Just Keep Swimming

Right now my mind is swimming.  There are so many things that I could be doing or should be doing and I feel pulled in many different directions at once.  Dory from Finding Nemo and the Just Keep Swimming song keeps popping through my head as I try to focus.

via GIPHY

What is on my mind?

There are blog posts I want to write.

• posts about my healing and recovery
• posts about homeschooling and the curriculum we are using
• posts about our frustrating journey with food intolerances/allergies with two of the girls
• posts about how I’m trying to plan and why I have multiple books on my desk
• and other random things… because that is who I am.

There are the taxes to be done, because honestly we need our return back.  Things are waiting for that money to arrive.

There is homeschool planning to do, and things to get ready for this week – yes I said this week… if we do things beyond the Olympics.  Thank goodness for the topics that can be covered just watching the Olympics.

There is sleep to hopefully get as I’m struggling to recover from whatever bug that has decided to invade our house this week.  I won’t say I’ll catch up on sleep.  I do not think that is possible.  With five kids there has been a lot of sleep deprivation.

There is outrage at events happening in the news or in my facebook feed.  Just this morning I read about:  Trump wanting to change SNAP benefits to a box of food per month,  Health Insurance wanting to take away the benefit of breastpumps for moms, and sadly another school shooting … this time a HS in Florida.  I posted a few things on my personal Facebook feed, but then I had to walk away and consciously do something else.

I’m a mom, I have to just keep swimming with reality of kids here who need me to be mom.

credit: https://mugbarista.com/products/finding-dory-just-keep-swimming-mug-disney-galerie

I feel like I need this cup but about double the size with the way I’m drinking hot drinks right now.

What else is nagging me?

I’m struggling with a setback in my healing.

I know why it happened.

It is the consequences of not paying attention to my posture, of making sure I exercise, of trying to do that elusive losing weight as the doctor stresses every time he sees me … enough.

{affiliate links below, so please keep in mind that if you decide to purchase something from Fit2B I may earn a small amount.}

My strength measure (for where you would measure a DR) has gotten wider.  I feel like I look like I’m pregnant even though I’ve been surgically closed as far as the DR is concerned.  It’s actually a bit of a struggle since this last surgery because of the tummy tuck at the bottom, I feel I look even more pregnant because of not being conscious of what I need to do.  Hubby says I’m beautiful regardless but he is loveable that way.

When I lose that focus on keeping my posture and things aligned, other things lapse, especially when the monthly visitor decides to arrive early … ehem… in conjunction with a bug that has sneezing and coughing.  Sigh.  I’ve never been so glad that I started switching to cloth pads.

Years ago I would have thought that a little leak while sneezing was normal, but I found Fit2B realized it wasn’t.  For years that is the unknown lie being perpetrated by the medical and exercise community because it many ways the doctors and exercise professionals just didn’t know better.  In many cases women of my mother’s generation don’t know any better.  🙁  The things she has learned after I have learned from what has started with my journey with Fit2B.  Maybe one of these days I’ll ask her to help me come up with a list.

Because of Fit2B I have learned to be better at coughing to protect my stomach and those preciously fragile healing connections when I catch one of these pesky bugs.  But even with what I’ve learned I’m still having trouble with leaking if I’m not very conscious of what I’m doing.  I have to have enough warning and you know how colds are not known for making things convenient.

In the last two weeks I have been in groups on FB and read a post about a mom struggling with incontinence.

• In one group everyone chimed in and said “it’s normal” and “it’s expected after having kids.”  Sooo many said it was normal.  I wanted to cry.  Even though I tried to say it isn’t normal!  I felt my response was drowned out by those who just expected to leak for the rest of their lives just because they had kids.  That makes me so sad.
• Tonight I read in a group about another mom struggling and there were the women who sympathize but at least this time did not say “it’s normal”.  There was a lot of suggestions to get a pelvic floor therapist.  That at least gives me some hope for mothers of this generation as a whole.  Maybe we are learning.

But the struggle is real.  I have to just keep swimming.

I want to scream from the rooftops that it isn’t normal and there are things that can be done and link back to articles on the Fit2B blog … but I don’t know how to do it without coming off like I’m trying to sell them something.

Yes I have decided to add affiliate links to this post.  But you know what?  I used Fit2B for three years before I signed up for the affiliate program.  Also in many cases the groups do not allow linking of things trying to sell something (which I’m sure an affiliate link is under that category).  So I have to temper my enthusiasm for trying to educate and figure out a way around it.  Tonight I don’t know what else to do so I came and blogged.

I’ve struggled for decades to try to understand why sometimes it happens to me.  Probably like many moms.

Sadly I’ve come to realize in my multiple hernia repair journey that I’ve never been strong physically and that the struggles I had as a teen were likely a precursor.  If it had been taken care of then, if it hadn’t been “it’s normal”, if I had known how my bad back was likely related to my weak core… maybe I would have learned enough that I wouldn’t have had to suffer so in the last few years. :'(

Instead I’m trying to get these thoughts down and blog about them to hopefully keep someone else from having to go through what I have … I’ve got to just keep swimming.

Things I’m Trying

I’m trying to work up the energy to create a plan for exercising not just for me but for my girls, because I don’t want them to ever think that leaking is normal.  I want them to be strong, unlike I am currently.  I want to get strong not just for them but for me.

I’m trying to write in my planner more to plan out the days, even if it is simply writing down what I did that day to remember why I’m so tired.  I’m trying to keep up with the to-do’s that never end.

I’m exploring the idea of using Bullet Journaling as a way to keep prospective blog posts, among other things, in one spot and not in the mind that has holes like a sieve some days.

I’m trying to get back to journaling during the day either as a morning pages sort of thing or as a brain drain of just writing out the thoughts of the day down in my journal.  Trying to get reality to stop swirling around in my head so I can sleep.

I’m trying to remember to give myself grace and to remember I’m still recovering in many ways.  It may be 174 days since my surgery (wow?!) but I still am not completely fixed.  That is only going to come with time and conscious effort.  Even the surgeon said he’d only consider me cured if I made it past 2 years without another hernia … that is 730 days and it seems so far away.

So  yeah I’m going to have to just keep swimming.  But now I have to “swim” off to bed, morning will come all too soon.

G’Night.