Abigail's Anxieties

The best-laid plans...2 weeks later
So in case you didn't read my post called "the best-laid plans", which you can catch up on here then here is a rapid recap of what happened.
Basically just over 2 weeks ago, the same week I re-launched this blog, my appendix decided to develop access, make a kink in my fallopian tube, cause me a lot of pain and in short, I had an appendectomy.
It took a toll on my mental and physical health which you can read all about in the original post, but now I'm here to tell you about how I'm doing 2 weeks later as my body now gets used to having no appendix. 
Firstly, I no longer have to take painkillers, not even my regular painkillers for my fibromyalgia but that's more down to the doctors telling me not to for a good while after surgery as it could make my full recovery time even longer.
But to be honest, I've found I no longer need them. Since my appendix went bye-bye, my pain levels throughout my body are the lowest they've…

What it's like to go through a costochondritis flare-up

So as some of you know, as well as having an anxiety disorder and depression, I have a multitude of physical health issues, including costochondritis. 
The NHS website gives good information about costochondritis along with another similar condition called tieze's syndrome, which doctors still can't decide if I have or not instead of costochondritis...
For the past 3 years, I have been dealing with the pain that comes with the inflammation of the cartilage in my ribs and sternum (aka breast bone), with the pain being at a constant 2-3/10 at all times. And let me tell you that constant chest pain and a family history of heart issues doesn't really help my anxiety, especially when the pain was just starting and we had no blooming idea what was going on.  
The reason I say doctors cannot decide which of the two conditions I have is because while I am under the age of 40, and my pain has lasted many years which are sympt…

The best-laid plans...
It is often said that the best-laid plans go awry, and in my case, it seemed that my plan for a come back to regular blogging had a little hiccup and so on the first scheduled Wednesday at 9:48pm UK time I find myself writing today's post.  

But I can assure you that there is a pretty decent explanation as to why the writing is a little late.

I actually had another post almost complete for you all last Thursday and was planning to have it finished Friday ready for today, but that plan definitely went very awry.

On Friday 4th September 2020, I woke up with costochondritis pain yet again and prepared to have a day of taking painkillers, which trust me, got taken, to try and control it, but there was something very different about this pain, the main difference being that there was a pain in another part of my body, more specifically my lower right abdomen.


This was immedietly where we (i.e. me, my mum and my dad) focused our attention to because this was most like…

Don't worry, I'm still here!
Don't worry everyone, I'm still here, I'm still alive, it's just the case that the last year of my life has been rather action-packed and some things, unfortunately, had to go on the back-burner- including Abigail's Anxieties.   



In the past year, I've been finishing my BSc (Hons) Food Development and Innovation degree, helping my family care for a member of the family who's had major surgery, dealing with my fibromyalgia that has been getting worse, dealing with many costochondritis flare-ups. Oh, and dealing with the multitude of changes that have come with this global pandemic while being an "at-risk" person living with another at-risk person.

So you know...not much.

In all seriousness, my family is starting to get into the swing of things with our "new normal" and having some adaptions in the house now that make life easier.

In terms of my fibromyalgia, well it's affected my mobility with extreme p…

Leaving the house with fibromyalgiaMy tips and tricksAs some of you may know, I have a pain condition called fibromyalgia (on top of a few other conditions but that’s for another time) and as a full-time university student, I often find myself having to leave the house on high pain days.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve had days where I haven’t been able to get out of bed and I’ve tried to do learning at home, but sometimes the pain and fatigue has been so bad I can’t even work from bed. Those days are known as “write off days” in our household.
But on other days the pain has been bad, but not bad enough for me to stay at home so I find myself having to get dressed and venture into the outside world.
Over the past few years, I’ve been working out what can help me when I’m out on the go to help push through those few hours until I can get back to the sanctuary that is my bed with my heating pad and a mountain of pillows to support my back.
And I’m here to share those tips and tricks with you t…

Feeling guilty for being chronically ill...But should I be?So in case you're new to this blog, I'm chronically ill in a few ways. A full list of medical conditions is as follows: Generalised anxiety disorder (GED)Moderate depressionAsthmaFibromyalgiaCostochondritis
And unfortunately having the mix of all of these means that there are and many things I'm unable to do, not only for myself but for others around me. For example, I would often like to be able to carry things for my mum, but because of my fibromyalgia, I can't carry much with the pain in my back, shoulders and arms.
I'm always being told it's okay that I can't do things like that, but it still doesn't suppress the guilt in me, especially when I see people struggling with something.
As I write this, I'm in the tail end of a fibromyalgia and costochondritis flare-up. 24 hours ago I was in such pain that I just wanted to, unfortunately, end it all. I was also burning up, throwing up, and I could…