Us single gals!

Hey ladies, Newyorkgal brought up a good issue in another thread that really caught my attention. I know there's some of us that are single, no DH, no DBF, no S/O....so it would be nice if we could share tips on managing relying on ourselves through recovery.

I'm at 4 weeks and my mom just left me to my own vices. This is NOT a bad thing as I'm finally getting up off my butt and doing stuff. I'd like to start doing more though...laundry, cleaning, etc. Any tips on how to accomplish these things without hurting myself?

The vacuum has become my big issue. I used to run the vac daily, with 3 dogs and 2 parrots, I kinda HAD to. And since I was cleaning the birds room, I would just continue into the adjoining rooms. Well, my mom doesn't do that. The dogs aren't here, which helps, but there's still stuff on the living room floor that needs cleaned up!! So the other day (after reading a suggestion on here a while back) I wheeled the vac into the living room (while it was tilted to cut down on resistance), used the hose attachments with a flat end and cleaned the living room carpet that way. Yes, I had to bend a bit, but put my hand on my knee for support. And it took a bit longer. And I did loose the flat end attachment a couple times....but all in all, I felt like I had accomplished something without hurting myself!

Hiya Vega.. Well I am not 'single' but DH is not here & as soonas my oldest DD left for the Inlaws- my mom left & just stopped in every few days to check in & NO she didn't do any laundry actually she hasn't done any laundry to help(my 9 year old did it while she was home) & I had to ask for her to take out the garbage(which she grumbled on). & the floor still hasn't been vacuumed since my surgery grr - Anyways the last week or so I finally got SICK of my place being yucky!! So small loads of laundry have been done, & since I have w &d in my place I can take a couple items at a time to the designated rooms(get more walking but was able to abide by my weight lifting restrictions) That is much harder to do & may not be possible I understand for thos w/ appartments & no washer/dryer. Dishes- (SO NOT MY FAV) if you can get a chair to the sink kneel on it while doing dishes... not quite as tiring as just standing for ever. & if if its just you dirtying dishes of course easier to clean right after you eat since you won't have to be up for more than just a couple min. As far as the garbage goes - good luck! I don't know what your weight restrictions are for lifting but mine was like 5 pounds. SO I was really sorta stuck. This past weekend mom had been gone for a few days & the garbage was full & given how warm its been here was starting to get aromatic I finally couldn't handle it anymore - & just took it out - with a VERY POOR ATTITUDE- "If I hurt my self I hurt myself but I can't take this anymore" well it was not too heavy but more than I was really suppose to so. But I was ok anyway. Thank goodness Dr lifted most of my restrictions now! YAY! Unless you have heavier limits than I did or don't mind running the garbage out every single day I am not too sure what to tell ya for the garbage. Cool idea on the Vacuuming- hadn't thought of that. I am still a little leary on running the vacuum but I may try your idea. I dunno what else to tell you hope that helps tho.
hugs

Hi. Pretty much on my own here too. I am single, always have been. I am very self sufficient, self employed (though earning well below the poverty level for the past 25 years), but luckily I am low maintenance and am usually ok with just eeking by in life. I will be 50 in a couple weeks. Just over 5 years ago I moved in with my dad, here in the rural high dessert mountains, to take care of him after my mother died, so this was a big change in my life after being on my own in Los Angeles since I was 19. Luckily neither of us are all that tidy, so I can get away with not vacuuming for a little bit longer! Dad still can get around a bit so he does his own breakfast and lunch and I can now manage to make something that resembles a dinner. We haul our own trash to the dump so I have reminded him to make sure our trash bags are small, under 10 pounds each. He has a limited drivers license, and I still am not driving yet, so we are currently economizing on our ventures off this mountain. Hopefully he can pass a drivers test next week so we are not stuck with an emergency situation!

As the old saying goes, "one day at a time." My brother did come out to help us for the first week and a half, but I wasn't too demanding because I slept a lot. But, so far, so good because we haven't run up against any big obstacles yet. My biggest concern now is returning to some of my work. Even though I work at home (illustration and computer graphics) my work involves sitting here in front of the computer for hours, and sitting here is the hardest thing for me to do now. My incision (and my butt) just doesn't like it! I have a couple jobs on the drawing board and I just hope my clients can wait for me!

So, there is a portion of my being single story! And now, my behind says "ouch, get up!!!"

My daughter lives in the apartment downstairs in my house, but she has a baby (he's 1 year old today - yeah!) and he takes up a great deal of her time. She tries to help me upstairs as much as possible and she does run the vacuum for me on the rugs. And my son-in-law will take out the garbage and do any heavy lifting if needed. Even so, there is a lot of cleaning that needs to get done and I can't stand looking at dirty floors. My floors are hardwood and tile with area rugs so there is a lot of exposed area that needs to be vacuumed and cleaned. I can run the vacuum attachment for the bare floors myself. There's nothing heavy to push.

We're having a first birthday party for my grandson on Saturday and there's a lot of cleaning that needs to be done. Last Sunday I vacuumed the kitchen floor then cleaned it with future while sitting on my butt. It's amazing how clean you can get a floor when you're doing it by hand rather than using a mop. My son and daughter-in-law were visiting last weekend and they did the big area in the dining room. I had bought some new area rugs so they vacuumed and mopped the floor for me and then put the new rugs down.

I clean a little bit every day and that helps. If there's something I can't do, I wait for my daughter to help, but most things I find I can do on my own. Small loads of laundry are easier than trying to haul the large loads downstairs to the laundry room. I even did some weed wacking yesterday in the back yard. A little bit to get some exercise but not enough to set me back.

I have a doctor's appointment today so hopefully she'll let me go back to work part time. I have a desk job with no heavy lifting so I can't imagine why she won't give me the okay for that.

