I was recently diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. I am usually pretty private about personal things but I’ve decided to share this. I know I’m not alone in this so let’s talk about homemaking with chronic illness. Obviously there are many types of chronic illness, each with their own challenges but all effect our ability to keep up with housework, cooking, shopping and everything else the homemaker is responsible for.
Challenges of Homemaking With Chronic Illness
Each chronic illness has its unique symptoms but fatigue is one that is almost universal. I have Sjgören’s Syndrome, an autoimmune disease which attacks the moisture-producing glands. While dry mouth and dry eyes are major markers of this disease, it effects the entire body and can cause chronic pain and profound fatigue.
Honestly, I find the fatigue to be the most debilitating symptom because it affects my ability to accomplish the things I want and need to do. If you haven’t experienced this, the best way I can describe it is that it’s like the recovery phase of the flu. Your fever may be gone but you are still achy and the least bit of physical exertion is exhausting.
So how does this effect homemaking?
- It means that I can’t spend 4 or 5 hours cleaning the house from top to bottom like I used to. I miss the days of having everything spotless all at once but if I were to try to do it all in one go I’d be utterly unable to do anything for a few days afterwards.
- It means that some days are better than others and I feel almost normal. It’s tempting to overdo it on those days but I’m learning to pace myself.
- It means prioritizing household tasks and lowering my standards in some areas. I do still iron my pillow cases most of the time, however. 😉
- It means paying attention to my body and the times of day I feel the best. Most productivity gurus advocate rising early and getting major tasks done in the morning. But mornings are rarely a good time for me. I often feel better early afternoon and sometimes get a little energy surge in the evenings.
- It means cutting myself some slack over the state of my closets. I’d love perfectly neat and organized storage spaces…and I DO still intend to work on those areas…but given a choice between tidy living spaces or clean closets, I’ll choose the living spaces.
So let’s get down to specifics. What are some homemaking tips for those dealing with chronic illness (or temporary situations such as pregnancy or recovery from surgery)?
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Tips
1. Keeping up is easier than catching up
I actually learned this back when I was working full time as a hospice nurse and had two young children. If I let things get out of control it was really difficult to find the time and energy to catch up. This is even more true now.
2. Minimum Maintenance
This is a term I learned from one of my favorite homemaking books, Totally Organized: The Bonnie McCullough Way. The basic idea is that you spend 5 minutes in each room, every day, just doing the most obvious tasks. This keeps things from getting out of hand and helps the house look neat most of the time.
3. Daily focus
Since I no longer can devote a whole day to cleaning house I now divide up the cleaning over the course of the week:
Monday: wash sheets and remake bed
Tuesday: clean master bathroom
Wednesday: clean downstairs/guest bathroom
Thursday: clean out fridge, make menu and grocery list
Friday: grocery shopping/errands
Saturday: vacuum and dust (David has said he will start vacuuming.)
Sunday: water house plants
4. Make use of little moments
Even a few seconds or minutes here and there add up. Each time you go to the bathroom (which may be often if you are drinking enough water – ha!) do one tiny task: straighten towels, wipe the mirror, do a quick swish and swipe of the toilet. Keep cleaning supplies in each bathroom for this purpose but if you have young children, be sure to keep them out of reach. Or better yet, just keep a spray bottle of diluted vinegar for these quick wipe-downs.
As you walk through the living room, fluff up the pillows on the sofa. While waiting for the kettle to boil, wipe out the microwave or wash a few dishes. Pick up that bit of fluff on the carpet. Empty a wastebasket. Doing these things regularly keeps the house looking tidy and allows you to put off bigger cleaning sessions.
5. Two Minute List
Keep a “Two Minute List”. Write down small household tasks that can be done in 2 minutes or less. Challenge yourself to do a few of these each day. You can read more about this idea here:
Get Stuff Done ~ Create a Two Minute List
6. Use a timer
One of the more useful tips I learned from The FlyLady is to use a timer for household tasks. Consider how much energy you have, set the timer for the amount of time you think you can manage and then give yourself permission to stop when the timer goes off.
7. Labor saving devices
Every homemaker deserves household tools to make her job easier but labor saving devices can be especially important for someone dealing with chronic illness. Consider kitchen appliances such as a slow cooker, Instant Pot, rice cooker, etc. to make meal preparation easier.
While nothing smells better than line-dried laundry, a tumble dryer is a huge help when energy levels are low. And while I don’t have one, I know many swear by their Roomba. If I didn’t think our dog would freak out I’d be very tempted to purchase one.
8. Laundry
I try to do a load of laundry every day. I may not always do the entire cycle of “wash – dry – fold – put away” in one day but I do at least part of it. This is much easier than allowing laundry to pile up until it’s an overwhelming chore.
9. Meal planning
Try to plan a weekly menu but also have some super easy go-to meals for those nights when you just aren’t up to much cooking. One of my favorite quick meals is quesadillas and homemade tomato soup. The soup isn’t much harder than opening a can although you could certainly keep canned soups in the pantry for this purpose.
