I just had to share this because it’s just too funny. Last week I shared about how my daughter and son in law got me a set of weighted silverware to keep my food in my mouth and not on the floor. Well, I just had to share how it came because I don’t think they quite understand their target market:
If your fingers shake enough that you need a set of weighted stainless steel utensils, you might want to get your husband to help you get them out of the box for you.
Yes. They come with each utensil hard wired in! Each of the two forks and spoons and the one knife comes with TWO twistie ties double twisted (yes in BOTH directions)!
If you have Essential Tremors, you probably have a few tips and tricks up your shaky sleeve, but I thought I’d share some of mine.
So, I’ve been posting about my health journey to inspire others to begin their own and I’d love to help you reach your health goals if you’d like someone (a coach) in your corner who’s been there.
Part of doing that means taking some selfies to post and show how my life has changed (and it has SOOOOO MUCH). Selfies are kind of hard when your hands shake but I have found a work around.
My first tip is to hold the thing requiring the most dexterity in your hand that is affected the least. For me, that’s my right hand and happily, I’m right handed. 😀
However, if I needed to do something with my right hand, I had a terrible time trying to hold the camera still and press the button so I enlisted the help of the 10 second delay. After setting the delay, you click the button to take the picture and wait the designated ten seconds. Just make sure you’re not shaking or it might turn out like this:
One way I was able to get a good picture with my left hand was to hold my arm as close to my body as possible, thereby giving it something to rest on. Since Essential Tremor is an action tremor and not a resting tremor, this works pretty well.
Ok. On to other tips I’ve found useful.
I’ve noticed that typing on a normal sized keyboard like on my laptop is a bit tricky, but not quite as difficult as typing on my iPhone or my iPad’s screen. However, if you get yourself a purple stylus, you increase your dexterity quite a lot. I guess it kind of fools your brain into thinking your finger is further away from its target thereby not increasing the rate of tremor.
The last tip I have is to use weighted utensils. I’ve been known to toss a salad on the floor and all over the counter so my daughter and son in law bought me a set of weighted utensils. Having the weight is a bit difficult to get used to at first, but it does weigh down your hand so it shakes less and keeps the olive on the spoon or fork from rolling off into your lap. Ask me how I know.
Anyone need a giggle break in the midst of 2020? I’ve got you covered! I call this installment of Weird Stuff Happens to Me: When Even Your iPhone Gets Frustrated with Your Essential Tremors!
Yesterday’s cooking event was not without incident. Famous last words: “I don’t need my ‘Kevlar gloves’ to make zoodles!”
So, I proceeded to prove myself wrong by cutting into my nail. This morning while attempting to fill my water bottle, it overflowed onto the counter and the floor. While trying to clean it up, I had an unusual time trying to get the paper towel in my hand and it wound up flying through the air like some Bugs Bunny cartoon.
I decided to write a post about my exciting life with tremors, but while trying to take a picture of my right hand, Siri had a message for me! It’s on the top of the last picture. It says “Hold Still.”
As you’ve been reading this month, I’m a pretty odd duck. I hope you’ve been able to relate to at least one of the ways in which I’m not your average Jo…Jo. I hope it’s allowed you to feel less alone and brought some comfort to you that there is someone else out there who also doesn’t fit the mold…ANY mold!
If you just joined me here on Life Beyond Surviving and want to read the beginning of this series to see How Life Works on My Planet, how I’m Living the Weird Life, and get more acquainted with JoJo: A Space Oddity, just click on any one of those links. Today, my weird topic is all about how even most of my doctors thought I was weird.
Most of my doctors have thought I was weird over the years and now that I’m finally formally diagnosed with several things, it is no different now than it was then. Here are just a few of the chronic or health issues that scream JoJo is weird!
Hayfever, Schmayfever: When I was a teen, I began having sore throats quite often. Since my tonsels are pretty big normally, I thought I had to have them out. Nope. I never had them out as a kid like most people my age did. I still had mine, HUGE as they are, in high school. My mom took me to an ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat Doc) who told me that I have mild hayfever.
Huh?! Since I never sneezed, only had a sore throat and he never elaborated, I found that highly improbable. How do you have hayfever if you don’t sneeze? I disregarded everything he said and went along my merry way for years until I was in my 40s and a new doctor explained it to me. I guess some people, weird though we may be, can have hayfever and not have sneezing, but only a sore throat! Who knew?!
