ADVENT CHAOS CALENDAR: An Early Christmas Pre-Op Catch-up with Claire

Calire pulls Christmas forward before a long-awaited hospital stay, juggles a fibromyalgia flare with a medication mix-up, and finds calm in small rituals while packing for surgery. Between cosy chaos and quiet resolve,  she sends a lil voicenote to Gen and our community of listeners.

• early Christmas to make space for surgery
• vegetarian dinner and teen gift rhythms
• fibromyalgia flare and pacing lessons
• accidental caffeine and paracetamol overload
• altered Boxing Day plans with friends and DnD
• short hair, no nails, CPAP and bag strategy
• library calm and free audiobooks via Libby
• fatigue, takeaway, and a film that soothed
• hope for mobility, dancing, and travel ahead
• gratitude for 10,000 podcast downloads

Sisters in Chaos.

Chapters

• 0:00 A Bathside Catch-Up
• 0:27 Early Christmas Before Surgery
• 2:28 Teen Gifts And Changing Traditions
• 3:54 Fibromyalgia Flare And Medication Mix-Up
• 6:16 Friends, DnD, And Altered Plans
• 8:13 Short Hair, No Nails, Hospital Prep
• 10:24 Library Calm And Audiobook Hack
• 12:08 Takeaway Banquet And Bone-Tired
• 13:26 Packing Mountains And CPAP Logistics
• 15:20 Hope, Healing, And 10,000 Downloads

