Depletion

I'm tired today. I went to bed late and did not sleep well. The noisy fan on my night table did little all night but buzz and whirr while uselessly pushing warm air about my bedroom. I slept without cover, still sticking to the bedsheets with sweat. When Micheal arrived in the morning, I said I wasn't going to get up. I asked him to unplug the fan. He did, and that is all he did. He left immediately.

My friend Bobbi called at about noon, saying she was coming by, thus motivating me to at least get out of bed and partially dressed. It's remains hot and muggy in here. My living room fan, set to high, is at least pushing cooler air about this afternoon. The funny thing is that it is not really hot outside, nor is it particularly humid. It's inside, here in my apartment, where the heat and humidity collect, especially in my bedroom.

Bobbi asked if I needed anything. Food is what I wanted; I didn't want to prepare anything. She went to Subway and picked up a sandwich for me. When she arrived, I was dressing, so she took that time to water my plants. Then we sat down for lunch and a chat. In the course of that chat, she talked about working in her yard, then taking a long time to recover from the work effort. She referred to herself as feeling "depleted". A light bulb went on for me.

This is the feeling I have been poorly expressing for some time now. I am not depressed, not tired in the normal sense. I constantly feel what Bobbi described, a feeling of depletion, without restoration. I call it "worn out", but that doesn't do it justice. It is depletion. All of my energy and life is being consumed, without adequate replenishment. No matter what I do, thanks to ALS that energy and life will never be replenished. It will simply remain missing, leaving me perpetually depleted.

That's what I feel now. Yes, I am tired. Of course I am tired. I stayed up late last night. Yet it is not the tiredness that weighs so heavily upon me. It is the inability to replenish myself after any form of exertion, even the simple task of putting on clothes. The life goes out of me; very little comes back in, and what does, comes back very, very unwillingly. Yes, I am depleted. That's it.