When cooking something that freezes well, make extra and stock your freezer. A purchased frozen pizza or other entree tucked away in the freezer can be a real godsend when you are having an extremely difficult day. By planning ahead you can still feed your family without resorting to take-out. But there’s no shame in that, either.
10. Shopping
I love to watch grocery hauls on YouTube and am fascinated (and a bit envious) by the fact that some people live where they can have groceries delivered. If that’s an option for you, do it! Our Walmart does have pickup service but I don’t shop there. Instead, I do almost all of my shopping at Aldi. I like the fact that the store isn’t huge and if I choose a non-busy time I can do my weekly shopping in about 20 minutes.
Update: Because of Covid, I now have the option of Instacart delivery from Aldi, although it has to be delivered to my daughter in town because we are out of the delivery area. In addition, a local grocery store now has a pickup option. I’ve been using these ever since the pandemic began.
To help avoid shopping for certain items, I recommend the Subscribe and Save service on Amazon. There are lots of items you can have delivered on a scheduled basis. Some of the items we have delivered routinely are toilet paper (by the case), dog food, shampoo, vitamins, and Earl Grey tea bags (also by the case).
I also highly recommend Grove Collaborative for cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, supplements and skin care products.
By taking advantage of home delivery via Amazon and Grove, I can avoid running around to several different shops saving lots of time and energy.
Bonus Tip:
Ask for and accept help. This one is the most difficult for me. I want to be able to do it all myself. My husband works very hard at his job all week and the last thing I want to do is ask him to help me with the housework. But the thing is, he is more than willing to do so. If I ask.
He always helps me with the dishes after dinner. I do my best to clean up as I’m cooking and since I start with a clean kitchen it usually only takes us about 10 minutes to clean the kitchen together right after we eat.
I did open up to him recently about how awful I’m feeling much of the time lately and he offered to start doing the vacuuming on Saturdays. That will be a huge help.
If you have children at home encourage them to help out. Picking up after themselves and having a few regular chores are good for them and can be a big help.
If you can afford it, consider hiring cleaning help. I had this for a short time back when I was a hospice nurse and developed severe allergies and asthma. I’m very allergic to dust and my allergist strongly urged me to be out of the house when it was being dusted and vacuumed. My allergies and asthma are much better controlled these days so this isn’t something I’ve done since that year back in the mid-90s. However, I may revisit the idea at some point.
Whether you have a chronic illness or any other situation that makes housework challenging, I hope you’ll find some of these tips helpful. I’m still navigating these waters so if you have other tips or suggestions I’d love to hear them!
Maintaining Work-Life Balance With Disabilities
I completely agree: the fatigue is the worst. Especially when you’re body is physically exhausted, but your mind isn’t, so you keep thinking of all the things you could do, if you could only stop feeling so drained and achy.
Anyway, these are great tips.
Above all: if you can’t maintain the standards you wish you could when it comes to housekeeping, and can’t afford to have someone come in and help you out, don’t be too hard on yourself about it. Just do your best, and let that be enough. Allowing yourself to feel bad for not doing more will only lead to depression, which will make things even more difficult to achieve, since what little energy you might have had will be drained by the depression.
That is good advice. Thanks!
I’m so sorry you are facing this. I have Hashimoto’s Disease, also an autoimmune one. So many annoying symptoms! These are great tips — I do break all my housework done into small chunks, and I find the Flylady system very helpful for that. By keeping up with that, the house never gets to that Must Do Spring Cleaning stage. I don’t know if you follow the posts or YouTube videos of livingonadime.com, but the author and her mom both have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and she has many videos of how she manages her household with it. I found them to be very helpful. The author – Tawra – is a no nonsense gal, and so is her mom! Lowering our standards for housekeeping is hard, but the simpler you keep your routines, the better. Gradually you will find what is a new normal for you. Sending you positive energy!
Thank you, Lynne. I’m sorry you are part of the “autoimmune” club, too. I’ve seen a few of the Living on a Dime videos but didn’t know they have CFS (I was diagnosed with that several years ago). I’ll have to look for her household management videos. I’ve just watched a few of hers on eating inexpensively. I have found a couple of other YouTubers that might prove to be helpful but I haven’t watched enough to endorse them just yet. All the best to you…
Thank you so much for this post! I am sorry you have an auto-immune disease- I have Hashimoto’s. And I have REALLY struggled with keeping my home as clean as the voices in my head tell me I should. I’ve been really working on lowering my standards- and having a hard time. I’ve searched and searched for ‘motivators’ to do the work, but keep forgetting that the fatigue is the main reason I don’t have the desire! Your tips are so helpful and I am sure to employ a number of them! Thanks again 🙂
I admit that I was a bit hesitant about broaching this topic but hearing that it helps someone else makes it totally worth it. It’s definitely a challenge but it helps to know we aren’t alone, right?
