They said I should write a book

My child was sick even before her father went on his extended holiday to Japan. It’s been over a month now, people. I haven’t had an AS flare in ages so for much of the time, I’d have slept without pain until this week. But then, she was too sick to sleep, and so so was I. Well, too awake to sleep.

Enter this Tuesday, I think it was Tuesday. My girl was withdrawing into herself. A shadow. Even now at 6am she was awake, but listlessly lying on the cold, tiled floor.🥹 Her bowel moved a bit, she came to me upset and miserable. I tried to figure out how to teach while nursing her. I was so caught up that I missed a call.

It was 30 minutes before the end of the session that I realized I was meant to have been at the next DISCO assessment appointment! It takes about 15 minutes to get there! Oh no!! I felt so bad especially as they’d tried to phone me, text me. I phoned the secretary and was soooo upset at myself. But she was kind and offered to shift it to another time on the same day if the psychologist was available.

She was.

So I went. I apologised profusely. I hate inconveniencing people. I hate wasting people’s time. I hate being late already, now being unaware completely? But she told me not to worry, “You have so many children and so many worries anyway!”

On the 2nd, a text came in. I’d forgotten to pay the ironing company. Sometimes I even pay early! But this time it wasn’t even on my radar. I thanked the lady for the reminder, explaining how much more stressful than normal our life had been.

When my son went to pay, I asked him to apologise to the staff there too. They were also very gracious, telling him, “It’s ok, your mom has many children to worry about.”

I feel like I’m falling apart. Like I’ll have a stroke and become a drooling quadriplegic, unable to do anything. We know how hard being special needs parents is. How damaging to the psyche. We know how psychologically and therefore physically, damaging abuse is. Let’s not forget decades of pain and suffering, no sleep and sadness.

When I told the father of my children that the gynae had said I need to take a rest and a break every six months and just go and unwind, he said, “I’ve always told you to go to Pretoria, but you don’t want to.”

Let me explain. In Pretoria, is a little house my children (now only daughter) live in. I would have to take a two hour plus flight to get there, then a 45 minute drive. Sitting in the plane is hell. A hell I will never do again and if you loved me, you’d remember how awful it was when I went with the children to Pretoria.

In Pretoria is a house that has stairs. Stairs are bad for me too. Stairs and a stove I will need to use to cook on as always. Sounds like a true break, right? A house that unlike a hotel or guesthouse, has no aircon for me to warm or cool down a room before I enter it. Yeah, that’s really something his colleagues would view as a getaway. I say colleagues because he copies them and their leisure pursuits.

It makes absolute sense that a man who would go to Tokyo for fun, spend many nights there in a hotel, would lovingly tell his wife that the only REST she deserves is to hurt her body while wearing an N95 mask for over two hours for the sake of her fragile lungs, to go cook and go up and down stairs. Of course, someone who laid out even extra for meals his hotel didn’t provide, and for a tour of Japan, would suggest his wife just have breadcrumbs.

If he’s demonic.

Which we established many years ago, he is.

These are the assaults I need to get free of. No matter how many times I even show that STRANGERS care about me, it doesn’t matter. He will never learn to care. He didn’t learn kindness and empathy from me for over 27 years, he won’t learn it from strangers. It’s a constant reminder of how hated I am, living with someone who hates me.

Any wonder my head feels like it will explode and my brain not be able to think nor feel? It’s not only that I’m doing most of my parenting life alone, it’s that I’m the only one who cares about me in my own household.

Indeed, I have reasons for forgetting. I have much to remember.

To avoid burn out, you need a supportive adult who loves your children and will care for them adequately. You need a person who understands all the needs. I will not be joining this meeting regarding burnout. Maybe when I’m free…

Last night, my girl exploded all over herself, the explosion of poop reaching behind her, around her onto my bed, behind the bed, on walls, on her head, up her back while she was bent over onto her hands, into textbooks, soaking through the covers onto the pages.

The river on the floor was gross but it was on my fresh bedding that I had broken my back putting on that very morning. I ran another bath for her and then went back to see how to clean. But most was on the floor so after a few painful bends, I called Amarissa to come and I’d do the bedding instead.

Her lament, “Why isn’t dad here to help us!? Who does he get a break?”

That’s a lament I make every morning, weekend or holiday. He never is there for the morning madness. The slow getting dressed, the multiple meds, the timing of the meds, preparing meals…He is never there to be a true father.

And these mornings as the ASbgets louder and louder, I feel the lack even more.

