The tiredness that had been growing all week caught up with me last night, I found myself sitting on the settee not watching the TV, as my eyes were more closed than open. I had been fighting it since about 7:30 and by 8:30 there was no more fight left, sleep wasn’t an option any longer, it was a fact that was happening whether I liked it or not. I don’t remember lying in bed at all, just going there and a vague recall of sitting on the edge ready to push myself back, ready to lie down. The night passed without the slightest movement or recollection until the alarm demanded my attention, even then I was struggling beyond anything that I could call normal and 3 hours on, well I could still be asleep I am sure. It’s been a long week for me, I just know that it felt as though most days just wouldn’t come to an end as quickly as I would have liked them too. I seem to be on, a loose loose situation over the past few days, it doesn’t seem to matter what I do I am in pain in one way or another. On top of all the normal stuff, my right hand has decided that it just wants to be filled with pins and needles if I don’t keep it moving, stop for seconds and it dies with speed. My left arm, well the problem there, is pain in my upper arm, as though someone has tied a tourniquet around it, with pain where it is sitting and numbness below and if that wasn’t enough the past three days I have pain in my lower stomach. It just seems as though everything has clicked up a notch and every small annoying thing that comes round occasionally has popup to say hello.

There is an odd thing that happens with chronic illness, you don’t go to bed and lie down as you would have done in the past. If I had felt this tired and this drained on a Saturday morning, I would have gone back to bed, in the past that somehow seemed OK but now, it doesn’t, now it feels like losing, rather than getting much-needed rest. In fact, I can’t think what would make me go to bed during the morning, I just fight it, I accept an hour or two in the afternoon, or going to bed early at night, but never in the morning. I hadn’t really thought about that until now and for the life of me, I don’t really understand it. If there was ever a time in my life when I don’t have to justify anything to anyone it is now, but here I am refusing to give in as though, there is some huge importance in just staying awake. There is something inside me that says going to bed is giving in. I know that there will be a point in my life when bed will probably be the place I have to be, so maybe it is as simple as that, why be there now when I still have the ability to be somewhere else?

My new E-cig arrived a few days ago and I have to say much to my surprise, I am really pleased with it, it isn’t the same as having a real one, but it’s the closest I have found yet. Without really trying, I have for three days now only had between 8 and 10 real cigarettes per day and I have actually found myself reaching for the E-cig before even thinking about the real version instead. Even with all the pluses that I could list for the E-cig, I still really enjoy those few real ones, I can’t even explain what the difference is, but it’s there. I suppose it is like many things in life, we like what we like and there is no rhyme nor reason, they are just facts in our lives, facts there are no argument with. There are some odd things about the E-cig that I am finding it hard to get my head around, the tank that holds the nicotine oil is made of glass and it has either end of it screw on sections, one that attaches it to the battery so that it heats and the other end with a hole straight through it to draw the steam through. Every time I go to put it down, I have this mental block about laying it on its side as I can’t convince my brain that the oil isn’t going to spill out all over the place, it is counter-intuitive that putting it down like that is correct. I think that is an age thing in there, I am just not used to the idea that something that finally made could cost so little and my brain just says that it is going to go wrong any minute, it has to.

I have just had to get up on my feet again this morning, I know I haven’t stood up any more than normal, it just feels that way. I just gave in and stood again as once more my backside has had enough of being sat on, adding to the feeling that I am just falling apart today. Maybe, that is an age thing as well, I have slowly come to the conclusion that expecting anything from my body that most people in the early 50’s would is just never going to happen. My heath has prematurely aged me and there isn’t any doubt in that at all, that my body is now closer to someone in the mid 60’s or even 70’s some days and I just have to accept it, as that way I might just stop being so hard on myself. It is going to be a hard thing to do, as like a lot of people I have known, in my head I am still 20 not 53. There is something really odd in the way that our brains never catch up with that one simple fact, we grow older, mind you, it could be worse I suppose, with a brain as confused as mine is at times, I could start believing I’m just 10. I can sit here right now, without being able to track from my toes to head without finding something that is either painful, or stiff, or numb with pins and needles within 6 inches of the last, but I still can’t get it into my head that I can’t walk properly, that I don’t have the energy or strength to stand for long, or that my body just can’t do the things it did even a year ago. Yet ignore my body, look into my head and what you find is a 20 year old who is longing to get all dressed up and go out for the night, it just doesn’t add up.

Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 24/05/12 – Zombie Summer

Yesterday was a slow knockout by sunshine, Summertime has always been mixed blessings even long before I had my diagnosis, I avoid the Sun, inside somewhere I knew that it made me ill. I have never been a fan of the tanned skin look but it went deeper than that, I found myself always trying hard to stay out of the direct heat. Any shade was welcome and I always saute it out, going as far as crossing roads and walking down the shady side of the street even when my destination was…..