Hello! While I'm not single and do have help at home, the help is male and some things are just invisible to the male eye! Dust bunnies do not exist in the male world. I got totally sick of them last week-have that laminate flooring in the living/dining room and linoleum in the kitchen and bathrooms and one dog. Anyway, I have a Swiffer vac-its lightweight and the charge only lasts so long. It helped me get those dust bunnies and I didn't over do it. Of course, I didn't let anybody see me do it or I would've totally lost my Princess Crown-its pretty much disappeared as it is!
Just my

I also am not single but my help is all males. They are wonderful about carrying things and stretching to reach things that are too high. However they don't seem to ever look down. At 3 wks my floors were unbearable. So I asked someone to get the sweeper out. Hint, Hint! They didn't get it. What worked for me was: I nstead of using one arm to manuver the sweeper I hels it with both hands in front of me and walked back and forth. It took a little longer (lots of breaks) but I didn't have to use my abdominal muscles at all.

Hope this helps
Fallflower

PS: The males in my house are are taller than me. I am begining to think that they are afraid of hieghts and that is why they don't look down! LOL

Hi Vega--

The things that were hard for me living on my own were laundry, grocery shopping, and taking out the trash. I had live-in help for 3 weeks and then it was up to me, so I did the following:

LAUNDRY: I would throw small clumps of laundry down the basement stairs into a basket I had placed at the bottom. This would go on for a few days until I had accumulated a load's worth. Then I would hobble down there and pick the laundry out of the basket a few handfuls at a time and take it to the washer. Same thing on the way out of the basement--handfuls at a time, so I was not lifting too much, but I was getting plenty of walking done.

GROCERIES: This one I really couldn't do myself for quite a while, since I wasn't cleared to drive or push a shopping cart fo 6 weeks. So I had friends go to the market for me--never the same friend twice, and they were all quite willing to help. When I finally did go by myself, I went to the smaller, neighborhood market (not the huge overwhelming superstore) which was much easier to navigate and the staff there is used to helping little old ladies to their cars, so I had no problem asking them to pack my grocery bags with no more than 10 lbs. each, and had the bag boy load my car. When I got home, I used the same strategy to unload the car as I did with the laundry--many trips, one bag at a time.

TRASH: I actually asked a neighbor to help me with this--I could get small bags of trash out to the bin in the garage, but by the end of the week I couldn't get the bin out to the alley, so my 80 year old neighbor did it for me--and he still hasn't stopped!! I'm perfectly fine now, but if I'm not right on top of things I'll wake up on Friday mornings to find that Bob has already schlepped my garbage bins for me! I bake him cookies every once in awhile as a thank you!

Oh, and KITTY LITTER: My mom bagged up fresh kitty-litter in small zip loc bags so that I didn't have to lift the whole huge bag when I wanted to change the litter. Again, it's the same principle as the laundry, the groceries, and the garbage: smaller increments, more trips. And since I had absolutely nothing else to do during my recovery, it wasn't like I felt like I was wasting time!

Good luck--it gets better every day, and soon you won't need to worry about getting to the market when you run out of milk--you'll just go without thinking!

Ciao,

FIFI

Hi everybody!
Even with a DH there are self-reliance needs for sanity. A while back when I was in a hormonal fit, I ended up doing the bathroom floor, since the kids left a flood and DH was being...himself. I discovered I could take a towel and kind of "waltz" across the floor to mop up all the water. It worked well, and I got my bathroom floor clean with my toes on the towel! My kitchen is a whole other story. I have a Swiffer, but my family fails to see the reality of sweeping before mopping. So I am looking for suggestions on that one-- I will definitely try Fallflower's idea on that one.

As for dishes, I managed to do them by sitting on a bar stool. I couldn't really dry them, but at least it addressed the basics while I took a break then came back to dry them and put them away.

Laundry is still an issue for me, although I saw among the 3-4 week checklist that I should be able to go piece by piece of loading the washer and starting it up. I suppose I can do the same by taking piece by piece out of the dryer and the same with transporting from washer to dryer.

My younger brother lives with me, but well, he's male! if I ask ( read that as nag) it might get done within the week, IF I'm lucky!

so some things I've just had to live with-the yard will just have to fend for itself this year!

I have hardwood floors, so pushing the dust mop is easy-well, it does get heavy when the cat wants a ride. I've found I can carry (even tho I'm not supposed to yet-but see above!) a small load of laundry in the basket down to the basement-I already have hangers there so the stuff can just hang there till I get it back up!

the one thing the brother has been pretty good about is food shopping ( since he had to do his own anyway!) tho the last time, he pretty much left me at the door of the store and I had to fend for myself-just be careful with the heavy stuff! ( I tried to stock up on that before surgery)

I've found if I go slowly, I can do most things and if it hurts STOP!

Hi Vega! I am single & live alone. My dog is staying at my parents, so vacuuming has not been a major issue yet...although if I look around...My father vacuumed for me last week, but I'll have to remember that trick with the walking back & forth. I like that.

With grocery shopping, I went yesterday and still needed someone to lift some things. My sister took me. I still have trouble lifting gallon jugs. Even if I concentrate on using my arm muscles, I can feel the direct pull in my abdomen, so I don't do that anymore.

Laundry - I have someone else carry the basket down the steps, but I've been able to load the washer and dryer as I need to. With living alone and not wearing my jeans yet, the loading of the dryer hasn't been all that heavy yet.

Even at 5 weeks, driving still hurts. It's kind of delayed pain, press the brake, a couple seconds pass then wammo! Then it's over. But I've only driven short distances.

A big adjustment for me is when to keep moving and when to rest. I used to be on the move all the time (prehyst). When I keep moving, I hurt. If I listened to my body, I'm afraid I'd never get up But the backaches and buttaches have started, so I guess it's time.