IC awareness month:day 5:list in toilet!!

Day 5: 'Every time you go to the bathroom to pee....instead of focusing on the discomfort, pain, or annoyance associated with this very common activity, focus on the things in your life you are thankful for. No holding back! Everything goes!!'... Make a list of the things you are grateful for and read it...

This is day 5 of the Monthly IC Awareness campaign; set up by an amazing woman whose website is here:  www.icramblings.com

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Now this would be a very useful one for me bearing in mind my Pelvic Floor Dysfunction, which has developed over the past couple of months. This means the Interstitial Cystitis has affected mypelvic muscles so they are overly tight and painful. It happens to most, but not all, IC sufferers.

I sit on the toilet and it can be a good minute or two before anything comes out; my muscles are so tight. I usually read the following: a tube of savlon; a bottle of hairspray; one of the kids' books they've left lying around; the writing on the back of my hand from another hectic day... Not ideal.

So what a fantastic idea: to combine the need to distract myself with the benefitsm of daily gratitude.

I have no issue with sticking blu tac on doors in my house (!) and I love gratitude lists.

I've written a list of 5: hopefully enough time to help me relax, open my bladder, and feel thankful into the bargain.

I wish I had my own toilet as I'd like them to be confidential. Don't particularly mind the children seeing it, they're used to my crazy ideas, but perhaps I will take them down when strangers visit or I will keep the list in a drawer next to the toilet instead of on the wall.

Anyway: here is my list!

1. I am grateful that I have a safe, warm, lovely house to live in. I like the work I've done on it and the cosiness of it. I like the fact it's a secure home for my two children. I love my front room as the winter nights draw in and I can light candles and be cosy.

2. We are hopefully getting a kitten; waiting to hear back on one possibility. It was sad we couldn't do this a year ago but I think I can manage now. In my mind's eye she will be petite, canny, cute, intuitive, and her name will be Midnight.

3. I love the autumn - the crisp, sunny days; the rain that blows in from the west; the misty mornings; the drawing in towards Samhain and beyond to the death of the year.

4. I am thankful for my beautiful friends - I wish I could name them but want this to stay anonymous - but you know who you are - 4 or 5 of you I simply could not have got through the past year without your emotional and practical support. I love you!

5. Last but not least I am eternally grateful for the fact that I could have children; and the reality of my two wonderful babies, who continue to surprise and fascinate me as they grow through the days, weeks and years. I am blessed beyond belief to be their mother.

xxx