I had children to parent them myself as if I’m the custodial parent and he’s just a holiday father. But doesn’t even do as much as a holiday father should do.

I hate AS. It scares me. What will happen the older and lonelier I get while stuck with fleeing children who will never be adults? Again, it’s no wonder I forget.

I pray God gives me the strength to be the primary parent for the rest of my life.

My poor girl is still very unwell. She even survived a weighted lap blanket she put on her head as she lay on the sofa, something she never does (lying on my sofa, that is!) That stuff that creates the heavy weight is hard and heavy inside. I use it for the girls when they’re doing school to help them focus and feel more regulated. I got her a blanket for her body, and she fully covered up for 33 minutes till the music started. (At 18:30 I get the children to play Christian songs.)

She was cute in the morning to. Went to the kitchen to eat bananas and when her brother saw her and picked her up to change her, I took clothes for her to wear and found her carrying the fruit bowl. Mostly empty as she’d eaten lots in the kitchen. (Nope, no stool all night despite two whole doses of adult size and adult medicine for colon emptying that day.)

Maybe today will be the day she empties fully. One can only hope. 🥹

Meanwhile, her twin sister who had woken earlier and had come and said she needs a snack to “help” her stop being scared of the rain, was also on a funny streak. She was complaining that she “keep making a wee! I keep having to come to the toilet!” I told her that maybe she’s getting up too soon (ADHD) and therefore not actually emptying her bladder. I suggested she sit for a while and wait and see.

Her reply, “That is a great idea! You have helped me! I will try it! Thank you soooo much! What a wonderful idea!” 😅🥰

It worked. She survived car trips and didn’t come in needing the toilet. My immediate thought was “UTI!” But that seems to have solved the problem! Let’s see today.

And the final cutie pie moment I’ll mention, was breakfast. I make oven baked chips, vegan schnitzel or burger or pies etc during the week. The day before, Amarissa had gone on a vegetable shopping spree. (This is for her weight loss BUT she keeps wanting to EAT all the vegetables all throughout the day. Yeah, that won’t help!)

She cooked it. I’ve been letting her cook with minimal guidance so she learns from mistakes and we discuss it as part of her home skill I write down for her school work in case some boys authority figure wants to know our routine. Both girls were invested in the tomatoes and carrots they’d bought and were eating them. Unseasoned!

I added some herbal salt to their tomato slices and you’d think I’d given them the holy grail, the way they were so thankful! So cute. Most importantly, Twin A who never finishes her breakfast, finished it all, even though it was now much more than what she usually eats! She is the child in the family who proves the adage that when involved in choosing and prepping, the child will eat what they wouldn’t normally eat. I am so proud of them for loving plain veggies!

When she made broccoli, I had to advise her over the phone and she was enjoying it purely boiled! The added herbal garlic mix when I got home from her DISCO *interrogation session was the cherry on top. I hope they always have a friendly relationship with vegetables.

I tested my girl’s stated desire for vegetables by telling her she’d be paying for them from her pocket money and she didn’t balk. Wait till she finds out I am not counting it as money spent! She will be so happy. And I’m sure, motivated to continue. And now you see why I’m so proud of her resolve. She literally bought the vegetables herself, with money she can buy anything she wants, with! Well done to her!

Here’s to healing, recovery, weight stabilising and a better life for us all.🙏🏾

*It’s an interrogation because it’s hours of answering questions about things you really have to think deeply about. Some I didn’t recall, like if she had started waving by x number of months! Who would know even if she was the only child they had!? Not many of us!

It started with increased grunting on Thursday. I knew she wasn’t ok. I took her for a drive to see if the car would soothe her enough to feel happier. It didn’t. Instead, my stress and worry, helplessness and fatigue increased with each kilometer I drove.

What is wrong?

Why is she acting the very same way she acted before I took her to hospital the other time? But she’s been passing stool. What’s wrong?

For loving parents, you can only be as happy as your saddest child. That already puts me in a constant state of unhappiness given my children’s neurodivergence makes them miserable each day for different reasons. Add the inability to communicate and you have a mother who can never be truly happy. And that’s without the audible grunting from pain.

Then things regressed. My children, and by extension I, do not slept well anyway. But it’s now even worse. My girl has been up and loud by 4am. The father then leaves me to keep her somehow quiet so she doesn’t wake her siblings after telling me, “I have to go run.” And then he has the silence, no grunting, no worry, no crying and sadness during the day. No night time interruptions, not even sleeping late like I have to till I am sure every child is asleep and won’t come wake me.

