Wednesday 17 May 2017

A Dry Well

I'm having a tough day today. My arms hurt, especially my right arm. My hands hurt, especially my left hand and thumb. My mid to lower back hurts, the kind of hurt I get from being in a wheelchair too long. On top of the aches and pains, I did not sleep well last night. The Zopliclone did not work; I wonder if I a developing a tolerance for it. Regardless, as I sit here now I am tired, droopy, worn, slow and struggling. And I've already had a 2 hour nap!

It would be such a joy to imply these days don't happen very often, so treasureful to shove it off as an oddity, a rarity. Alas days like today are now the normal in my life. They have been for some time. The other day I was thinking that the lack of energy in my body might have something to do with the lack of focus. Certainly working on that shelf gave me some focus. It did not, however, stimulate any renewed energy from within me. All I did was steal strength from today in order to use it yesterday.

What makes these real tired days worse is the low grade nausea, just enough to convince me that eating would not necessarily be a bad thing, but it might not be a good thing. Given my overall tendency these days to avoid eating, this would be the kind of day where the bowl of cereal I just finished would be my full dietary intake for the day. The energy needed to put food out simply exceeds my level of available energy.

What's worse is that I have company coming for dinner tonight. I am making salmon, a fairly simply meal. While it may be simple, the processing of all the bits and pieces takes time and energy, something I resent giving up right now. On top of have to prepare dinner, I have laundry to do, laundry which cannot wait another day. Thanks to a couple of inauspicious moments with my pee jug, all my jeans in are in the laundry except the pair I am wearing.

I don't want to do any of this. I want it to stop. I want other people to cook. I want someone to do my laundry. Home care will do this, but they don't make "major meals". Salmon is a major meal. And they don't do anything on short notice, especially laundry. For those who tell me to "suck it up", from where shall I magically create that nonexistent energy? From where will arise the sucking up power?

There is no reserve. The well is dry.

2 comments:

  1. Richard, I often have "tired days" or "recliner days", especially if there was a lot of activity the day before. Yesterday i went out to lunch and to visit a friend in a nursing facility, and ended up in the recliner, and then early to bed. That constitutes a lot of activity for me these days, and I am still, after six months, trying to get my head around it. If anyone came along and told me to "suck it up", I probably wouldn't consider their friendship worth my time and energy anymore.

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    1. Most of my days are now tired days. I get about 6 good hours, matched with 5 or 6 bad hours, then finally, sleep.

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