Dear Diary: 17th February 2023

Been nearly a month since my last post. Looking back it seems the last three months I’ve done one post a month. I suppose that’s a good frequency when nothing much is going on. Daily posts for the sake of them are pointless and leaving it longer risks something relevant being left off.

I can’t really remember the first couple of weeks in this period, but I do remember “at some point” thinking “I feel pretty good today”. In fact I remember mentioning it to my boss on the phone at one point that day. This may be significant before by last Monday I started feeling unwell – intense fatigue and pain. I ended up taking the rest of the week off work in what appeared to be a crash. I am not sure if it was JUST that however as I also one day suddenly felt so nausiated I was sure I was going to throw up! I think it may have been a bug I picked up (in the supermarket probably as thats the only place I really go) which exacerbated all my ME/FM symptoms. Over the weekend I did very little.

I have some some DIY during this month too – but I have done really just a couple of small things and spread them out over several days, only doing a very small part each day. It’s been like an hour of light work (mostly light) and then rest for an hour. My “walks” have almost all been walking around supermarkets – but I’ve also been very light headed and wobbly on my feet a lot.

This week I was back at work – althouh I haven’t got a LOT done. It’s been very very hard to concentrate on things – and find myself staring into space as much as anything else.

It’s becoming clear to me that one of my biggest enemies is stress. Stress is a known agrivator of ME/FM symptoms – and is known to cause a crash (Post Exertional Malaise). Today has been a reletively tough day – and really ready for the weekend. However it’s not been too extreme until late afternoon. Looking at the chart below you may think its been a realy bad day – and while its not been GOOD – you can see a big difference between background and peak today.

I had some stress this afternoon while I was out at the supermarket that required me to go wait in the car and leave the shopping to others. I was already weak and a little unsteady on my legs but this pushed me over the edge and I hardly made it back to the car. My head was spinning and I felt like a day old kitten.

It was at this point…. when I got home…. that I wrote this post……….

And then… things got bad!

My wife had lost her phone. It had fallen out of her bag or been taken out of her bag while we were in ASDA. OFC to start with she believed it had just been left at home and she had put it down somewhere so she phoned it. A man answered! He had “found” her phone in ASDA and took it home! He started giving her his address but then it cut out.

I was “concerned” about us driving to some random person’s house – who had likey picked the phone out of her bag! I didn’t think it was safe. I convinced her to phone the police for advice and all they would say is try and arrange a public place to get it back.

Needless to say – my stress levels were now pretty much through the roof. Already stressed and light headed before and now this. I had to go back into the charge below and change cognitive dysfunction peak to 90% from 70%. To make matters worse – having to then drive when to be honest – I don’t think I was in a fit safe state to drive was NOT helpful! That caused even more stress.

FInally got home and theretically having a nice meal with my wife – but to be honest – I just feel numb. Well not numb – my mind feels numb…. my body is strarting to hurt more! I strongly suspect I am going to crash tomorrow after this. I’m going to make sure I don’t push myself at ALL over the rest of the evening and weekend. I only just got back to week – I cant have more time off due to another crash!

It’s certainly clear to me that the number one thing affecting my symptoms at the moment is stress.