Tag crochet

Air Fryer, Netflix, Prime Video, and TikTok Ads

SpoonfulofDiva Leave a comment

The daily grind of having chronic illness.

One day, my caretaker brought home an air fryer and changed our world forever. In the middle of my illness, I had all but quit cooking, and left it up for everyone to pretty much fend for themselves or my husband to cook when they got home. This neat little invention gave my family a new lease on life, as I resigned to my illness sitting on the couch either scrolling aimlessly through Tik Tok, or watching movies on Prime Video or Netflix.

In our home, we didn’t fry food often, if ever. Long ago, I had figured out that fried foods didn’t agree with me all that well, and for obvious reasons, I sure didn’t want to clog the arteries of my loved ones. Insert the air fryer, and our world was changed. We have upgraded to two different air fryers since the original one mind you. We literally have to have one to feed at least a family of four at any given time. We opted for a pretty awesome one, that we refer to as a “hobby oven” because it will do pizzas and various other things, rather than just air fry, it’s also a rotisserie as well.

CORSORI Air Fryer and Toaster Oven!

Anyway, I laid around a lot on that couch with hardly any energy to move, let alone enough energy to function my brain to even think about cooking. Everyone in the house was near adult age, or already adult in age, so it just made sense to make things a little easier than firing up the 6 cubic square foot oven all the time for some simple small meals or snacks.

I was actually pretty lucky to watch the transition of programming on our popular Netflix and its demise in my husband and I’s opinion. The offerings started to get smaller and less interesting to watch. So, when this latest billing fiasco came to light, it didn’t hurt my feelings much to just cancel it. For our family, it just wasn’t worth all the hype, when we can find programming for less, and after all, we already have a prime membership, why not entertain and use our Prime Video just a little bit more?

My soul purpose was to lay on that couch, and hope for the energy to get off that couch. I would crochet until my hands hurt, nap until I felt like I couldn’t nap anymore, and wait for someone to bring me food from the awesome air fryer. That was my life for several months. It wasn’t the best, but it was all I could hope for. If I woke up “above the dirt”, I was one step closer to not losing everything just yet. I am so very grateful for that.

I found myself writing notes and hoarding note pads in various places as well, so as I continue to write the book, you’re going to witness all the things I had to go through, by my notes. My caretakers and family fill me in with the rest of the information because, for a solid two years, I can honestly say, my brain did not have any ability to retain information. Swear on whatever is Holy that I have lost those years, and I may never get anyone’s birthday or ages correct ever again.

Learning to Survive

SpoonfulofDiva Leave a comment

The hardest part of living with chronic illnesses is learning to survive it.

These photos are about a month apart in 2019. On the right you can actually see I still had purple in my hair, but as you can also see, there’s significant swelling in my face. Not to mention my eyelids, chronic inflammation is no joke, but it occurs.

Dark circles are a thing that I now live with as well, and “Painting on my Personality” is the phrase I use now, because most of my eyebrows fell out (or turned white), even my eyelashes would follow suit a few times. Lucky for me though, I had a few beard hairs show up as well, three more in fact. Insert my dad into pointing out that I had a beard hair under my chin that I never knew I had at 16, while we are hanging out with my boyfriend out of town at an electronics store. If you want to really torture your teen, do that, thanks Dad. Ha Ha! So, for everyone’s enjoyment in understanding my facial expressions, I do have to reapply my eyebrows when venturing out into public.

Learning to survive was hard though, not the superficial stuff. It was the depression. The never-ending list of growing symptoms. I even had to reach out to a friend for inspiration in how I just didn’t throw in the towel entirely. Their advice, “Find a hobby, keep yourself busy, and find God.” This time, I WANTED TO LISTEN, BECAUSE I WANTED TO LIVE.

I picked up a crochet hook and FORCED myself to crochet and learn to. If I couldn’t speak, and my hands couldn’t make cake, I kept telling myself I would FORCE my tremoring hands to do physical therapy of rebuilding dexterity by crocheting for something to do. I obsessively crochet and still do when it strikes my fancy. Simply teaching myself a pattern and do it long enough so that my hands gained muscle memory was just what I needed.

Then I began to change my outlook and approach as I accomplished just one simple project at a time. As I obsessively crocheted, I told myself, “If you can do this, it’s time that we approach your meds and life differently.” I began to change my mindset, just by simply crocheting a few scarves.

By 2019 my list of diagnosis went like this: Early Onset Dementia, Interstitial Cystitis of the Bladder, PCOS, Endometriosis, Fibroids (Although, I did have to dispose of all those unnecessary female parts in 2018 because my Uterus had grown 7 times the size that caused the permanent damage to my bladder), Chronic Inflammatory Response, Edema, High Blood Pressure, Fatty Liver, High Cholesterol, Fibromyalgia, Paresthesia of my Veins and Carotid Arteries, Tremors, Seizures, Osteoarthritis **There may be a few more that I had forgotten.**

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