I usually like to write up my blog on the day of my lesson, but I was so tired and in an awful lot of pain that day so I had to go to bed when I got home and rest up. I took a strong painkiller with my afternoon tablets and that knocked me out for a few hours. When I woke up I was still in a lot of pain and I was concerned that the FM would flare up and cause me grief. The last thing I want is a major flare up that would knock me out of the competition on 21st May. You are probably think, well that's two weeks away, but I have had flare ups that have lasted a good 3 weeks and more.

So I am now trying to pace my activities and be as careful as I can to not cause a flare. It's not as easy as you might think as every activity from getting out of bed in the morning to going to bed at night has to be evaluated and I have to try and work out how much energy I will spend doing each activity by using The Spoon Theory You can find the original story here, give it a read, it's a great way to explain how to cope with pacing activities when you have a chronic illness. At the moment I don't have many spoons, because I am in a "bad patch" with my FM.
The trouble with FM is on the outside of our bodies we look like a normal healthy person, but on the inside it's a totally different story. My Rheumatologist consultant once said at an FM talk "having FM is like having a lifetime prison sentence that you can't escape from". It's so true, we have to grin and bare it everyday, even on days when we feel so ill all we want to do is hide away and be left alone.

So I am feeling a bit like that at the moment. My body really hurts and I feel so tired that I want to sleep all the time. Everything is tiring and a huge effort.

But even though I was feeling like that on Wednesday, I got in to my focused mindset and got myself geared up for my lesson.
I had mounted pink a little earlier and as our instructor wanted the lady, I usually ride with in the same lesson, in first to go through her test, Pink and I went for a walk down the road and back with one of our helpers, which was really nice for Pink because he had been working in the school with the class before mine.
The day was beautiful, though a little cloudy, but when the sun broke through, it was lovely and warm. My instructor was ready for me by the time we got back, so Pink and I went into the school and we were asked to go and warm up.

Pink was so good for me, he went beautifully. I quickly scrolled through the list in my mind of all the things I needed to do to get Pink going well and my position looking right. The best way to explain how it works for me is that I go over and over all the things my instructor teaches me and I memorize everything. If I didn't do this, I would forget everything by the next week.
So, when I ride around everything becomes natural and if anything feels wrong I can correct it quickly. I don't have a horse to practice on during the rest of the week, so my Wednesday lesson is my only time to really focus and remember everything.

I got Pink fizzed up and into a nice trot and I got his head down and on the bit and we did a circuit of the school , when we about to reach A, my instructor said "good" and asked me to walk and change the rein at K X M and do a circuit on the other rein, She told me to use that period of walk to relax and go steady. then as soon as we were passed M we went in to another good bouncy trot. On the straights I asked pink to go a little faster so we had a good trot going on. As soon as Pink and I had finished that, we were told to go straight into our dressage test. so With Pink going well and me focused and noting what Pink was doing, we rode down the center line at A and halted at X. Pink had left his left foreleg behind to my instructor asked me to square him and finish the halt. I asked pink to bring his leg forwards, with which he complied.
We then rode our test riding down to C my instructor reminded me to keep the turn nice and round, which I tried to do, I think that bit went ok, lol, I can't remember!
Anyway, we rode to H and I tried to get Pink into a good trot . We started that trot a little ahead, if I remember correctly, and Pink went really nicely for me. my transition from trot to walk wasn't too good, starting the walk a couple of paces passed K, I got Pink into a good medium walk and rode a 10m circle at F, I heard one of the ladies say it was a really nice 10m circle, Which made me feel pretty good!
I carried on from F to B and we did a left turn at B and rode to X and halted, again Pink didn't quite finish his halt and my instructor told me to remember to get him square and finish the halt before I started the 5 second count before walking on. I got Pink squared up pretty quickly again and counted the 5 seconds the rode on to E and rode a right turn at a medium walk.

At H we rode another 10m circle and in my mind it was no where near as good as the one at F. Once that circle was complete we rode H C M in med walk and trotted at M, again my transition wasn't too good in and out of the trot. but the nice pace in between was good, I thought!
At F we continued the walk and rode to A and turned down the center line again, my turn wasn't that great. I felt it could have been better and a bit more rounded. We walked down to X and halted and Pink did a really nice square halt. My instructor then asked me to go through the test again starting at X.
That second ride went a lot better in my view and I had praise form my instructor, which meant an awful lot to me!
If Pink and I can do the test as well as that, if not better, then I will be a very very happy Cat!

I still need to work on my transitions and keep and eye on my turns, but I think as long as I can get that right and keep everything tidy I should do well. I am getting quite excited about the competition now and I am looking forward to doing my test. I am hoping that my dad will get a video of my test so I can watch it when I get home and see how I looked from a different view.

Pink went really well for me and I feel we are working well as a team now. We are starting to connect and that is something that really makes me happy. If I develop the same connection with Pink, that I had with Adam, I will be an even happier Cat!


Take a look at the ukfibromyalgia website here
It explains what FM is, and, if you know anyone who is suffering with FM or is newly diagnosed, please pass on the two links on this page.