A unicorn farting rainbows

I noticed the other day, as I was standing at Mum's bedside helping her eat breakfast that my lower back, hips and one leg were extraordinarily sore.  Admittedly my entire left leg is giving me far more pain than it used to and that pain's lasting longer, but I did wonder.

So, this morning, I paid a great deal of attention to what I did and how long I was on my feet.  My day started at 5:20.  As usual, I sat on the side of the bed for a minute or two just letting everything adjust to the fact that I was upright and preparing to move.  The first 15/20 steps are THE worst, absolutely nothing wants to work and walking is like having shards of glass poking into the soles of my feet, red hot bolts of steel being rammed into my ankles from almost every direction - and so the pain progresses upwards, all the way to my neck, shoulder and sometimes elbows (depending on how I sat up in bed).  Wrists and fingers generally just ache.

But, after that, I have no idea where the time went.  Before I knew it, it was 6:50 and I needed to start getting breakfasts and pills organised (because Wednesday is shopping day for dad - usually his only time out the house).  There were also a fair few dishes to be dealt with this morning (because I couldn't be arsed dealing with them the night before).  The cats were getting picky about the state of their food corner, so that needed dealing with.

For 20 minutes I was moving constantly about the kitchen, sometimes pausing in one place for several minutes.  Then I had my breakfast - one day I'll have a leisurely breakfast not wolfing down food because I have others to see to.  That was about 5/7 minutes sitting watching breakfast TV (ye gawds but do they whitter about daft, inconsequential stuff which apparently their audience really needs to actually care about), then painkillers.  Then finish Mum's breakfast prep (the ice cream part - she's 83, she can have what she wants for breakfast lol).  Upstairs with the tray then stand around in her room organising stuff, getting straws, feeding - that's another 5 - 10 minutes.  By this point I was in agony.

So, 30 minutes of puttering backwards & forwards seems to be the max before I have to sit down or face excess pain tomorrow.  If I was constantly on the move, I think I could possibly last longer because it's not really the movement which is the issue it's the standing still (don't mention queues!).

The point of this?  If I know how long I can putter and how long I need to rest between putterings, I can better schedule the things I have to do.  I mean, there is no way to change the times of Mum's meals/pills but I can work better around them.  But things like vacuuming (which does eventually need to get done or I'd go insane), emptying recycling bins, cats, fish,doing washing, interspersed with whatever needs doing upstairs.

Then, in my "free" time I can dress up in my tutu, put a cone on my forehead and cover myself in lashings of sprinkles before sliding around the kitchen floor pretending to be a magical unicorn!  Thanks, Wendy, you made my day with that visualisation.  Note to self:  life may be crap at times, life may be all pain at times but one should always make room in a day, somewhere, to be a unicorn farting rainbows!