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Fourteen Tips For Managing The Home When You Have A Chronic Illness

October 12, 2018 brought a doozy of a diagnosis to our home and family. Over the telephone on that day, two hours after a brain MRI, four days after meeting with the neurologist, he said “You need to immediately go to the ER to get seen faster. You have a large tumor pressing on your brain stem. The brain stem is shifted in such a way that you could die.” Those works brought significant trauma and anxiety. A few hours later in the ER, I met with a neurosurgeon who said “Yes. You need surgery asap, but the best brain surgeon in the hospital is on vacation. He left yesterday. I do spine surgeries, and I’m the best at that. I imagine you want the best at brains.” Funny how he made me laugh in my worst life moment. My response, through tears of fear but also a giggle, was something like “Ok. As long as I don’t die, I can manage and be patient. I’ve managed this long.” He sent me home on powerful steroids, and I met with the brain surgeon a couple of weeks later. That surgeon didn’t give me new information, but between the two neurosurgeon doctors and the ER doctors I’d met with, I had enough information to realize this was serious, and that my life and the lives of my husband, children, and my parents’ too, may forever be altered.

Praise the Lord none of the worse case scenarios came to fruition. Praise the Lord for fantastic medical care and therapy. I’ve been in therapy of one kind or the other since. While none of the worst case scenarios came to fruition, our lives are still changed. I’ve changed. My hearing has changed. My sleep has changed. My balance and fatigue levels changed. My ability to navigate groups and crowds has changed. Some of my roles as a wife, mother, and home based business owner have changed. How I can travel has changed. How I use my time has had to change to accommodate hours of PT, or facial OT, or trips to Ann Arbor, MI for functional Botox treatments, or to consult with a make up artist.

Praise the Lord for all kinds of help in those weeks leading up to surgery, the weeks I was in rehab, and the months afterwards. For many months, we had meals sent by church and friends. I had stored up freezer meals, too. Friends helped with transportation for me to therapy and appointments, and for the kids’ activities to give my husband a break.

But what about when all the help ended?

How does a family with the impact of a new chronic illness manage all the facets of home life?

Even after more than three years of dealing with this life changing diagnosis, we are still doing these fourteen tips. It’s okay to use services offered by companies! It’s okay to use help that is offered! It is okay to ask for help, or to decline invitations. These tips are about pacing yourself for low energy days.

Be sure to count your costs, sacrifices, or impacts of choices. No matter what you choose, there are some. They might not all be financial, but each choice comes with benefits and consequences. You decide which ones you can live with.

home management tips, chronic illness, health

Recognize that everyone in the family household is affected, and some help choices might be for them, not just the one with the chronic illness.
Schedule your USPS mail package pick ups so your body isn’t burdened by standing in lines and crowds while holding packages and boxes! Buy a postage scale and label makers, and employ websites like PirateShip or Ship dot com to put your own postage on your packages. Be sure to leave extra time for weather or other factors for when your packages are picked up by the mail carrier.
Sign up for grocery services for grocery pick up or delivery in your area. Even grocery stores, rather than big box stores often have these options.
a. We primarily use Shipt.com for grocery delivery in our area. You and I each get a $10 credit to our yearly membership for using this link, as there is a yearly cost for Shipt. It is a good idea to tip your shopper, so factor those costs into your grocery budget. Shipt now offers preferred shopper choices, and we love the shoppers we’ve selected. Shipt allows for you to pick alternate items if your preferred item is out of stock. My Shipt shoppers call me at home rather than texting or calling my cell and have been great about accommodating for my health issues, even packing grocery bags lighter for me to carry them into the house. Even during these Covid times, they’ve been careful to social distance, mask, and have respected all of our choices and directions. I choose when my order is delivered based on what is best for our routine and when I’m available to talk on the phone around therapy.
b. We also use Instacart for our monthly Costco orders. We’ve not been as pleased with fewer customer service options, but for me, it is still a better option than being in the store. I honestly find I spend less money on our household and food budgets, too, with my shoppers sticking to the list.
c. We order fish a few times/year or even monthly from the Wild Alaskan Co. here. Use this link for a $25 credit on your first order and for my next order. We also order cow or pork shares from local farmers, and stock our freezer with this meat supply as finances allow.
d. Occasionally I forget an item and have to send the hubby anyway. Budget those accidents into the plan. Recognize that even using shopping services like Shipt or InstaCart, you are still the one providing for your family and your household, and in control of what comes in and out of your home.
Do online ordering with an assigned pick up time for local farms or businesses too! We also use Amazon Prime
This post and clicking on this link may contain an affiliate link. An affiliate link means that, at no extra cost to you, when you click through a link and make a purchase, I may receive a small commission which allows this blog to remain active.
and other online sites for delivery of household goods, supplies, or animal/pet care.
Maintain a routine for any other errands or appointments. We keep dog grooming, hair cuts, and dental/vision/medical appointments to Thursday afternoons or Fridays as much as it is within our control. Sometimes it’s not in our control and we have to adjust, so choose back up times in those instances.
Double batch cooking on your energetic days. Plan to freeze one of those meals for a not so good or busy day.
Hire babysitting help or housekeeping services as needed for medical appointment days or to give your body a chance to rest.
Last summer we hired yard maintenance help, and since our DIY talents are even more limited now, we also hire for home maintenance help.
Shut off phones and notifications. Close out of social media. You do not have to be available all the time to those outside your household. Have an emergency plan in place for family members to reach you when something urgent or emergent comes up, for instance, a text and immediate phone call might alert you or them to needing an immediate response. Otherwise, the call or text really can wait.
I still utilize online church services for my fatigue or headache days. I don’t try to be everywhere any more, and neither should you. I’m thankful for the option! It’s imperfect, yes. But so is having a chronic illness. This is about making the most of what is available.
Set boundaries with requests from outside your household. Sometimes that even means your family. It’s okay to say no! It doesn’t mean you’re lazy. It means you recognize you can’t be all things to all people. Newsflash: You couldn’t before your chronic illness diagnosis either, even if you thought you could.
If you have children, bring some homeschool lessons or music lessons, etc to the home via tutors or online tutor. It might not be ideal, but most choices are not anyway. Acknowledge what is not ideal, and find a way to work through it. You getting exhausted from being a rat on a wheel isn’t ideal either. For instance, I cannot drive in bad weather or at night. I also cannot walk in those circumstances and maintain balance. The choices for those times are either that they have online lessons, have at home tutors, or my children have to skip certain activities if my husband also has to work at those times.
Multitask activities. Plan that an off site tutor or activity take place at the same facility or general location as an appointment or other activity to condense time away and reduce task fatigue. This is definitely the trickiest tip, and not always doable.
If you need to work, can you find a way to work from home?

