Reasons To Be Thankful

Reasons to be Tankful

Well, after yet another brief disappearance I am back.

Oh, ladies (and gents), I am sorry for being quiet recently. In all honesty, life has been quite a trial recently and I have had to move my blog down my priority list a little, in favour of paid freelancing work, time with my children and time for nurturing activities for myself (namely exercise, seeing friends and playing my ukulele – I can do a few songs now! Badly, but still! Actual songs!)

Also, the last month has been fraught with illness. Firstly, Squishy had a chest infection, which he was treated for. The cough never really went away, and was further treated with two more rounds of medication. It still didn’t go away. In fact, it got worse. One night, on the advice of a nurse at NHS direct, we ended up at A&E at 12am because she was concerned his breathing wasn’t efficient enough to be getting him enough oxygen. Of course, after driving 25 miles to the hospital and being told by the triage nurse that it would be almost 4 hours before we got to see a doctor, Squishy was fine and was entertaining a group of tipsy youths who were in for possible broken limbs after various drunken escapades. Oh, to be 18 again.

Anyway, after a scary couple weeks and multiple doctor visits, he is now recovering. The cough is still ever-present, but we are double-dosing his inhaler (on doctors orders) and it is now improving. Thank goodness.

Then, to top it all off, we had a stomach bug over the weekend. FUN. Well, we were quite lucky actually. Monkey, bless him, was sick a few times but after about 10 hours of illness he suddenly bounced back and was as right as rain. I, however, felt like a hundred tons of crap. Thankfully I wasn’t actually sick (I have an iron stomach, I swear) but this all meant that I couldn’t go to a halloween party that I’d been looking forward to for months.

Oh, and also, I have new medication for my PPD/regular old depression/PMDD/whatever the hell is wrong with me, nobody seems to be able to tell me. I haven’t started taking it though, my plan is to see how I fare this month (I only seem to get very down in the two weeks leading up to my time of the month) and then start if I can’t find other ways to pull myself out of it. OK, I know that sounds really bad. You can’t just pull yourself out of depression. But in all honesty, I really haven’t been trying at all. I just want one more month to attempt to kick it by myself.

But you know, there is some good to all of this.

  • We are completely broke, and in all honesty I have no idea how we will cope in the months to come, but it is teaching us how to be more economical and how to curb our somewhat frivolous spending.
  • Squishy and Monkey’s illnesses have made me feel so grateful that, in general, we are all in good health and needn’t worry about multiple hospital visits, medications and treatments. Although it looks like Squishy may end up being asthmatic, I am hoping that he will grow out of it like I (and Monkey) did.
  • I may have missed my party, but I saved some money and got to have an evening spending time with my lovely husband – and I got an early night. Asleep by 10pm. Bliss.
  • Going to the doctors for my mental health issues was scary, and I don’t want to take the medication, but I did finally get a referral for cognitive behavioural therapy. Just have to wait, now, for a phone assessment to take place and hopefully they will deem me depressed enough to help me.
  • And, as always, I have two amazing, beautiful children who have taught and continue to teach me what life is really all about. I have a wonderful husband who never ceases to put his family first. I have a great group of friends and an incredibly supportive family.

Sometimes, there’s nothing like a barrage of shit to make you realise just how lucky you really are.

Continue reading here: Reward Charts – Yes or No?

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