Just Mono My Own Business: A malady most get during high school is called The Kissing Disease. Mono is something that knocks you out as a teen for a week or two. You get out of school and feel better fairly quickly I’m told. It’s not always from kissing. In high school, I think it’s usually just from sharing a drink or something with someone.
Anyway, I got it in my early 30s, if I remember correctly. I was working from home as a small business owner, raising a young daughter, and I didn’t know it at the time but I had Fibro. The doctor told me to just rest for a couple of weeks, but I didn’t have that luxury as a small business owner so I continued to work. It took me several months before I felt any better.
A Pox on Chicken Pox: Most people (my age) got Chicken Pox as a kid. In those days, when someone in the neighborhood got it, your mom would take you to their house and have you play with their child so you’d get it as a kid. That way, you didn’t get it as an adult when it is more of a problem or (in the case of men, can leave you sterile). Well, I never got it in all the times in all the years I had been exposed. My mom said it was probably because I had a mild case of it as an infant.
Fast forward to my mid-30s, I felt awful. I didn’t have any health insurance so I called the doctor who said I had Shingles, the adult version of Chicken Pox! I immediately called my mom and asked her how mild a case I had as an infant. She said I had two or three Chicken Pox marks. Two or three?! So, folks, in case you’re wondering if you can get Shingles as an adult if you already had Chicken Pox as a kid, the answer is YES!
Fabulous Fibro: Most of the people I talk to who have Fibro talk mostly about the pain of Fibromyalgia. Most of the memes on social media are about pain. For me, Fibro is much more of a lack of energy than pain. I have Fibro pain and I’m no stranger to pain. I had two kids with natural childbirth.
My Fibro pain is mostly controlled with a muscle relaxer I take at night that controls the pain through the day while allowing me to sleep a bit more at night. However, even when I had bad pain, I could usually muscle through it to get things done around the house. The energy drain during a flare is so severe that I sometimes cannot keep my head up or muster the energy to talk on the phone. Having to lay on a couch for hours or days severely limits your ability to DO anything.
As Fibro isn’t my only chronic illness, there are several other symptoms I have from other diagnoses that contribute to my fatigue.
1. Essential Tremors seem to take a lot of energy so, the more I shake, the more fatigued I get.
2. I’m still getting several hot flashes per day and it turns out that redistributing the heat in your body generated by a hot flash also takes a great deal of energy.
3. Insomnia means the body doesn’t get all the rest and rejuvenation it needs on a daily basis. After 20yrs, that may have a great deal to do with my lack of energy.
4. Finally, after gaining so much weight after my hysterectomy, I found myself using a great deal of energy just to do normal activities like walking around the grocery store while shopping.
Surgeries Surgeries Everwhere But I Still Have My Appendix: I think I stated before that I’ve had nine surgeries in my life. In all the surgeries I have had, I’ve never had the usual/normal things removed. I still have my tonsils and my appendix! I’m not sure if I’m waiting for a special time or I’m one of the ones who will die with her tonsil/appendix boots on!
Neurologically Nutz: Last, but not least, is the area of my life in which a doctor actually TOLD me to my face that I was weird! So, about a year and a half ago, I was finally diagnosed with Essential Tremors. I’ve had tremors in my hands for a long time, but they usually were attributed to being hungry/sugar levels being low. It turns out, I have tremors not due to any other known cause–which they now diagnose as Essential Tremors. I’m not sure yet what is so essential about them. I could certainly due without them!
While the doctor was examining me (and again at the next appointment when he was formally diagnosing me), he kept looking up at me and saying…”hmmm…” I asked him if I stumped him and he said my symptoms don’t make sense. You see, in addition to tremors, I had asked him about my smelling smoke that wasn’t there, feeling water drops on my legs that weren’t there, and feeling something touch the outside of my right leg when something touched the INSIDE of my right leg. He said they could be neurological, but it’s not something he usually sees, he has no idea why my body sends sensory signals the way it does, and I’m just weird.
And I appreciated that! It’s not often you find a doctor who will admit they don’t know it all and not accuse you of making it all up. Although, he DID say it was probably all in my head! ROFL And he’s probably right about that as a lot of the issues that are yet unexplained appear to be neurological.
So, there you are. JoJo is weird–even in all the diagnoses I have that many others share. Does that help make you feel a bit less like a weirdo out there? Can you relate to any of these or have similar things that are different about your experiences? Well, I’ve got one more post for you next week that might help too so come on back next week, ya hear?
