Tag: achievements

Posted in Archive, January 2021

Lockdown, Homeschooling and Work

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With the introduction of the new lockdown I had had been planning on getting crafty with the kids again. That idea was snuffed out after an email landed in my email box confirming that nursery would be doing live home lessons followed by tasks to be completed, photographed and emailed to his teachers. All well and good except my partner works shifts and I have an 18 month old whose favourite word is no, also takes no as a yes and will most deffinently try to touch every key on my laptop.

So today was the first home school lesson. After half an hour of technical wrestleling we finally got on to Teams and were met by a chorus of STEFAN. The children were happily mucking around with each other, my daughter was desperately trying to join in and the teacher? Her laptop had the same issues mine had to start with and never made it to the lesson. Round two tomorrow!

Dystonia and Me Holistic Health Coaching is officially up and running which has added a lovely touch to my evenings. I have been thoroughly enjoying chatting with different people with a range of issues and starting them on their journeys with me.

Colourful heart enlarging in further colours being touched by a human figure in blues and purples

I would love to hear if any has had the vaccine yet? From the calculator I predict mine to be late Feb to March at the current injection rates and would be interested to hear your experience in the comments. I personally will be accepting the offer of the jab, I just would like to go in to it eyes open to side effects.

Posted in Archive, December 2020

So This Is Energy?

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If you’ve been following my blog for a while, or if you’ve been here since the beginning, you’ll know that pacing (for many years) was like a swear word to me. The doctors threw it around a lot, really pressed the importance of it, but no-one really explained how to implement it properly into my life. I felt like I was being told to sit down and accept my fate of not being able to do anything, anymore. As someone who likes to be busy, I didn’t accept this instruction.


Don’t misunderstand me, I tried. I’d manage a few days of what I viewed as pacing and then I’d slip back into my old habits, trying to live a normal life of activity with no adjustments. The consequences of doing this was that I hit that ’empty spoon’ wall hard and often. Each time regretting it as I then took days to recuperate.


I’m currently coming towards the end of the 3 diplomas I’ve been studying, in Health, Wellness and Life Coaching – specialising in life management with chronic illnesses. I’ve loved the course itself but seeing the difference applying it to my daily life has had, has been amazing. It’s completely changed my understanding of pacing and therefore helped me to apply it to my life with ease.


Yesterday, for example, I was feeling much better than usual so I asked my son what activities he would like to do. I had already decided I would say yes to whatever he chose to do and would find a way to adapt it if needed. He asked to cook with me. So we got the soup maker out to eliminate the amount of cutting and hot heavy lifting of pans. He loved peeling the onion and garlic, cutting out the amount of herbs. It was a gentle session, sat down and full of laughter.
I know energy filled days won’t always be here even when I’m 100% on track, but by pacing, asking for help more etc.it reduces how often flare ups will happen. It’s making a huge difference not just to how I’m coping physically but also to my mental health which has had a real boost.

Posted in Archive, Novemeber 2020

Vulnerability is Strength

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It’s a painsomnia night so I thought I would share with you all something that I’ve been coming back to frequently recently. Personally I’m a very sensitive, emotional person; now some may view that as a bad thing, others a good thing, some of you will be neutral. I can see the pros and cons, but it’s what makes me me, so yes I may cry buckets everytime we watch certain episodes of Vikings, or The Lion King but i’ll also laugh myself to stitches five minutes later. It’s a rollercoaster of life. It’s real, honest and truth.

So why do I, and I know many others with chronic illness will be able to identify with this, go on autopilot everytime a doctor, family member or friend asks after us? You know the drill, you walk into the drs room the doctor greets you and asks how you are before you get down to the nitty gritty. It’s a formality, so like a healthy person you respond with I’m good thanks, and you? It’s ridiculous! Why is it so hard to say you know what I’m actually not great at the moment and I need some help.

I forced myself to do this yesterday. I could hear the usual auto response slipping out my mouth, so I caught myself, took a breath, looked the doctor in the eye and said I’m pretty awful and I don’t know what to do. Now saying that wasn’t easy but boy did the relief for sharing the burden feel good. Making that choice to let the facade of I can cope with everything slip for a moment to ask for help took an incredible amount of inner strength and it’s something I’m going to practice doing more often. Vulnerability is not something to view in a negative light, in fact it allows others to reach out and see if they can improve your situation. Sometimes just talking things over can make a difference.

So just pause for a moment and think; are you like me and guilty of putting walls up? Is it worth flexing your inner strength and letting that vulnerability show? Let me know what you decide to do!

Posted in Archive, October 2016

Duvet Days

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Today is the last day of Invisible illness week 2016. I had had good intentions all week to blog daily, however readjusting to uni life meant that I was coming home from lectures and going straight to sleep. For this week I had planned to blog about achieving despite illness, and general spoonie hacks for coping with day to day life. Instead I’ve decided to leave these topics for another day and address the reality of what happens to someone with chronic illness when they catch an ‘ordinary’ bug.

