MY New Year’s MISTAKE

If you think launching a brand new blog is a lot of pressure, you would be right.  But imagine if you started getting emails and comments about how people are looking forward to your launch and can’t wait.  Now that is pressure!    But then again, I am always up to a challenge, so here goes! 

Because of the incredible interest in this blog, I have been pondering what to write for my first post.  I was going back and forth until one of my friends asked me what I thought I would talk about for my launching post.  After chatting, I realized I already knew what I wanted to talk about.

I would talk about the first ten days of 2010 and the mistake I made.

As someone who has dealt with CFIDS/FMS for over 20 years, you would think I would have it all figured out.  But I don’t.  This tension line that I must walk every day is a difficult and tenuous one at best.  I don’t want to spend all my days within my “four walls and a view” and never get out. Yet, I have learned the hard way, that I must be careful how I go about doing just that.

I had an invitation from a sweet friend of mine to hang out with some of her friends for New Year’s Eve.  I was excited to have a chance to get out and decided even if it meant I would  have to go to bed, or take it easy for a day or two, it would be well worth it.

Then, I got a second invitation for lunch on New Year’s Day from another friend.  And this is where I made my mistake.  You see, my body does not forget.  As a matter-of-fact, it has the memory of an elephant.  So after staying up until 1 o’clock on New Year’s Eve, I spent New Year’s Day and the following morning shopping and eating out with my other friend.

When Sunday rolled around, I knew I had made a big mistake.  My lymph nodes were swollen, my memory was shot, my fatigue was rapidly accelerating, and my pain level had hit level 10!  I hoped and prayed that a day or two in bed, resting and reading would do the trick, but my body quickly reminded me who was in charge.

Today it is January 10th, and I am just starting to recover.  Instead of taking a moment and assessing how full my ‘coffee cup’ was with energy, I let my emotions and desire to get out, get the better part of me.  If I had taken the time to assess my energy levels, I would have known that with just a half-cup of energy, I would suffer a long and protracted ‘crash’ if I did both events.

For people who do not have this illness, that is a difficult concept to understand.  There really isn’t any way to explain the incredible fatigue I battle day in and day out.  I often have people say to me in response to my, “I’m tired” comment, that they understand because they, too, are tired.

It isn’t that kind of tired.  This is an all-invasive, all-consuming, life-sucking, fatigue.  It is so severe that the lifting of a toothbrush becomes an incredibly huge task that is almost too difficult to do.  I bet you have never stopped to think about the amount of energy you expend when you do something as “simple” as brushing your teeth.  Well, I have come to realize that it takes a lot of energy, especially when your body refuses to produce enough for you to complete the task in the first place.

To give you a visual of what this looks like for me, imagine trying to lift your arms, which have cement casts on them, and then trying to brush your teeth that way.  I’m sure you can imagine the difficulty as well as how tiring it would be to lift your arms if they were completely encased in casts.  Your arms would tire quickly and the weight would become unbearable requiring you to lower your arms repeatedly.

That is what it is like when I say I am fatigued or exhausted.  It is not a tiredness that will dissipate with restful sleep. It is an invasive, all-consuming exhaustion that completely takes over and I am left battling to do the simplest of tasks.

So, what would have been a better choice for me to make?  Choosing only one event to attend.  Every decision I make has consequences.  Sometimes mild, while other times severe.  In order for me and my body to co-exist, I must remember that I have to pace myself in a way that I don’t get penalized for doing what most people take for granted.  Most times, I remember that rule.  Unfortunately, on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, I got too excited and forgot.

Determined to continue forward,