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

It's a bottom. Hey Jenny and listeners. Jenny's asked me to send a little message here. Um we've not I hope the sound quality is alright. I'm in the bath. So picture that if you want, guys. Um I have just finished my early Christmas. Um I am sending a catch-up here because tomorrow I'm going into hospital for the operation that I've been waiting for for seven years. Um I found out a couple of weeks ago that it was definitely going ahead. And tomorrow in real time, I don't know when journey I'll put this out, is the 16th of December, and it means that I will be in hospital for Christmas. Um, so I had to do an early Christmas for my son here at home. And somehow I didn't really think it through. This meant that for the first time in my life, I was doing Christmas dinner. Um, well, luckily my partner did it, and he does a pretty stress-free to be honest. I mean, we're vegetarians, so that's a bonus. There's none of this rest and meat and shit, what goes on. But yeah, he did it and it was lovely. Um so we started our Christmas on Friday with the Christmas Eve, and that was really lovely. Um Misson always has a Christmas Eve box, and he got in his Demi Gorgon um hood hoodie thing that I'd have to do a big mission to get us to do a salt everywhere. That was really determined to have on. I'm so glad that I cooked it. Um I got it from like the only Asta that it was available in the Northwest, and you couldn't even order it online, you had to go in person on the day before that was our Christmas Eve. Um, and we just had a nice evening of pizzas and um chilling. But honestly, up until that point it'd been non-stop. So ever since I found out I was going into hospital, I have been non-stop trying to get my house to be like perfect so that like when I come out of hospital, visitors can come around and see me because I'm gonna be laid up for about three months according to the doctors. So I'm gonna need visitors or I'm gonna go mad. And my partner will probably lose his mind as well if he's just like me career forever. So um, I was doing the household and getting all the Christmas presents, and as someone who normally does everything on Christmas Eve, I was like, fucking hell, I've got everything, got everything ready by like the 12th of December or whenever it was. But I did it. Um Christmas Day rolled round and my son was very happy with his presents, and um it's weird because he's a teenager now, it's a whole different experience of like the excitement is different, it's more like delayed. So he wanted a lot of records, and it um he's oh thanks and thanks, but it's not the same as like when kids were like jumping up and down and stuff, but then later on we were listening to the records and stuff, and it was lovely. Um so we had our Christmas day, and then my mum came around, we did a Christmas buffet, we did quizzes and games and all this, and but for some reason, well I know the reason really, um I was having a big flare-up of my fibromyalgia, which um if I haven't mentioned it before, which I'm sure I have, is a chronic pain condition, and I have to pace myself really carefully because if I over exert myself I get loads of pain, and um because obviously I had been over exerting myself, it got like really bad. Um, so I take cocoa them all on the regular, I have to take like eight of those a day. Um, but when my fibre is bad, I I can like take ibuprofen on top. Um, but didn't have any, so I was like, oh, I text my mum, could she bring some round? And unfortunately, she picked up a box of red tablets for my house thinking the ibuprofen. She brought them around and I took them and um it turns out I found out the next day because I didn't really look, they're actually like parasites more with caffeine in them, and um so I'd had like six of these um just like throughout the day, right up until very late, and when I went to bed, I just could not sleep, and I was like, fuck you know, I'll have to take some more, that might be perfect. So I had some more and um just basically taking caffeine tablets in bed, but not only that, they are they are like had paracetamol in them, so I'd like totally overdosed on the paracetamol as well. Luckily, it seems to be no liver effects of that or any after effects, don't recommend it, guys. But my liver held out as far as I know, so yeah, I just couldn't sleep a wink that night, was in loads of pain because obviously I wasn't getting any of the anti-inflammatory relief. Um so it was in loads of pain the next day, but my son had said to me, like, oh, when can we see my friends? Like, who are um well uh we have a shared best friend who also has two children who my son is similar age to, and he plays Dungeons and Dragons with. And in the run-up, he'd had to cancel his Dungeons and Dragons twice because he had the flupo thing, and he also we also had to cancel a meeting meet up with Jen and her kids. But he was like, Come in, can I see them to get the presents? So we'll last them round for like a couple of hours. But they did end up staying a lot longer than a couple of hours. Um, and my plan for what would have been our boxing day was like what I like to do on boxing day lay around, eat leftovers, and watch films. Um, but we instead were just sort of entertaining for quite a lot of time. Um, they're no trouble, and it was so lovely to see them. It was just different than what I had planned. And it was that evening that I realised, oh fuck, I've been taken, not being taken hyperproof, I've been taken a fucking OD of paracetamol and loads of caffeine. But it was too late to go and get any hyperproof, and so I was still in loads of pain. Anyway, they went. Um, we had our like leftover curry and we watched a movie. We watched Knives Out, which I thoroughly recommend, and I was just like so tired. I was like crawl into bed or like literally could hardly move. I was in that much pain. So I went to bed, and luckily that night I slept, which was last night, and it had such a long sleep, very restorative. Um, and then today is like uh would it be like the betwixtness of days? Um we'd invited my dad in his part, his wife. I always forget it was his wife because I wasn't invited to his wedding, which is another story. There's no feud there or anything, it's just I would say neurodiversity. Um they came around, we'd done presents, we'd done um food and just snacks and that. Um, and that was very nice. And