Tuesday 19th

Well, I managed to wrap most of my parcels & write most of my cards. What a shame I couldn't add 'all' instead of 'most'. Still, I plan to finish today.
maybe then I'll feel like it's Christmas instead of feeling so awful & ratty like I do at the moment.

I had a Drs appointment today, with Sarah who I used to work alongside when I was a senior staff nurse in A&E in the 1980s. She is so gentle & respectful, and she understands about what I've been through in this past 6 months. Anyway, I've been rather short of breath & coughing a lot lately & needing more Oxygen again. I also felt very unwell on Sunday. Anyway, it appears that there's still this area of fluid that the so-called Dr hadn't dealt with properly & it keep getting infected. So,I now have yet another chest infection & I'm on more antibiotics.
Also, we went through my clotting screen & I start Warfarin on the 29th. Why the 29th? It coincides with the INR blood test regime. Thank the Lord I'm getting somewhere. Maybe now I'll regain my confidence.

I'm going to do a layout titled 'My Plans for 2007' -- I need to be more positive and see the future & have aims in order to see me through this awful loss of confidence & worthlessness I feel, and have felt since I became ill with the virus that started off this debilitating illness, Fibromyalgia. People ask what's wrong with you, my answer they don't understand, so I have to explain it every time & that gets me down. Or they think it's nothing because they haven't heard of it. I know people think I'm swinging the lead because they can't see anything wrong. They don't see the awful pain I go through, the lack of mobility before I get crippled with pain & have to practically crawl along, the pains I get when I try to go to the loo & the problems I have with speech.
For example: I had one incident when I was a community nurse, just before I left my wonderful job -- wiped out because of this illness. We had a massive workload this particular evening/night & the evening shift were asked to do a couple of the night crews' visits. They kept yacking so I suggested we got on with it. We went to one of our regular visits. This lady had a bed-bound disability & we would change her position & change her pad. Well, when the Auxilliary went to get some water from the bathroom, I was chatting to **** & that she'd got another nasty sore on her thigh. We were talking about my Rosie (Westie) as she loves westies too, and, out of the blue I said "I'll bring Rosie & she'll lick you better" - it just came out wrong. I didn't mean about Rosie licking her wound but Rosie licking her better as an embrace. I was so embarrassed about this, apologised & explained about 'Fibrofog'. Patient was fine. But the Auxilliary couldn't wait to tell the Sister-in-Charge, and she was so obvious that that was what she was going to do. People go behind your back all the time, is what I'm saying, because they simply don't understand that when a Fibromyalgic gets over-tired their words become jumbled & come out all wrong. It's so dreadful.I feel like I must isolate myself from everyone.
I get so depressed. It's so difficult to remember that there is a God out there somewhere, I feel so abandoned. No matter how much ministry I receive it makes no odds. It's the usual question - if there is a God out there why has He done this to me? Answers on a postcard please... btw there are no answers.

Oohhhh.. I've got the miseries today....

Let's get back to scrapping.
I love to stitch on my layouts, whether machine or hand. I have always been a crafter since my nan taught me to knit at the age of 5. I try & use these other skills within my layouts. Having not used my sewing machine for a while, it had siezed up & refused to do the job. A friend of mine gave me hers - brilliant! It will only do 1 sheet of cardstock or a sheet of card & light paper or it breaks the thread. Hand-stitching - you need to use a paper-piercer to make holes beforehand, making running stitch, cross stitch, blanket stitch, herringbone, zig-zag, and all the embroidery stitches in the book. The layout I had published in this months' Scrapbook Inspirations has hand stitching on it. It takes patience but is well worth the effort. Give it a go!!