This morning, erupted with bleary Sjögren’s disease eyes, teeth, AS pain and her sounding wide awake and loud. And by 5am, she was screaming. I suggested hospital. The father said nah, we should wait for me to book an appointment for her to see the pediatrician. Today is Saturday! I told him the paed isn’t available till end of April. (I needed to see him to put our PMDD girl on birth control so I’d contacted his rooms on Thursday.)

Then he asked if she doesn’t have a GP she sees. No…She has a paed! And I reminded him that a GP can’t see through her to see if her belly is empty. Yes she has been moving stool, but she’s acting exactly like she was when I took her to the hospital on the 6th. I know from normal info that one can be constipated even while going regularly. Add the Sjögren’s lady whose scan also showed way too much stored in her despite how often she does go seeing as our bowels don’t produce liquid to move things along, and you have a suspicion her belly isn’t ok despite the multiple poops throughout the day, two of them complete blow outs that required an immediate bath and change of clothes.

I ended up saying, over my poor child’s screams that had now woken Ammy and broken her heart, “If I was healthy, I would take her to the hospital. This isn’t right.”

They went to the hospital.

And yep, her stomach is PACKED. We have two medical type clean outs we must do, then adult colon meds for five days after. I pray it works. I pray it never happens again. With her diet, it’s very easy for this to happen. I really hate autism.

But hey, all is right in the world. I got the meds into her -150ml is not easy! And her father is happily restfully napping for an hour. Being strong and healthy and sleeping at 8pm and waking at 4am to go run must be so hard.

Meanwhile, I hope her grunts of pain disappear. And never return. I am barely holding on as it is. I feel like something in my head is going to snap. I keep telling God that I want to be thankful, but the suffering He is allowing in every single facet of my life is over shadowing a lot of the light. I am not content. I want my child to be able to tell me when her pain is starting so I can catch it sooner. I want to get a break and rest. I want my children to stop being challenging so they too can be happy.

I asked Ammy why she lied about her little brother. There was no reason. It’s like she seeks trouble for others. She wants me to reprimand an innocent sibling.

But then her response becomes so extreme that you have to remind yourself that you do have to discipline. You do have to ask why, and tell them it wasn’t kind nor right. But man, the reaction is also as intense as the many times a day behaviours.

I need a happy group of children.🥹

My poor girl is getting roasted big time by her younger siblings! I was in my bedroom with her and Micaiah and she started trying to do push ups. She was complaining that she at least used to do four before but now can’t do any at all.

Micaiah said something about her arms…

“Why do your arms look so big and fat? It’s like you’re that obese uncle with the very big front tummy!” I forgot to even ask which ‘uncle’ this is because my girl started laughing at herself so I just joined her as I tried to see if her arm really WAS that bad.

I have one answer to the previous post. She is still gaining weight. She’s gained a kg in a week and is now heavier than her 20 year old brother. I told her our first goal will be to stabilise her weight before we even look at loss.

Then, later, her sister was outside looking all cute reading a book (The way my parents used to hate it when they caught me reading was awful.) so I silently went out to see her.

This is her when her ADHD meds have worn off. I love it.

Micaiah and Amarissa came out and then this little one said to me, “Mommy…I’m really worried…Why does Amarissa eat so much? All the time she’s eating. And now she’s fat.”🫣 Thankfully, the girl herself thought it was funny because we’d been talking about her weight while her sister read outside. And we’d checked everyone’s BMI and laughed at the results.

First, we’d calculated her BMI, the pointer moves, so it moved all the way round to red and ‘obese.’ We did mine, and mine moved to the upper end of ‘healthy.’ Yes, I know the stats are not for people like us because our body composition naturally has more genetic fat than who it was used for, and the creator apparently even said he had never meant for the BMI measurement to be used on the general public anyway. But still, our silly Discovery med aid still uses it.

Then we did her little brother and it moved less than it had moved for her and I. And then, her big brother. Our autistic who never gets hungry and eats only when I remind him to but I have four small special needs children and pain so I don’t make him eat regularly as I forget he’s my other baby…

His needle moved like two millimetres to the upper end of ‘underweight.’ My girl thought it was hilarious that his barely moved, while hers made an almost 180 degree move to the other end of the scale. At least she thinks it’s funny😩.

But she was also roasted by the assessor and I. In her absence, of course. The DISCO day one assessment was apparently lightning fast. The psychologist said I was the fastest parent she’d ever had. I bet none of the others already had four already diagnosed children! And hadn’t BEEN talking about autism for the child for probably two to three years like my friend and I have been.

