To tell or not to tell?

Life is generally beautiful. I'm recovering, I think.

There are two mini-challenges facing me now. The first is knowing how far I can push myself. The second is knowing whether or not to tell my new friends about my health.

Because I can more or less do everything a "normal" person can now, generally I can get by without having to say anything about CFS.

But being the idiot that I am, I joined an outdoor club recently. I've made a lot of new friends, but being an outdoor club means its activities demand a reasonable level of fitness.

This means I don't always perform as well as the others, and I can lag behind on walks. I think this is reasonable given that not very long ago I could barely walk from my bed to the toilet. But how do I explain that to people who ask why I'm not walking faster? And is it appropriate to explain?

I'm reluctant to mention "chronic" and "fatigue" in one sentence. There's just too much judgement associated with the illness. People might ask, is she really sick? Or is she just making it up? I find it far easier to say that I don't want to get into the details, but essentially I was very sick for two years and basically bedridden almost the entire time.

Really, I wish I didn't have to explain. But I suppose it's just part of the recovery process. Perhaps if I continue to look after myself and heed my doctor's advice, a day will come when I won't have anything to explain.

Learn to say "No"

I'm up and running (well, not running; walking) again, although I still feel like I'm running on empty.

Right now, I have no choice but to keep going. My thesis submission date is approaching fast, and my first draft isn't complete. I just keep telling myself I can rest when my uni semester is over.

In the meantime, I've learnt to say "No". Like many CFS patients, I'm one of those over-committed over-achievers; I try to do far too much with too little time. On top of that, I find it difficult to say "No" when people more of me.

But at busy times like this, I simply have to.

Stay the course

Predictably (given my lifestyle of late), I crashed on Friday. Only a little bit, though. I had to leave uni at midday, and as soon as I got home I crashed on the couch and slept until dinner time.

The thing that was scary was that I was aching, and very weak. I put it down to not taking my pills for days (almost weeks), not eating well, and not sleeping enough.

It's not that I can't fall asleep. I just don't have time to sleep. And that's really bad.

I think I need to slow down again, which is what I did this weekend. It was one of the few weekends I've had in months, where I haven't gone out of town. I was supposed to go to my boyfriend's parents' place to help at the farm, but I had too much uni work to do. I think that turned out to be a blessing.

By Saturday afternoon I felt better. I'm still OK today, so I think it was just a little scare... a warning to those of you undergoing similar treatment to stay the course!