This series is quickly coming to a close.  This week’s step is all about listening to your body. If your issues are health related (or even if they aren’t), trials can bring with them overwhelm and that means getting fatigued.  It’s important to keep your energy up when you’re in trial so you can better […]

Just three more steps to talk about in my series called 18 Steps to Getting Out of Survival Mode and this week’s is reminders.  Here’s what I wrote in my original article: 16. Reminders on computer or iphone I used to use paper lists, but brain fogged minds often lose the list.  So I began […]

Step 15 in Getting Out of Survival Mode is to take notes and organize yourself.  That meant making lists. Here’s what I wrote originally: “15. Make lists so you don’t forget Part of chronic illness for so many is brain fog.  I can’t tell you how many times I forgot to take my meds, eat […]

Ok. Step 14 gets us a bit closer to the close of this series.  I originally wrote about shopping at Walmart:  “14. Shop Walmart–less trips I love to shop at Walmart.  I can go to just one place and get groceries, car tires, a birthday gift for Aunt Millie and take out for dinner all […]

Step 13 in our 18 Steps to Getting Out of Survival Mode is stocking up.  Here’s what I wrote in my original article: “13. Buy extra at the store if you can and go shopping less often If you can, buy two or three dishwashing detergents, jars of spaghetti sauce or hair spray when you go […]

Just a few more weeks to go on our 18 Steps to Getting Out of Survival Mode series!  This week is step 12.  Here’s what I said in the article: “12. Spread out outings Have a few days when you don’t go anywhere to recoup and regroup.  Don’t try to go too many places in one […]

Happy November!  We are closing in on the last steps in my series 18 Steps to Getting Out of Survival Mode.  If you haven’t read all of them yet, you can go to the JoJoisms home page and just keep scrolling down til you come to one you’ve not read yet…or when you get to […]

Step ten in Getting Out of Survival Mode is finding tools that make your life easier.  For me, that was my hair.  I have crazy curly hair, but my dh likes it straight and, frankly, so do I. so I’ve spent almost a lifetime straightening my hair, but as chronic illness, surgeries, and overwhelm collide, […]

We are up to step nine and here is what I originally wrote in my article, 18 Steps to Getting Out of Survival Mode… “9. Shower at night Mornings are usually pretty rushed and I am exhausted when I get up.  Taking a shower at night means I don’t need to do my hair or […]

Sorry we took an unexpected blog vacation there, but I guess I severely underestimated my recovery time from my fifth surgery.  I thought since it was on my foot, that I’d just be hobbling around on crutches, but it seems that even with the walker, my loose ligaments chronic issue caused me a lot of […]