The questions were very different to other assessments they use. Interesting questions. Things that opened my eyes to autistic traits I didn’t know about. Like how her refusal to get dressed and also to tidy up is clearly PDA. Duh! Because she doesn’t always verbally refuse like her younger sister does who has it and it is severe, I just thought it was only ADHD responsible for it. And things like how badly she does her chores were asked about too! And the answer is, VERY badly. Yes, she definitely ‘needs supervision’ for all her chores because she will pick up two things, throw them under the bed and she’s done. But there will 39 other things still scattered all over the door or the table.

Another one was how she wasn’t safe outside at age three. Most kiddies can go out and just faff around and then come in. She was eating weeds and flowers until she turned NINE years old! She was disobeying us and catching bees and getting stung last year.

Another one is all her climbing! It was asked about! Oh yes, climbs on table and dances about on it very dangerously. Climbs trees and hangs upside down. Climbs wardrobe shelves, kitchen counters. Yeah, an 11 year old doing that is one of the traits of autism! I didn’t know that.

And one roast was her common sense. We laughed because as she herself had observed when she assessed Amarissa alone, “She has no common sense! We mean that in the nicest possible way. But no, she has none!”

This was the first time I didn’t feel sad when answering questions. Other tests focus on deficits. What’s missing, or stopped happening. I understand why there are always tissues available. But this was about actions and behaviours and thought processes that exist and point to autism and PDA.

And of course, her total lack of social skills. Not caring that she is out in public looking crazy with pantihose on her head, never realising her skirts are always tucked into her leggings at the waist. And too friendly with everyone. The type that will happily go off with a stranger. Add how she runs away and you have danger. I plan to buy an alarm for the gate so it warns us when she goes out, though her father doesn’t care. Instead he even told her, “You want to leave? Then take your stuff that you bought, and go.” Or he told me, “I will take her to Dunoon on one of the Saturday drives I take them on, and leave her there and tell her to walk home. Then she will see if she still wants to run away.”

For the West, Dunoon is a huge slum area with a LOT of crime. One of our old church families used to live there. He has been mugged twice there. Why would you even plan to dump a child anyway, let alone there?? Another case for why he must never have unsupervised visitation with the children.

But yes, we got through much, much more than she had ever gone through so she doesn’t think we will use all the sessions we’ve booked. My body is glad about that. But so far, the answers point to autism with PDA.

And the BMI scale is on the middle of obese and still moving. Oh boy! And I just realised I forgot to hide food last night. To be fair, she herself roasted herself. I sent her birth sister a recent photo and like birth mom two days before, she commented on the cheeks and called her her twin as she too is overweight and has chubby cheeks.

My girl asked why she’d written “twin” when her (sister’s) cheeks are smaller than hers.😅😅

My poor girl has gained so much weight that even before the recent five kg she’s gained in two months, the paed said we need to keep an eye on it and decide when we next see him…

This was her behind her little sister 11 months ago.

It’s not only about how her mean father told me she looks like a toad, but it’s because she looks pregnant in her two remaining dresses that her arms can fit into, and because those have empire bust lines that hurt her tummy as they are very tight.

She has been wearing two of my skirts..below the waist as the waist is too tight. I had bought teen size underwear but it hurt so I moved to adult size small undies after she took mine without my knowledge and it fit, and crop top bras in adult sizes too, but they too are hurting her and digging into her now. I bought them two weeks ago!! And you long time readers know that with her low registration sensory profile, it takes a lot for her to eventually feel pain. So now I’ve had to buy a bunch of adult size medium that don’t have seams, made with the most elastic material possible. She wore my too large for me medium exercise bra and was comfy.

Something is terribly wrong when your 11 year old is bigger than your menopausal, unable to do proper exercise, self. I feel sad for her. I wish I could control her appetite. But with the meds she’s on, the anti psychotics that also caused extreme weight gain for one of the twins (The other twin and Micaiah haven’t gained extreme weight from it) I am fighting an unfair battle. I’ve added a lot of exercise in our schedule for her for when I have time, but yesterday she had OT and today I have an assessment to attend. But also, her appetite…

I will tell her, as I walk out the kitchen carrying laundry, that she cannot have bread and peanut butter when she’s going to have supper in 15 minutes’ time, and when I come back to make said supper, she’s made the sandwich,, left the sticky knife on the counter and eaten it all. She will eat multiple bananas in the middle of the night and anything else she can find. She takes fresh fruit concentrate but instead if diluting 1 to 3, does it the other way round with three parts juice and one part water.

