Sometimes life is all go.
Sometimes you don’t get a moment to yourself. Those little jobs, those deadlines. All of them crowd into your life and take over, leaving you spinning in a vortex of endless duty.
This is not one of those times.
Not that the days haven’t become a tad more taxing of late, or that I’m not feeling worn out by them because, well, they have, and I am.
And the culprit? Well, that would be my MS.
Having A Laugh
There are many components to my disease. There are the random aches and pains. There’s the complete lack of concentration, and the way names, dates, and random words scurry to the back of one’s mind and hide. They may peek out once in a while, but in the main they stay just out of reach of my questing mind and giggle (that last part may just be me).
Possibly the worst of my ongoing symptoms, however, is the fatigue.
Now, I’ve covered this before in a post you can find here. It’s not an MS specific symptom but something which affects many people under the yoke of a chronic illness.
In my case, it usually takes the form of an almost complete collapse of anything resembling motivation. Some people might suggest it would be hard to spot the difference between this and my usual, somewhat casual approach to life, but those people would be wrong. This is something else. A different level of inactivity
Pyramid Scheme
I was diagnosed with MS some three years ago, so it’s something I’ve learned to live with, although the bloody-minded part of me had a little trouble accepting that life now contained limits. It was also that particular side to me that once required my father to talk me down me (a wheelchair user) from attempting to climb a pyramid, so perhaps it’s not always a good idea to listen to Mr Bloody-minded.
But hang on, you might very well say, all of this is old news. You’ve already posted a blog piece on this, as you readily admit. So, what gives Mr Seated Perspective? Why bring this up again? Well, that’s because of the recent spike.
I’m not talking about anything to do with sharpened metal or soulful vampires here, but a sudden and noticeable increase in the frequency and severity of these episodes.
Over the last week or so, I've reached early evening, and that’s it. Job done. Day over. The tank empty . The batteries drained. It’s almost like a TV show where you see a robot or android powering down. Even watching just one more episode of Penny Dreadful (A cracking show. If you haven’t seen it, then get it watched), seems beyond my powers of concentration and it isn’t long before the siren-song of my bed becomes too tempting to ignore.
So, if this is to be it. If this is the new new-normal for me, then how can it be managed. What can I do to reserve a little of the precious get-up-and-go?
TV Times
One common remedy, something which has been presented to me before, is to have a nap in the afternoon. Rather like plugging in a pair of rechargeable batteries, this would cause energy reserves to be replenished and perhaps mean I can watch a bit of television with the wife on a night without worrying I’ll immediately forget what’s just happened twenty times an hour (baby steps people, baby steps). The problem with this potential solution is I’m not all that good at sleeping through the day.
I think in the main this is an issue with light. We have no blackout curtains in the bedroom, just a set of blinds, and even in the murky north of cloud-strewn England the light they let through is too much to allow my brain to shut off. It’s a predicament which, given the recent uptick in tiredness, has prompted me to purchase a mask.
Nope, I’m not talking about a beauty mask, a Halloween mask (what do you mean it’s not needed?), or even a Covid-19 mask. I’m talking about a sleeping mask. A padded eye covering which will make me look like Zorro at a pinata party, block out even the smallest amount of light, and hopefully trick my mind into thinking it’s night-time. It’s no guarantee but hopefully that and perhaps a mug of Horlicks (which I’ve not had in an age), will do the trick. If not. If even an hour or two’s extra kip doesn’t cut it, then it will be back to the drawing-board.
Let the experiment begin!
Until next time…
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