My best friend has very severe sjogrens. In addition to fatigue, it has impacted her lungs. So she has to be very careful around cleaning products and fumes. Shes always been extremely houseproud and a Suzy Homemaker type so that has been very difficult mentally for her. Even though she thinks the house is “messy” to her standards it is probably cleaner and more tidy than 99% of people. She finally had to get some help for the heavy duty tasks which was a big blow to her ego. But we just try to reassure her that it has nothing to do with her level of cleanliness but rather a health and safety issue. Does she really want to incapacitate herself with lugging a heavy vaccum around yp and down stairs or breathing in bleach? She still cleans and organizes but only the things that are easy for her.
Thank you for sharing that. I’m really sorry about your friend and completely understand how she feels about having to do that. I used to keep a really, really clean house. And my husband has tried to convince me that it’s still cleaner than most people’s. I have severe asthma, too, so I’ve long been careful about cleaning products. My husband usually cleans our oven once a year because I can’t tolerate oven cleaner fumes. I do the baking soda and vinegar thing periodically but once in awhile it needs the strong stuff. You mention lugging a heavy vacuum upstairs and I have to admit that’s why our bedroom and bathroom (the only rooms upstairs) don’t get vacuumed as often as they should. It just occurred to me that I might ought to consider just buying a second vacuum to keep upstairs. That could be a good option for me. Again, thank you so much for commenting. And tell your friend you now know someone who can relate to what’s she’s dealing with. All the best to you both.
I don’t know how I missed this back in February, but I did. This has been a long term problem for me, and the obvious answer we all ultimately come to, in some form or another, is usually getting help. I’ve mostly always been able to handle the little stuff, but struggled with the big stuff. When my boys were living at home, they were good to help, but after they moved out, and we still lived in Ada, finding help was no easy task. I hope it’s gotten easier in the last 10 years. Here in the city, help is easier to find. But what I wanted to add is that I was recently made aware of a state program that provides someone to help in your home, or however you might need it, shopping, etc. for 10 hours a week. The financial qualifier is higher than you might think, and so is the amount you are able to own. Also, mortgage or rent, plus utilities and medical costs like Dr. visits or medication costs can be deducted from your income. The program is called the Advantage program. It’s not just for elderly people, either, although I think some of the restrictions are eased if you’re on Medicare. There is also a very similar and little known program through VA, if you are a veteran, or the widow of a veteran, it’s financially FAR easier to qualify for., but requires paperwork that an advocate can help you get. I think there is one in Ada that is suppose to be really good. I hope this information helps someone.
Thanks for sharing that information. I do hope it helps someone. I wish my parents would accept some help like that.
Thank you for writing this wonderful content for all of us. In this article topic for the homemaking with chronic illness and 10 helpful tips. It is a pleasure worth reading it. You have done an excellent job with this content I must say.
Wish I could spend more than 5 minutes standing at a time
That really does make it challenging. I hope you have someone to help you!
This post is 4 years old now and I don’t even know if you even still use this blog, but I figured it was worth a shot. I have a bunch of different chronic illnesses that are probably tied back to one, but my doctors haven’t figured out what it is yet. Do you have absolutely any advice for when you are in a flare or simply having many bad days in a row? I recently got a new problem that vastly decreased the amount I can do in a single day. Until they figure out how to mitigate it, my doctors have put me on pretty heavy restrictions (like I’m supposed to be staying under 500 steps a day). My husband is happy to help as much as he can, but he’s also working 60 hours a week. He’s been amazing through all of this. Makes dinner and cleans up the kitchen every day, runs all the errands, and is really trying to pick up the slack, but there’s just not enough hours in the day. Everything is so far behind. The sheets and towels haven’t been washed in almost a month and the bathroom, bedroom, and floors haven’t been cleaned in probably longer. I feel so guilty because he’s driving himself into the ground trying to keep up. I tried to just do it, but it put me in the hospital for a week. I’m so overwhelmed and spend the vast majority of my day (as I’m on disability) trying not to cry while staring at the mess. I feel like I’m drowning and I just don’t know what to do anymore.
I’m so very sorry to hear how much you are struggling. I know household help can be very expensive but could you maybe find a teenager to help out? If there is a homeschool group in your area that might be a good place to look. We homeschooled back in the 90s and I was rather impressed by what some of the girls in large families were capable of. Many of them would have been thrilled to earn a little spending money.
If that’s not feasible, your husband might be able to do a little more if he had direction from you. Oftentimes it’s so mentally exhausting that knowing where to begin is the biggest issue. For instance, maybe you could have the sheets off the bed when he gets home from work and ask him to put them in the washer. Remind him to switch to dryer after dinner and then the two of you put them back on the bed together. I am one of those old-fashioned types who really prefers a bed made with a top sheet, blanket and bedspread (or down comforter in winter) but you could simplify things just using a fitted bottom sheet and an easily washed comforter.
Then on a different day, make the same suggestion with towels. Just one small extra chore per day or every other day.
If anyone else reading this has suggestions I hope you’ll feel free to chime in.