Well, all the activity caught up with me, and I’ve been pretty flat the last couple of days. Which is why I wasn’t up to posting yesterday.
I felt a little crummy Thursday night. I woke up too early on Friday, meaning I didn’t get enough sleep. So I spent the first couple hours of the day dizzy and having a hard time focusing my eyes. Not great in my line of work. A nap made that go away, but I was still weary. And at one point in the evening I was nearing that fun point where breathing feels like effort.
I managed to avoid the full-on effect, mainly by doing as little as possible for the rest of the night. Saturday I still felt pretty weak, so Tim drove me to the one appointment I had. I watched TV in the room for a bit while lying on the bed. Then I came out to the living room to watch TV with Tim… lying on the couch. When you have muscle fatigue it’s shocking what a difference there is between even sitting in a chair versus lying down.
Today I’m a bit better, despite the cats deciding to meow me awake at 7:30ish. (Their cuteness is, at this point, the only reason they’re still alive.) I took a two-hour nap and feel practically human.
I knew all of this was coming. I’ve mentioned the spoon theory before. You have just so many spoons. You have to spend them wisely. And if you go over your limit — and not everyone even has that option — you’re borrowing against the future.
But I needed to make sure things got done. And that they got done before I had any random mood swing that might make me feel overwhelmed. (Turns out that was a good idea because, with all the contractor drama, I feel practically immobilized.) So I chose to hurt my future self to get done what needed to be done.
At least this time it was a conscious choice. I spent years battling the fatigue by trying to push through. As though there were a limitless reserve of energy once I burst through the barrier. I think that I really believed that somehow. I guess I just couldn’t fully accept how powerless I am in the face of all this.
Now I know better. Fatigue has circumscribed my life. If I push too hard, I don’t get a reward. I end up with a deficit.
With that realization, I’ve gotten better at rationing my energy. If I start to feel tired, I lie down and mentally cross off the other errands I wanted to do. Or whittle them down to one really important one. And only if Tim can’t run it for me. If I know I want to go out to a movie, I try not to do much during the day. Going out to a party means laying low for a couple of days beforehand.
So while it is always aggravating to be extra hemmed in by fatigue, this time I was able to prepare mentally and physically. Except getting the litter boxes done. Some things don’t give a damn how much energy you have.
To those of you with fatigue, how do you handle this kind of thing? Do you ever (assuming you’re able to) borrow against the future? To those of you without fatigue (because everyone has some limits) how do you spend your energy?
It took two years for me to realize that pushing my limits now meant paying for it later. It finally got through when my doctor told me some of my peripheral neuropathy was permanent. At that point, I was cooking in a commercial kitchen, and that neuropathy meant I was a danger to myself. It changed the way I held my hands, and the numbness meant I got burned easier because I couldn't tell something was about to burn me. That was a hell of a blow to absorb, but it taught me I can't borrow from my future self- because the future doesn't always stay in the future. Things I would do even months or weeks earlier would catch up to me.
So now, I have to prioritize- and a lot of stuff I cared about went to the wayside. My house is no longer clean all the time, my laundry gets folded occasionally (and with a flip board). I rely on batch cooking and robots, and Netflix is my friend when I'm tired- since my eyes won't focus on my books.
Days become about one thing. Work days are work above all else, and I try not to expend any energy for anything else until it's done. One of my days off is dedicated to cooking, so we have food for the week. The last day is what my fiancé calls coma day- I rest up as much as I can, and even social graces are discarded. I rarely have a week that doesn't contain four or more naps, and my pain meds make me feel a little out of sorts.
I remember those kinds of days when I tried to work full-time (outside the house). In the end, even doing nothing after work at all caused a deficit so bad that, when I finally did quit, I slept something like 14 hours a day for about a month.
I’m glad you’re able to prioritize and give up the things that, in the end, don’t really matter.
I’m so sorry you have to go through all this.
Just saying hi with a comment. Everyone is different but I try to eat protein every 2-3 hours to keep my energy up. I've been nerding out watching Dr. Oz . I'll try anything to feel better. : )
Yeah nutrition is a big part if you don’t mind putting the effort in. (In theory I don’t mind. But yeah…)
I want a robot vacuum because believe it or not, that's one of the ways I will wreck myself on a good day especially coming off several high-fatigue days.
It's less that I borrow against the future – like you, I used to force myself to power through but that was only possible in those yrs where it meant the difference between keeping the lights on or not, or eating or not – and more now that I overestimate how far "feeling pretty ok" will take me. When I don't feel hollow, or sick with fatigue, that's pretty good and then I act like I've lost my mind cleaning or cooking or what have you. It's always paid back tenfold though, with days in bed, afterward.
I think when we're being smart, we tend to do the same things: you know that 1 hour out and about requires 2-6 hours of rest. Etc.
I can believe the robot vacuum thing. We got a Roomba as an anniversary gift, and it's awesome. We need to run it more than we do, and I still have to mop the tile once a blue moon (stupid cats puking randomly), but it's wonderful. And iRobot is available on Mr. Rebates. Just sayin'…
But seriously I do think a lot of our lives now come from accepting and respecting the limits we have to work within. Now if only we could get rid of those annoying cleaning frenzy moments…
When I initially heard of Roombas I thought, "How silly." Now that I have one, I realize how much more often the place gets vacuumed!
Bonus: Once I've moved a bunch of stuff up/out of the way and the floors are dust-free I sometimes think, "Might as well mop the place." Our place is small enough that it takes only 20 minutes or so to get the living/dining/kitchen floors done. So the mopping gets done more often as well, and it's less difficult than waiting until it's really gross.
@Revanche: Save up your Swagbucks for Amazon GCs and get yourself a Roomba! If you're not a Swagbucks user yet, why not sign up with Abby's referral code? Just sayin'. http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/seattlegirluw
I dont have chronic fatigue but i did have an ankle injury that caused me immense pain after working on my feet for 8 hours a day. After the injury i knew i had to find a way out of that job. After work on those days i would cook and eat and that's about it. I would plan to rest every evenings and i would not work back to back to give myself a rest in between. it literally would hurt me to walk. On my days off i would do as much as i could with my chores but mostly i would rest. If i felt myself going down i would give myself a time limit of an hour for whatever chore i was doing then stop, because by the end of that hour i would be in pain again.
I think you have to know yourself really well and give yourself a cushion. Its harder to fill up a tank that is on E. Once you feel yourself hit that 1/4 tank mark slooowww down.
The point about the tank is definitely true.
I can imagine how much you'd have to limit your activity with an ankle injury, especially when you work on your feet. Eesh.
We all just have to schedule around life's inconveniences/cruel jokes, I think. Or risk further injury. (Or at least insult to the existing one.)
I feel fatigued from time to time. Truthfully, I think the majority of my fatigue spans from an unhealthy lifestyle. If I ate better and worked out regularly, I suspect my energy levels would spike. It's a catch-22 though, eh? Feeling tired, but knowing if you were more active, i.e. worked out and make homecooked/nutritious meals, your energy levels would improve.