There is no need to feel like you are less for using services. You are not lazy for recognizing limitations or for needing help or for establishing what the family priorities are.

My final pieces of advice are this: Do what makes your situation as flexible as possible. Things come up, so establish margins and boundaries in your life as much as possible. If you have children in the home, don’t rely on them to take over household chores and maintenance. While they may be part of the “Home Team” and maybe chores should be part of home life, they should not be expected to be the solutions either. They are also struggling through the chaos chronic illness brings. The advice “Just get your kids to do it.” is such horribly bad advice. Consider, instead, bringing a counselor onto the team of “advisors” for how to manage your family and you sort out new roles. This is one thing I wish we had known we’d need!

What is your advice?

What are your top tips or for managing your household with a chronic illness?

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Heading Back To School: Tips On How To Prevent Head Lice

Many years ago, when our daughters were early elementary age, our family somehow got a nasty case of head lice. We’d been traveling and have no idea where the head lice came from. In the treatment of that episode of lice, and in one subsequent episode, we learned a lot about how to prevent and treat the itchy, annoying affliction. Here are some tips as children are heading Back To School.

Head lice is common between the ages of 3-11 years since these are day care to elementary aged kids, and most at risk. They are also the population who don’t understand the importance of prevention. Lice is a parasite that drinks human blood. They are most often found behind the ears and lower neck. Bites leave signature rashes there, and a case of head lice is very itchy, especially at night. Find out what head lice looks like and the stages of development over on WebMD.

Head lice is passed from head to head/hair to hair touching. On upholstered furniture in public places, such as movie theater seats, or lying on rugs in a classroom or library, it is possible to transfer head lice.

How to avoid getting head lice

No sharing combs, hats, scarves, or hair accessories.
No sharing pillows or bedding at sleep overs or at camp.
No sharing ear buds and helmets.
Wash and high heat dry new hats after purchase before wearing.

The next step in prevention is what to do once you suspect your children or you could have been exposed. Be sure to wash all possible exposed clothing, coats, hats, scarves, etc in hot water and high heat dry. Do the same with stuffed animals and bedding if possible. If it’s not possible, seal them in a plastic bag for three or more weeks. We did the same with combs, brushes, and hair accessories. Admittedly, I over reacted and boiled our combs each day. They sort of melted.

Another tip for prevention is to keep longer hair tied back in a pony tail or braid, or pinned up in a bun.

Washing your child’s hair with tea tree shampoo and conditioner, and the heat of blow drying also helps to kill any possible lice. Keeping your child’s environment clean helps control any spread of the lice should your child get it. Be sure to keep carpets and car seats well vacuumed each day. I found the biggest asset to the whole ordeal of our children having head lice was that we got our house clean and organized because I became obsessive about vacuuming and laundry.

