sees you all well. For all you spoonie's out there, I hope this month's full of many many good days, and that you manage to make it out into the (promised) sun, even if only for a few minutes. And if like me, you're living for the little positives in life, just remember, M.E. can't stop the beautiful smell of blazing barbecue drifting in through your window... so you've always got that :)

Alice

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