Day 84 | A New Routine

Hey! I think we might finally be figuring out a routine! Oh routines! How I’ve missed you!

This is how it goes…

I wake up and wipe down the walls, ceiling and floor of the van. I use Simple brand facial wipes for this. Sara Mattson, my mold avoidance mentor, told me about this. She said that most baby wipes feel very moldy to her but that she’s never reacted to these Simple wipes. I’ve been tolerating them just fine and wiping down the van daily helps keep minor cross-contamination from becoming a bigger problem.

Then, if I’m feeling achy and in pain, I wipe down my body too before I change into clean clothes. Next I start some water heating so I can wash my hair while Brett prepares breakfast. I try to get the laundry soaking right away too.

Then we eat breakfast and after clean up, Brett starts his work day and I start on the laundry. The water spout isn’t right next to our laundry area so I’ve been carrying water about a 24 paces uphill. It’s hard! But I’m getting stronger!

My plan is to be able to listen to the Bible and pray while I do the laundry. Today though, I just sang.

Then at around 12:30pm, I start making lunch. Today I made salad with bacon, cheese, avocado and apples. It was really yummy! Then I do some more laundry and wash dishes.

Next I sit down to work on writing for the blog. After that, I have my late afternoon emotional breakdown where I cry about how much work I still have to do and how hard this mold avoidance life is. This emotional breakdown isn’t part of the plan of course but it’s been happening. Maybe I’ll feel better about it if I just come to expect it?

Then, after Brett gives me a comforting hug, I muster up enough courage to put together a simple dinner. After dinner Brett helps me to finish up the laundry and we decide to leave the dirty dishes for the morning. At least that’s what we did tonight. 🙂

Then Brett heats up water for our showers and we turn the heat on in the van to make it more comfortable. I take my shower first and then I read aloud to us while Brett takes his shower. Then we empty the tub, wipe up any water that may have splashed on the floor and turn off the car. Finally, we turn on our heating mats and fall into bed exhausted!

It’s a lot of work, but hey! A grueling routine is better than no routine and I’m actually getting a lot done. Hopefully, it will get easier as I get more practice. Right now I feel like I fell into the deep end of a pool and don’t know how to swim.

It’s a big jump going from being completely helpless to having this much responsibility. But there’s no question that a life of hard physical labor and lots of inconveniences is far better than a life of devastating illness and complete dependence on caregivers. So I’m thankful, and if this is what it takes to get my health back, then I’m going to do my best at it.

By the way, Brett and I made a beautiful PDF of my favorite resources for suffering souls. I created the content and he made it look fancy with his superduper graphic design skills. It’s available for free to my email subscribers. Click here to sign up and receive 5 Resources for the Suffering Soul.