The Thunder Beings have roared and a hard rain is falling. I sure am glad to be home. I like being home with my dogs during a storm. I also like knowing that as I write, my family are in safe places. Shortly, I’ll be snuggling up with my furry family to watch a movie. I can’t tell you which movie because I forgot the name of it, which brings me to the heart of this blog post.
I basically wanted to say hello to my blogging friends and readers.
I miss my blog. I especially miss being able to think clearly enough to express myself through writing.
Normally, I can sit down and write ten pages about something and even though it might need editing, I’m able to communicate what is on my mind. Lately, this is not the case. I have a lot on my mind, much of which I’d like to write about in this blog, but I am simply too tired. I’m also in a lot of pain.
I began this post last night and wanted to publish it while the Thunder Beings were here. I finished it, which amazed me, but I couldn’t keep enough mental energy to tag it or put it in a category.
The Thunder Beings came back tonight just as I sat down in another attempt to write something that makes sense. Another hard rain fell.
I don’t know who came up with the term, “brain fog,” but the condition is well understood by those of us who have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and/or fibromyalgia.
Brain fog attempts to describe a medical mental fatigue that robs us of our normal cognitive skills and abilities. For the past six months I’ve battled this fog consistently. Normally, the condition isn’t this persistent and instead comes and goes, giving me times when I can still think.
Writing is hard when this is happening and I usually don’t even try. I forget my words and have to use the dictionary constantly. I can’t spell words I’ve spelled since elementary school. My sentences are choppy and things aren’t flowing.
Brain fog can make a person nearly incapable of verbal responses. It can have an effect on a person’s speech. Words might get disordered in a sentence or we use a word that sounds like the one we are intending to say.
I know the words I’m looking for when I lose them. I can describe the meaning, sometimes the sound or the first letter. Written words I’ve known since I was a child look unfamiliar.
Mostly I’m tired and sleepy, but I can’t stay asleep long enough for my body to restore itself. I’m half awake and half asleep. It isn’t a good place to act from.
My body is as tired as my brain is. Moving around is hard. Bending over takes tremendous energy. I can’t keep up with my chores and that stresses me out.
I’ve missed deadlines. Many of my obligations in life are compromised. I don’t get to go visit my family. I’m also getting a bit confused and my short-term memory is shot.
The fatigue alone is completely overwhelming. Add to that widespread ongoing pain in the nerves, muscles and deep in the bones and it is one mighty difficult condition!
Life goes on though. It doesn’t stop for me to be sick or it seems, for me to get proper rest, but then maybe I don’t know how to rest. Maybe I forgot.
Much of the time, I feel stressed.
I have an adult son, whom I love with all my heart. He has challenges that I haven’t learned how to accept in a way that doesn’t cause me grief and anxiety. I believe that accepting things the way they are is the best place to start when you want to change something, but honestly, I don’t feel like I’m doing a good job at this with mine or my son’s circumstances.
Being unwell causes me to feel like I’m failing my son, the other members in my family, including my dogs and a community. I can’t say that I have the latter, but if I did belong to a community, where would I fit in I wonder.
When I have brain fog, I don’t feel like I have anything to offer. I do love my family and friends, so I guess love is the one thing I still have to give, no matter what.
I worry about what is happening in this country. The cuts in our system are scary to me on a personal level.
Being a disabled American makes me feel like a misfit. The taxpayer’s enemy. I represent to some Americans the reason our country is in such bad shape. Somebody, “living for free.” A flaw in an otherwise well-functioning system.
The doctor wonders what is depressing me!
Chronic illness impacts my view of myself and the world. It’s a view that’s been filtered through pain, mental fog and bewildering fatigue, along with a very long decade of chronic stress.
I have the dogs to keep things real. Plus, of course, I love them and think they’re the greatest little creatures to have ever lived on the planet!
One of my dogs had to go out a little while ago. I was lying on the sofa. He came over and sat there beside me, patiently waiting.
I felt like a million pounds of sand was lying on top of my body and it hurt. After about eight minutes, which seemed like forever, I got up.
Putting his collar on him, I just happened to look at the sofa where I had tried to rest. I saw the pain. I saw the fatigue.
I didn’t want to ever lie on that sofa again. I hurt when I lie down. For a moment, the difference between the way I felt standing and the way I had felt lying down was somewhat mentally shocking.
I feel some better when I get up, but it isn’t long before I’m completely exhausted and must lie down again.
My dogs continue to be good for my health. They keep me from never getting off that sofa. They need me and I need them.
They took me outside after the rain stopped tonight. I needed a short little walk and some fresh air. They always know this.
Thanks for visiting Dogkisses’s blog.
Image via drburtoni’s photostream, Flickr.
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