35 Gifts: Days 11 & 12

Day 11 was yesterday. It was quite hot and my health is doing it's usual trick of being inversely related to the temperature outside. I don't understand why, it just does. So I was quite sick.

A wonderful friend, Pam, phoned me from her home interstate and we were able to talk. I told her about this project and she said that my audible joy upon hearing it was her on the phone was the biggest gift I could give her. I do really love it when she phones me - Pam is special to me for many reasons too complicated to go into here. She also has CFS so she is always understanding if I'm too sick to talk, or am feeling down. I'm very blessed by my friends who are also sick and hence empathise. It makes me feel much less alone to have people who understand what it's like, even if they are less sick than I am. I think the quote about Trouble shared is trouble halved is very true - to be heard and witnessed and empathised with really makes a huge difference.

One of the gifts I've been giving myself during this time is to try to get done tasks which I have been putting off, especially the ones which I feel are "hanging over me". There are some things which aren't fun and involve lots of time on hold on the telephone, or tedious stuff, and they've been in my "to do" list (actually it's a book) for far too long making me feel bad about not doing them. I've been doing these things to slowly catch up: on day 11 I finally phoned the mobile dental unit to find out why I hadn't had an appointment for so long, and discovered that I had to fill out lots of paperwork. So they're mailing me the paperwork to get back on the dental service. One more thing ticked off the list!

Today, Day 12, I got another task off the list by finishing a letter for my doctor about needing to move house. It's to go with my housing application to move to Mitcham and it had been waiting since the 9th of November - every time I saw it I felt bad but it was overwhelming me for some reason. So today I resolved to just start the task and, not surprisingly, got it finished and have emailed it to the doctor in question. Another one ticked off!

I've started making my origami hearts for day 35, but only got two made so far. My arms have been very painful these last few days, actually today my whole body's been very painful and I've been battling a headache that even painkillers won't shift. I think it's just the heat (top today was 43C/110F and now, at 9pm, 40C/104F) messing with my body but splodgenoodles pointed out I might have a virus. For some reason I hadn't even thought of that - she's probably right, since I have nausea and low energy to go with the headache and muscle pain. I'm trying to be gentle with myself and let myself rest lots, listening to audio books, when I'd really rather be doing more computer things. Can't have everything!

I really don't think I've given a gift to anybody else today, which is bothering me. Oh, I did go through the list of "click to give" websites but I don't feel that counts, somehow. It feels trivially small. I was planning to give a bunch of new handmade keyrings to the local assisted living facility for birthday presents and "just because" presents but due to the heat the person who was coming to get them has decided to come tomorrow instead. And feeling like this means I'm really not up to doing anything much ... I think I'll make a few more origami hearts - if I make 2 or more every day I'll have them done before day 35, so I will try to do some every day.

Thanks to everybody for all your encouragement and feedback and support - it's really lovely!