Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Fatigue will seriously be the end of me...

Since my last doctor's appointment, I've been trying to slightly increase  some of my activity.  He said it's important to strike a balance between resting my brain and keeping up enough activity that I continue to get back some endurance. 

Sadly, not sports endurance or cardio endurance.  Simply life endurance.  It seems like such an easy concept, just go out and live your life.  But with fatigue constantly hounding me and the constant anxiety that I will experience  a set back becuase I've done too much, its hard to go past the bare minimum. 

As any doctor will tell you in the case of trauma,  if it hurts, don't do it.  This was the most recent advice I had regarding my restrictions.  If followed that advice, I probably wouldn't get out of bed in the morning.  Daily life hurts.  Period.  Nothing is going to fix the fact that no matter how easy I make my day, I'm still going to be beyond exhausted, but unable to sleep for the amount of time my body needs, because my brain won't let me.  My ears are going to start ringing in the early evening.  My eyes are going to feel beyond strained by 3pm or so.  There's a 50/50 shot at any given moment, I'll have some sort of painful pressure in my head.  By dinner time I will stutter or misplace words and thoughts. 

Accepting that this may not change even with therapy, would not be so bad, except that I feel so painfully exhausted all the time.  Like I have the flu, or pulled a few days of almost all nighters in college.  At least then, my body would let me sleep when the time came.  The 8 hours I'm getting right now, is not helping me feel any less tired.  I wish I could sleep for a week. 

Thinking I need to build that endurance, I've tried doing more daily.  Yet this doesn't seem to help either.  Longer walks, more duties around the house, going out more often or visiting with friends.  All lead to concussion hangover.  But this time of year, its hard to cut stuff out of daily life. 

As I sit at home all day everyday, and I STILL feel like I don't have enough time to get everything done.  Between insurance phone calls, drs. appts, therapies, household duties, etc, my whole day is gone.  Why?  Because I can no longer multi-task, and it takes me twice as long to do everything, plus the many breaks I need in between things.  How do I fit in more "stuff" during this busy time of year....

No matter what I do, too much or too little, I do not see an increase in endurance for daily life.  I just feel tired, weak, and overwhelmed. 

What's a girl to do?

1 comment:

  1. Persevere kiddo! This is going to take more time than you had hoped. You are lucky...you are young. You will get through this! You have a great medical team and a great guy standing behind you to help you through this. Try to stay positive...I know, easier said than done.

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