This past Monday, I thought I’d shoot a few photos during the day to give some visibility to my invisible disabilities. Here they are, and the stories they tell:
While I love making French press coffee, I was too weak and dizzy in the morning to manage the hand grinder, so I settled for Keurig-made coffee. You can also see I’ve got a bit of a dish pileup from the day before.
This is my work space. Because of my osteoarthritis and degenerative disc disease, I can’t sit at a desk. Lately, my back pain has been so bad that I have a hard time getting comfortable in any lounging position. It’s definitely affecting my work because working is literally painful. You can also see my poor plant. I need to spend a day and de-dead my plants. Chores get shoved aside when one has chronic fatigue.
Before beginning work, I have to tape up my pinkie finger so I can type. Same as wrapping a bad knee. It helps a lot with the arthritis pain. There are a couple knuckles on my other hand that get taped sometimes, too. If you notice the deformity of my index finger in this pic, that’s just a birth defect.
It was Monday, so I made myself a fresh Impact Map for the week. Sometimes I change them up, depending on how I’m managing my Splatus, particular areas of self-care I need to focus on, or otherwise what my current goals are.
Those dishes continued to pile up and after I finished washing them, I had to lie down and rest for a little while. My heart was pounding so hard while I was scrubbing the last pan, and I was feeling super dizzy! No, I never took a shower this day. I was at tractor trailer Splatus and wasn’t up to it. I had showered the day before, for church, so I didn’t smell close to my expiration date yet.
