My Body and Mind Declared Fragile. What now?

Good morning! I love to paint as well! I'm not very good with watercolor, though. It tends to get muddy. I use acrylic, or I used too use it, a lot.

I love hearing about the animals and that you're getting better rest. I don't care what I do, or when I lay down, I wake up early. I often wake up too hot or too cold. My neurologist said that may be my dementia causing dysregulation of my body temperature. I hate it. I also sometimes wake up shaking. Treasure every good night.

Yesterday, I got up early and took my wheelchair outside. I love hearing the birds, and I watched what appeared to be a family of squirrels chasing each other around into the trees and bushes playing and talking. It was so cute and funny.

I'm in Ohio, but I lived in Arizona for a little while. I grew up in the South, Virginia, and people would say the dry heat out in the West wasn't as bad as the hot, sticky, humidity of the South. Lies! 😄 We had no AC when I was in Arizona, and I felt like I was baking in an oven. 🥵 I'm not much for hot weather. The best place I ever lived was Alaska. It truly is beautiful there.

Have a wonderful day!
Susan 🩷

I should have also said thank you for writing me despite your arthritis. I enjoy your emails. ☺️

Hello, nice to meet you, Sister. I'm happy you found my post encouraging, and thank you for your kind words. I'm sitting outside and getting ready to read the New Testament. It really is the best way to start the day! God bless you. 🩷

At 85 I have many of the same problems. I don't think there is any dementia but my friends would be a better judge of that. I have recently found a supplement that seems to help (not to cure) a great deal. It is called Arialief and can be googled easily. I am convinced that taking up creative past times whether art or science can make each day nicer. I also have tried many different kinds of walking help - from canes to much more complicated contraptions and I find a four wheel rollator with seat and basket makes life easier and provides for greater activities. Don't give up - just keep on keeping on

@sjm46 so true! Harbor with boats..so much blue and white! lol

I am so sorry to hear about everything you are going through. You must be incredibly resilient alongside of feeling understandably weary. I'd say that your body may be fragile but your spirit is fierce.

I would try putting your story into chatgpt (chatgpt.com) to see what ideas it generates. It is really good at pulling together huge amounts of complex information and making some sense of it. I am in the midst of rehab and I have been inputting information about my surgeries etc and the status of my recovery, and it has been extremely helpful.

Please keep us posted on how things unfold. We are all rooting for you!

If you want ChatGPT to save your chats, then first register for an account. It's free. You can also tell it to save certain information during chats and remember it across any chat threads that you create. That way if you create threads about new topics, chatgpt will remember the specific information you called out across all of those chat threads. I only started using this about a month ago , so I'm just beginning to learn what it's capable of.

@geronimo87 thanks for the information . Does it have a privacy protection?

You can set up a password protected account before initiating any chats if you'd like. It states that "Your conversations are encrypted in transit and at rest to keep them secure." You can also delete anything that you don't want saved in their system. If you go to their page and type in your question about privacy, you will get a detailed response that also includes instructions on how to enhance your privacy settings.

I am fragile too. Seems like I’m everything that people complain about at the Mayo Clinic. Had tons of surgery and my bodies deteriorating before my eyes. I go to tons of doctors. I’ve been in physical therapy for 30 years. It rarely did anything except after surgery to get me back on my feet. I found the people at PT were too young and they didn’t understand my body in the least. The fragility and deterioration meant that they damaged me in the process of trying to help me. I can say that I do my own exercise now and that is really helping. I had to start slow and I use a lot of intuitive movements. The point is you have to keep the circulation going so whatever you have to do to do that you gotta do that. If you have to walk with a cane a walker and a caregiver then do that. If you have to start with one minute and work up to an hour, then do that if you have to sit in a chair and move your arms around do that. I have a lot of problems with my bones, degenerating and having surgeries, and then my muscular structure has a lot of glued muscle muscles that I go to an MFR therapist twice a month and pay out of my own pocket. he glued the muscles. I’ve been seeing him for a year and it’s starting to work! Notice I say starting to work! One of my biggest problems seems to be that my muscles glued together, and they pull on the connective tissue because they are compensating for the muscles that don’t work. That pulling then strain stresses and tears the connective tissues. So I have to have the glue broken down that sticks the muscles together, which has been acquired over my lifetime. Each time I have a surgery I have to get back to strengthening my muscles that atrophy during surgery. It’s quite a balancing act taking medication like you said causes me to fall asleep too. It also causes me in the morning to be drowsy so I can’t do the exercise. So then I can’t take the medication that would relax my muscles And keep them from spasming. I’m now taking bone strengthening medicines because I’m afraid of becoming a casualty of a fall and fractures. (I fall all the time since I was a little girl because my feet are small and my balance isn’t great even with all the ballet lessons my parents gave me!) My recommendation is you have to start somewhere. Intuition is best I inherited the family coronary artery disease so now I have to be careful with watching my heart and my brain not accumulate plaque. Plaque in your brain turns to cognitive impairment and in your heart to heart disease. All of this is a lot for one little 5 foot 168 year-old woman who lives by herself. By the grace of God I go, and although I didn’t sleep well last night and feel like caca this morning I am on my stationary bike, gently gently riding and stretching. Gentle does it !