I truly don’t know when her weight will at least stabilise like our twin’s has. She’s been wearing age 8 or 9 clothes for many months now. It needs to stabilise. It’s expensive, buying clothes every few weeks. It’s unsustainable and she already doesn’t have enough outer garments as it is.

I never considered clothing when I thought of extreme weight gain till now. I never thought of underwear digging into the body and causing pain. How do I make this the plateau? In have no idea. Exercise isn’t enough. I provide low carb, low cal options but she wants the breads and calorie dense ones.

If you know anyone on antipsychotics who somehow fought against weight gain that had happened rapidly, share the secret!

The descent into further sickness has begun. First it was the increased pain, worsening stats for my walking. My walking steadiness is also decreasing.

With the number of steps I have to take perhaps I’m overdoing it, I thought. As you can see, the improvement I started feeling at the end of last year was as real as the decline I’m now feeling.

But now, I am also swollen. It has begun. I started feeling stiffness yesterday when I got up to walk. My joints are cracking more and louder when I move, even my hip! It’s a loud snap like something has been cracked apart. Amarissa even asked me, “Why does your body crack each time you move?” It’s scary. When I sit down, crack, crack, crack. When I shift my weight when standing, crack! I sometimes look at the person I’m talking to wondering if they heard it.

This cracking is chronic inflammation where the ligaments and tendons enter the bone that causes calcification at the joints. Ie new bone forming at the meeting point. As you move, sit etc, they react. It’s also due to fusing and friction . It’s basically, a daily reminder that the medicine you’re taking is truly only slowing the disease progression down. It’s definitely not a cure. And that, is always a horrifying reminder.

When I was diagnosed, I had to mourn that not only would I never be cured, but that each day that passed, was the best I could ever be. The following day, is going to be worse, might not feel it, but it is a steady downward fall. We can’t stop it. And my lungs attest to it just as my feeling it in my body and just as my health stats do.

And so, dear reader, imagine how I am suffering having to be physical caregiver from 6am until 10pm when the last child can finally sleep. I told my eldest son last night that this morning it will be his turn. Sometimes I drive our loud little lady at 6am so she doesn’t wake her siblings. Yesterday I got her to stay in a room far away and she allowed technology to keep her soft. And my breaking my back bouncing her on a ball. Unfortunately, most of our cameras aren’t keeping recordings and we don’t know why. Their father is wondering if we should subscribe to a cloud service. Which costs a lot (but not even as much as one night in his Tokyo hotel.)

And this what I hate. Every thing I do to be a present mother, hurts and worsens my condition. Today, I’m going to email the paed and ask him to also add my 11 year old to the education department’s waiting list for special schools. I found a private school that seemed to be different to the others that want autistic children with average or above average skills and emailed them. They do fit her with her learning disorders and inability to ever do academics in the near future but with only a (current) ADHD diagnosis. I start her DISCO autism assessment tomorrow. An hour at a time, I go answer questions about her. I will take my water and my eye drops. I keep forgetting and that’s for shorter appointments and struggle to see when driving home.🥹 But yes, physically, it is HARD raising my special angels. I have a post planned on the difference between homeschooling them vs non challenged children.

I don’t even have a father for them. My talkative twin was so excited to tell him T got rid of a splinter that was fully under her skin and hurting her and he didn’t say a word. I guess it’s better than when our eldest girl told him she got 94% for an assignment and he replied by sending her a work link that he’s now on the Board.🙄 He’s always out going to go do his marathon training super early and for hours. He doesn’t care that he’s a father first, before he’s a ‘use all our family money that he claims I am finishing’ to pay hundreds of American dollars to enter the races, and then tens of thousands of rands for the flights, food and accommodation.

My plan is to ask for an anti dissipation interdict. See, being married in community of property, legally, he had no legal right to have sent half a million to his cheating on wife one and wife two brother against my express wishes. And of course, no legal right spending any money of a significant amount without my express agreement. The ‘in community of property’ marital regime was “designed for the protection of housewives who give just as much to the family as the breadwinner does.” And so, I will have to use the law because he doesn’t acknowledge me nor the God whose whole law is also an ‘in community of EVERYTHING’ law.

I just don’t know how. I don’t even know how I will find the regional court to apply for divorce! I don’t even have strength to go to the shops anymore. Let alone go and find it somewhere in town, and then queue? I don’t even know how it works. Now court interdicted for anti dissipation orders?? No clue. If you do, please share. It’s a court order to stop him giving our money away to the randoms he’s been giving it to, and to stop wasting our money on his personal unnecessary activities which REDUCE his already very limited time being a father to his children and take a lot of our money away. You do it when you’re planning divorce.

