Confidence is a preference

Confidence. It's a funny thing isn't it? With it you can do anything, but without it even the simplest task can seem insurmountable. I say this because my confidence seems to be wobbling all over the place at the moment and I don't know why, it's such a weird thing. I wonder if I need to see a psychiatrist, maybe I'm still not over my dad's death, I wonder if in some ways I think was I was keeping going to keep *him* going, visiting him every weekend with the kids and dropping food round. Now he's gone I can do anything I want to at the weekend, but now I have loads of choice I don't know what to do...

I've recently switched to part time at work (they wanted me to work 1 week every month in Norwich, I balked at this and handed my notice in.) As a compromise I offered to work part time in order to brush up on my development skills (and look for work) while still keeping the IT systems (that only I know) going at work. At the time I was confident and felt this was the right thing for me to do, but fast forward a few weeks, throw in a couple of failed interviews, a gastric blockage, some arguments with the misses, and a depressed mother and I feel like I've hit rock bottom...or something close. I'm also in a funny situation where I'm made an attempt to sever my ties with work but I'm still there connected and also struggling to do all the work that I used to in half the time that I used to have.

I now have 2 days free and I thought this would be more fun, but it's not as much fun as I thought it would be! After dropping the kids off at school and sorting out the washing and ironing, looking for jobs, revising for jobs, and doing some shopping, there's not a lot of time left before it's time to pick up the kids again...gahhh! Stay at home mums/dads of the world, I salute you! It's certainly not as easy as I thought.it would be...

There's also a physical side to this confidence thing for me, my body's getting crapper- in the morning my mouth feels like it's glued together with mucus (attractive ;-)) - I need to get to the bottom of this as I can't really shine in interviews if I can't talk properly ;-) I don't know whether it's CF sinus related CF mucus related or MD related - we'll see.

Sorry for the moan. I think the plan of attack (on my two days off) has to be:

1) Spend 1 hour a day looking for jobs. No more.
2) Spend 1 hour a day revising my technical skills. Don't do more and get stressed, it's not worth it.
3) 1 hours exercise on my days off.
4) Get the electric guitar out and rediscover making music, or a least play D and E really fast.
5) That's two hours left to do jobs around the house and eat - should be enough, in theory ;-)

Urgh, I can't believe I made another todo list, they're the bane of my life ;-) Anyway, have a picture of me and the kids messing about on the beach in LA, bliss.

Impatient at the outpatients

It's been a while. Sorry. It's not you, it's me. I've had a lot going on, and I've been unable to articulate the thoughts in my head with any degree of clarity. I can't guarantee clarity anytime soon either. But I can guarantee it will be pretentious ;-)

Dah, well, I've had been feeling pretty good about health, life and fitness for the last few months, but cometh the winter, cometh the downturn. It all started about three days before my outpatient appointment, I'd been thinking how lucky I was to avoid getting a cold what with the entire population of greater Manchester having coughs and colds, when I actually came down with a cold; for the first three days it was just a bog- standard nose/throat cold, but on the fourth day, when my cold symptoms started to ease, the virus started to move onto my chest and my rubbish CF lungs started responding in their usual way by producing the thickest, gunkiest gunk this side of the Exorcist.

By the time the outpatients appointment came it was a complete no-brainer as to whether I needed IVs, so my cannula line was fitted and I was putting the IV boxes in my car ready to get on the home-IVs bus. At least that would have been the case if my Ultrasound appointment hadn't overrun so long that by the time I'd ran upstairs (on an empty stomach, stressed, and unseen!) to the CF outpatients it was already too late to get started on IVs, Arghhh! Note to me myself and I: if I have two appointments at the same time, one an ultrasound and one a CF outpatients then definitely go to the CF outpatients first! Anyway, I can't stress enough how professional my CF team are; when I told them what had happened. They ordered me some food, got me a cup of tea and ordered my prescription ready for the next day. Also, whenever I go in and say I need IVs (admittedly not that often, touch wood ;-)) they always agree with my judgement and just get on with the whole process with as little fuss and stress as possible. Makes it a lot easier for me. Blows were down some (FEV1 2.55) as expected, but I could feel that anyway with the increase in sputum and night coughing. I was going to do some running and biking this week to help with my physio, but with all the snow and ice, it might not be the best idea...roll on thaw!

I also have some stressful things going on at work, with my mates, and with my family, but I am all moaned out, so it will have to wait till another day ;-)