About 4-5 times per week, I am completely overpowered by fatigue. It is usually in the afternoon, and rarely lasts longer than an hour. It is hard to describe the feeling. It isn’t sleepiness. In fact I count it a blessing if I can doze off. Rather, it is a deep muscle fatigue like nothing I’ve ever experienced. OK, I’m not writing this to garner sympathy, just to try to explain what it is like. During these spells, walking is out of the question. Once I started eating a tortilla when I was feeling this way and it wasn’t worth it. Chewing and swallowing required too much effort. I spit it out. Lying on the couch doesn’t feel low enough. If Kara was counting on me to make dinner or something, I just can’t. And, at the moment, I don’t care. I don’t have the energy to care. That is the real telling thing: complete ambivalence. When I regain strength, I try to make up for the down period, but I can’t really. The worst part? Feelings of guilt and inadequacy. I know I shouldn’t feel that way, I didn’t choose this illness, but bottom line is that I’m not helping and I can’t help but feel bad about it.
However, the other day I realized that it is the great neutralizer. When I’m really wiped out, I’m not trying to talk, walk, or read, so those things don’t bother me then! Isn’t that great? iT is like when at Curch, if I could read the Hymns (or sing), I might get frustrated at my page-turning difficulty. Sometimes symptoms cancel each other out.
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