And please pray that I find someone to help me do this. I wanted to search yesterday, I found out about it while searching in the morning, but then my girl -who has been awake and noisy since 5am today, but is playing in her room for now- got out her bedroom and the day was just too busy. I need time. And four special needs children, planning, cutting, researching and a weakening body do not allow for time to sit up searching and asking coherent questions. Don’t ask me who I will ask as I don’t have a lawyer yet.

The swelling that’s beginning, and stiffness are in my lower back and fingers. Winter is clearly going to be the usual poop show it has been since I was an innocent high school pupil. 🥹

Like I hate ‘non communicating’ (weird phrasing) autism, I hate AS too.

Well, I woke up from a dead sleep with my youngest handing me a freezing cold ice lolly so I could open it for her. I went to wake her father so he could take care of her. I’d not put drops or ointment in my eye for some hours and my eyes were painful and gritty so I put ointment in my eyes and got ready to lie back and let them work. Alas, he did not parent her. So, at six am, I took her very loud self to the car for a drive so she’d not wake her poor siblings up. Usually she wakes them by entering their bedroom, too.

When we got back, her biggest brother and her father, were standing talking together inside the house. She put her hand on the door handle to enter the house, saw them, and put her hand down and decided she wasn’t in the mood for them. Off we went to the yard instead.🤣I don’t blame her! I wasn’t in the mood either! I’d not been able to see clearly as the ointment blurs your vision for some time.

The rest of the morning was same as always but a bit worse. She didn’t sit at all. I was trying to edit their nature video while she kept coming in and out, wanting, wanting, wanting and her siblings also coming every now and then wanting, wanting, wanting.

I walked into the kitchen, and the pumpkins and sweet potato I’d cooked for her and myself? She was finishing it off as I entered, her father silently watching her. there went the only vegetable I could eat.

But that wasn’t all! I’d made myself a gluten free veggie sausage. I opened the fridge, ready to put in my hotdog roll.

I had the bun. But no sausage. Her big brother had seen her eat THAT one. And there went my protein source. Yeah, it wasn’t exactly a wonderful day.

BUT, I did acknowledge how grateful the neighbours must be that she’s well now. Her digestive system is working sluggishly, so I won’t ever take a break from the lacative medicine ever again, but man, it’s lovely seeing her mot in that excruciating pain she’d been in. I am thankful!

I also love that after my telling her to, she turned the bubble machine on! Getting her to follow a command is more miss than hit, in the hit and miss cycle! I also love it when she uses her unorthodox voice.

I’m also thankful for small mercies. Autism is hard. Very hard. My firk is very finicky about what she will and will not eat. I’ve figured out that ‘manners matter less than health.’ She doesn’t want dished out food or fruit. Especially not grapes. She will eat sliced apples, but not grapes in a bowl. So, I meet her where she is and put a container of grapes of the right amount in front of her. Forget table. Forget bowl. Just wash and place.

Can you see the pumpkin she dropped? Or the grape stems? Or are you focusing on how the plan worked and she ate all her grapes? How about an apple? I took apples out the cupboard and left them in the bag but on the kitchen counter. She took the bait and took an apple and ate it! We had a good day. Stolen protein, stolen vegetables, eaten fruit. Diet wise, today was a win. 🥰

My watch is telling the story I have been feeling. I’m getting worse and I’m sad, because I’d had a few good months last year. My steps age becoming more asymmetrical-not good. Limping more unbeknownst to me.

The six minute walk tells you how healthy your heart, lungs or musculoskeletal system are/is. Mine had a few good weeks and now I’m getting worse. Is it my lungs? My heart which is creeping back up? My body which has had worse pain?

My medical aid decided I’m a high risk patient. They put me on a programme to check my BP. They paid for this newfangled BP monitor that is linked via Bluetooth to the app which then takes my numbers. As you know and can read here, this wasn’t a perfect combination of numbers. I don’t know what they look at in the background to decide which of their clients needs to watch their BP, but I’m one. The father of my children is their client but he’s healthy so they didn’t put him on the programme. Hmph!

And that’s where I’ll end, folk. I hope all the children wake up late in the morning! I won’t hold my breath!

Health wise, today was a win because I was able to reach over 15 000 steps despite how bad I feel. It could be worse.