then I had to go to the nail shop because you're not allowed to have nails when you're going for an operation, so I had to get all my lovely nails. I have like the builder gel, had to get them all taken off, and I'm just down to my little natural fingernails here. Hadn't seen them for a while. Uh, I had to get my hair cut last week really short as well, which I was really worrying about because like I thought I was gonna end up looking even, you know, my age basically or older, um, like a middle-aged woman. Because when I was growing up, it was always like when people become mums or whatever they get older, why do they get the haircut short? I understand why now, because it's a the faff of doing it, but anyway, I just wanted to have it shorter because the last time I went into hospital, I was too sore in my arms to like look after my own hair, and nobody looks after it for me in there, and it all masses up into a full-on lock, a full-on nest that I've cut out in a cute house of hospital. So I was like, racing going at my hair show up. So that can't happen. So I had that done. Um Jed said it looks nice to the extent that she wants to copy me a haircut, so I'll take it. I hated it at first because as usual, the hairdresser just completely ignored what I asked for and just did her own thing. Um, anyway, I digress, got my nails off. Um I feel like I'm going into like a convent or something. Got my hair shorn off and got me nails cut. And I popped into the library and joined at the local library, which was lovely. There was such a moment of calm in my day because um I've been listening to loads of audiobooks. Well, I've been sort of lying around more and uh they're fucking spelling, aren't they? But did you know, guys, that if you join your local library, you can then download this app. One's called Libby and one's called something else that I've already forgotten. And you can get your audiobooks for free. So it's worth joining your library just for that, plus keep them libraries alive. So I actually just took some books out while I was there, just because like that's what keeps the libraries alive, isn't it? And then I came home. My mum came around again because she wanted to give me a hug and say goodbye before we went into the hospital, and then she just stayed for a cup of tea, but it was all keeping me from my jammas. Um, and then we decided tonight we'd have takeaway and my son chose Chinese and bloody hell. Now that he is bigger than me, he can't off eat the lads of Sarah. When I used to get a Chinese takeaway, he'd just be like, I'll just have a bit of boiled rice and like a prawn cracker. Now he's like full on meals, so it was like fucking massive spenny um takeaway banquet, but it was lovely. Followed with chocolate, and we were caught up on this show we've been watching. And now, finally, I'm in the bath. I've got some final packing to do before I get when I get not before I get out, when I get out. Um which I hate because I really hate packing even for a holiday, like the decision fatigue of it all, the trying to like plan for every eventuality, then desperate to not overpack situation. Uh, because I think if like I could, if like there was no luggage allowance and stuff, I would like take the kitchen sink, to be honest, like so that like because I hate like you've forgotten something, and I'm always liable to forget something, you even if I do take the kitchen sink. So packing for hospital is even worse, I've found, because like not even packing for something fun, and like it's certainly not throwing a few women's costumes, and it's like all these are dressing gowns and PJs and medication. Oh, I'm sorry, there's like a plane passing over. I hope that's it sounds really, really loud. I do hope you can use this journey with the noise and all that. Anyway, so I've got a bit of packing to do when I get out of bed, and then not when I get out of bed, when I get out of the bath. I'm so tired, guys. Uh I've got that thing where I just don't even know what I'm saying, to be honest. Um so yeah, I'm gonna pack up when I get out of the bath with my final packing. I've packed like I've got an overnight bag for tomorrow. I've got a bag full of medication, like an actual literal bag full because you have to take everything in. Then I've got a CPAP machine, because I've got CPAP near it, so that's a whole bag to take. And then I've got like a bag with like my phone, charger, shit, and all that in. And then I've got a suitcase that I've packed, which is like for next week. And then they've said I'm I'm in for two weeks after lease, so I've packed another suitcase for the week after. So oh, and I've packed a bag that's got like laptop and all that shit in as well, because you're not supposed to take that in initially in case it gets robbed, which is nice. Um, so that's me and me things, and I haven't made it good or bad because I can't even think straight, guys. I'm so tired. But I'm done, I've done my Christmas. It's the uh 15th of December, and I'm done. Now it's like people want to bring me shit in hospital, presents and that'll be calm. Um, I've got a bag of presents to take in for you, Jen, because you're coming to see me on Christmas Day, um, which is lovely. And um, I hope that this is for me the darkest hour before the dawn is I've been thinking of it. I'm about to go through a lot of tough times physically, it's gonna be really tough, but I've been waiting for this operation for seven years. Um hopefully this is it now. This is gonna fix me physically. I'll still be mad in my head. Uh but um I'm hoping that like by this time next year I'll be like walking around, doing things actively, partying again, dancing again, going to gigs, um going swimming, going on holidays, I don't know, all the things. And I'm really looking forward to it, and I'm gonna try and keep up with the podding while I'm in Hossey and when I come out, and me and Jenny are gonna find a way to make that work, and doing the podding this year has been such a wonderful thing in my life. Spending time with me, Jenny, who always is restorative to me, and we really enjoy um talking to you guys, hopefully, you know, giving something back to our community, hopefully it helps you guys. And um, one thrilling present that I opened in my emails yesterday was to find out that we had now 10,000 downloads, and we're so grateful for that. Um, so I'm gonna raise a fist on my own and say Sisters in Chaos.