I have spent the majority of today curled up under my duvet feeling frankly rather pathetic. Having caught a sicky bug and then developing a kidney infection I’m not feeling overly fantastic. Instead all my joints have been in a constant state of flare up pain, I have struggled to remain sitting upright for any length of time because my back feels like I have Snow White’s 7 dwarfs performing an irish jig on it; to walk the measly few steps from my bed to the bathroom has involved me gripping on to my walking sticks as I don’t trust my dodgy joints not to slip out of place and add to my already elevated pain levels. This is my reality every single time I catch some sort of acute bug. It sucks. Whenever my partner or my housemate has asked me what they can do to help, I’ve asked for a new body. It’s a silly retort and a bittersweet one at that. For a brief moment I’ll smile, as I know how unattainable that is, and then comes the downwards spiral because there are nowhere near enough words in existence for me to express how much I wish I could just have a new glitch free body.

credit: Pinterest  – Spoonie Awareness

My mental well-being always takes a blow when I feel ‘iller’ than normal. So finding positives in each moment helps. Today I’m celebrating the fact that I recognized I needed a time out from life, I’m thrilled that I actually managed to change into a fresh set of pyjamas, that hell yeah I managed to walk through the pain with my stick, and sure I only managed a wee while but I still managed to accomplish some revision.

Sure I may be moaning and feeling rather sorry for myself, but I’m over the moon that I still managed all these positive moments. Tomorrow I’ll wake up to a new sunrise, and hopefully experience far less pain.

Posted in Archive, July 2013

Empowerment & Independance

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Independence has been a big issue for me ever since Dystonia hit me. I went from living at uni and being very independent to moving back into my family home and relying on my family to do everything for me. Simple things like just going to get a drink or going to talk to a member of my family in the other room became impossible tasks. To get around my house I relied on my parents to put me in a wheelchair and wheel me round. I often found and sometimes still do, that I push myself too far in my attempts to do things for myself and end up causing more spasms, however this never bothered me as I still get that sense of achievement by accomplishing the task.

In the beginning simple things like that fact I could dress myself and do my own hair and makeup were enough for me, as even though they were hard I managed to do them without any help. Sometimes this meant it took hours but I  loved it. Over the months though my desire for more independance built up. I managed to fulfill this desire once a week by riding, where I was in complete control of both body and horse.

Recently though I have been trying to explore ways where I could expand my independance without risking setting off more spasms. At first I was drawing blanks, then it hit me! I could bum shuffle! For those of you who are unfamiliar with bum shuffling it is when you sit on the floor and move using your legs and hips to pull you along, it takes awhile but it gets the job done.

This simple technique has left me thrilled. There are still moments where I need to be in a wheelchair as my spasms are bad and I am simply not well enough to do it, but the majority of the time I am able to. Things like going into the living to watch TV with my family or have a gossip are now so much easier.

Last year I felt like it was the end on the world and that Dystonia was consuming every aspect of my life. Now I am an empowered determined fighter, craftly finding ways to get around the Dystonia.  One day I shall be completely free!

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Posted in Archive, november

Take The Good With The Bad

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There is currently an advert on the T.V (I can’t remember which one it is, it looks like a Christmas one) that has a line in it that I love, ‘Take the good with the bad’.  This is so true, everyone goes through good and bad experiences in life, and at the end of the day, it is up to them what they choose to take from that experience.

Dystonia is not what I would call a good experience, to be rather honest it sucks and I would rather not have it, however this does not mean that I won’t take something positive from the experience. For example, because of Dystonia I did a charity run and raised £715 for the Dystonia society. Instead of focusing on all the negatives that Dystonia causes, I make myself think about the positives, such as I managed to wrap all the Christmas presents I had brought one-handed and they looked better than normal, I even wrote my Christmas cards with my left hand!

I understand that sometimes it can be hard to focus on the positives when you are in the midst of a bad time. However I think that forcing yourself to focus on the positives is the best thing you can do, it gives you a distraction from the negative. There is no point in sitting around wallowing, when you can be thinking of the positives; such as your personal achievements, and trying to figure out how you can make something good out of the experience.

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Posted in September

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional

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My quote of the day has to be ‘Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional’.  I find this quote rather fitting. Having dystonia means that every day and every night in full of pain, some days worse than others. However just because I am in pain does not mean I should stop and give up. If anything I embrace the pain, I accept that it is part of me but it does not define me.

Dystonia makes many daily activities like cooking, washing my hair, going for a walk etc. rather hard, but that is no excuse for me to lie in bed all day feeling sorry for myself. Instead it inspires me to get up and go, to think what can I do and then go and do it. I love horse riding, its going to be difficult to do, but I am not going to let pain stop me from giving it a go!

Dystonia causes a hell of a lot of pain. I am going to achieve everyone of my goals despite it!