My (mostly) horizontal life. Chapter 1. Some things I have been doing this winter

Imaginary qigong

I stopped doing my real qigong practice about 2 months ago when I had another crash and couldn't stand upright for any sensible length of time, but I kept going outside, lying down on the ground and doing it in my imagination anyway. Some people say imaginary exercise is almost as good for you as real exercise. That may be hard to believe, but it does help me feel less stressed, and it is something to do. Now I'm wondering, is the reason I am still only able to do qigong in my imagination, because I'm still too sick, or because I can't actually move in the amount of clothes I need to wear to go outside now? (one jumper, two puffer jackets, 2 beanies, a neck warmer, thick fluffy pants and gloves!) Happy winter solstice Tasmania!

Hey look, it snowed, it really was cold! 

Not going to my friend's winter beach wedding

Yeah, nah, it just wasn't going to happen with the squiddly little bit of energy I've got for travelling and talking, and the problems I have when there is too much noise and activity around me. Booo : ( CFS/SEID is a NO-FUN disease. I drew a picture for them but... 

(After another friend visited the other day with her baby, and I decided what I needed was a grown-up pram. That thing looked pretty comfortable!)

Going to the doctors and getting tested for all the things

More doctors, more blood tests, a CT scan, a heart ultrasound. Just making sure that most of the potentially treatable diseases are ruled out, before settling for the untreatable diagnosis of CFS. I did get to see pictures of my own torso in cross section, and that was pretty cool. I felt like a specimen from first year zoology on a slide. Like a worm. And I saw an ultrasound of my heart doing its beating, pumping, valves opening and closing heart thing. It was still going strong, despite all. Go heart! 

House sitting

House sitting - where I mostly get to hang out with my often challenging friends 'lonely' and 'boring', but life is easier because I don't have to deal with anybody else's mess or noise. 

Not eating any fun foods, like ice cream, or cheese, or bread, or cheese and bread together in an oozy, delicious cheese toasty....

BOORING. But a lot of people on the internet report they feel better if they change their diet, and especially if they exclude gluten and dairy. I haven't had much luck figuring anything out yet, and there are approximately one million different diets you can try, or foods that may be causing a problem, so I guess I'll keep experimenting, and not eating cheese toasties just in case. 

(Hey, how about that time it snowed heaps, and we wagged uni and walked up to The Springs and warmed our hands up and made hot gooey cheese toasties on the public BBQs and drank tea, then boogie boarded all the way back down again? That was the funnest snow day ever! Sigh.... I miss fun.....)

But I'm still eating plenty of delicious things, so its not too sad. And look at those little mid-winter home-grown ripe tomatoes! Woo! 

Wishing I was a barnacle

I was lying on the floor in the lounge room when my house mate gave me a bit of sushi seaweed to eat. That's when I decided I should actually be a bottom dwelling algae munching sea creature. Probably the best cfs animal to be would be a barnacle. I could just wave my tentacles in the water to grab food floating by when I got hungry, then when I got tired or conditions out there got a bit rough, i could just close tight my hard, soundproof, waterproof shell and have a nice old barnacle nap. It'd be cool to hitch a ride on a whale too. Did you know that when barnacles are youngsters they swim about freely in the sea, and it's not until they grow up that they settle down, cement their head to a rock, grow a shell and convert their swimming legs into retractable food grabbing tentacles? Does that sound like any humans you know too? 

Here's me and a few kids pretending to be a barnacles when I worked as a Discovery Ranger / nature guide at Freycinet National Park a few years ago. 

Painting watercolour birds. (When I can be upright for long enough.)

Mainly parrots

Crocheting things with this beautiful wool that my friend Emily dyed with native Tasmanian plants

  

Yay bushcrafts! I made the arm warmers for Michelle, who sent me a gift of veggies from her organic market stall, which are in the fry pan picture. Thank you Michelle! Also, let me know if anyone wants a beanie or a pair of arm warmers. I like having people to make things for : ) 

And, watching clouds

The sky keeps moving and changing, even if I don't : )

The end, for now.