Twice daily combing with a head lice nit comb scrapes any nits down the hair shaft and away from the scalp. We did use RID for our daughters’ first stint with head lice. The lice weren’t necessarily killed. We had to do a second treatment. Their hair got fried, and their scalps were dry.

A nurse friend with ties to a nurse at the local health department also advised us to use olive oil during nit combing. Once we were diligent with combing and using olive oil to comb, washing with tea tree oil shampoo and conditioner, and blow drying, the ordeal was fortunately contained. The olive oil may have done nothing more than restore our daughters hair to good health.

Unfortunately, the girls report that the smell of olive triggers bad memories for them, and the only good thing about having lice was that we let them watch movies while we nit combed endlessly.

Here are examples of the products we used.
DISCLOSURE: These are affiliate links which means I earn a small compensation to support this blog if you make a purchase through these links. There is no added cost to you. We are independently owned and the opinions expressed in this post are my own.

I hope this helps you prevent lice in your own home, and manage it if your child ends up with a case of it.

Wild Alaskan Company Fish

After my brain surgery recovery after a very large acoustic neuroma was found on my right vestibular nerve, the main nerve that controls hearing, gait, and balance, I was researching how to heal my brain, my nerves, how to grow back healthy hair, and how to stay healthy while I recovered from my newly founded gait and balance issues, one sided deafness, and facial paralysis now turned facial synkinesis. Obviously there is no way to rush healing. I knew I could only provide as optimal an environment and healthy habits for healing as possible.

I didn’t know at the time that my craving healthy foods like salmon, avocado, almonds, spinach, berries, etc, were all foods that I needed for brain healing, hair growing, and healthy nerve regeneration. I’ve never ever in my life craved salmon.

Yet, while my dear friend was with us for nearly three weeks helping with my home and rehabilitation, we ate salmon more than once. Not long after she left, and my wanting to avoid being in the stores because of germs and my inability to drive, I researched how to have salmon shipped to my home so that I could continue to have it, and have the healthiest of options.

That is how I found the Wild Alaskan Company and started an every other month subscription to have wild Alaskan salmon shipped to my home, along with the option to have other fish sent too. DISCLOSURE: Clicking through Wild Alaskan Compa ny is an affiliate link, meaning I get a $25 reduction off the cost of my next shipment if my readers opt to have a fish shipment sent to their own home also. There is no extra cost to you, and in fact, clicking through my link will give you $25 off your first order too.

Wild Alaskan Company will send a box once a month unless you change, pause or cancel your membership anytime before it renews each month. They have been very easy to order from. They ship your fish in box packed with dry ice. They are really good about messaging, and alerting us as to when our box will arrive.

When we open our box, we put on winter gloves, and carefully remove all the fish packages before taking our “Fish Stash” to our deep freezer.

A great gift idea with the holidays approaching is to Gift a Box of Fish! You get to choose a box of 12 or 24 pieces, whether you want only salmon, a mix of salmon and white fish, or only white fish when you want the box shipped, and include a message. Wild Alaskan Company ships to all 50 States in the United States. When you go to their website, click Give a Gift at the top of their website page, and then Happy Ordering! It’s easy peasy lemon squeezy!!

Salmon is high is essential fatty acids and omega fish oils. These are recommended for reducing cholesterol and inflammation. Salmon is also high in protein. Fatty acids and protein are essential for healing brains and nerves. It also contains many B vitamins for nerve healing, and potassium and antioxidants as well.

Some say that wild and sustainable caught salmon, cod, halibut, and other wild caught fish are higher in these nutrients also, and better for you than farmed fishes. I have to say that Wild Alaskan Company salmon, cod, halibut, Rockfish, and scallops that we’ve received from them is the best fish I’ve ever had! This is coming from a person who really does not usually love fish!

While my life long friend was here with us during my rehabilitation, she taught my daughters how to poach salmon. So far, that is our favorite way to have Wild Alaskan Company salmon. In our air fryer, we’ve also made “fried” cod. Another favorite is to make fish and potato chowder. We’ve experimented with a teriyaki baked fish too.

Poached Alaskan Wild Caught Salmon! YUM!

All in all, Wild Alaskan Company, and the fish that they have sent in our subscription, has been a fun and worthwhile investment into our health.

In the meantime, I ended up writing another e-book, Nutrients for Growing Healthy Hair. It’s free and allows you to opt in to my LoveLeavingLegacy with Lilla Rose hair accessories newsletter. I know I’ve shared it before, but I’d love for you to have it!

I have other gift ideas for healthy hair, too, which you can see here.

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