Life in a Fog

Let me start this lovely story about my life with the knowledge given to you reader that I was once a very active person. When I say active I mean up at the crack of dawn and busy up until 1 am. Sleep wasn't a concept that was in my daily life. I was always doing something, and the friends I had back then would think I was ill when I sat down to eat lunch. That's how busy I was, and active. Being outside, doing yard work, riding my horses, giving lessons, training horses, etc. Is what I did, I enjoyed every minute of it. I also want so far as driving hours to show, or to visit my friends, when I ended up moving on the edge of the state. There was nothing I wouldn't do, no distance too far. I'm sure you get what I'm saying. Busy active, no sitting down, The type of person you would hate if you just wanted to relax, and I'm dragging you along like "Come on hurry up!!"

Well, now lets fast forward to Mid- 2018, when I started noticing that my energy level wasn't where it used to be. Most days I was fine with a few days here and there where I felt like getting out of bed was a struggle. I never thought much of it, being I suffered from Depression I always just chalked it up to just a depressive low. Which would pass and, I could go on my merry little way, and get stuff done.

It didn't dawn on me that anything was wrong, I mean I'm young, healthy, but healthy in either case. I did notice during that summer of 2018, that I was having some funky heart issues, which caused some alarm. The chest would get tight, I could feel my heart skipping a beat here and there, which would leave me light-headed and dizzy. "Okay, that's not normal, or okay!" I would tell myself, but again I would chalk it up to something like my depression - stupid right?- but that is how my mind worked. And as my mom always said, " Out of sight, out of mind!" So you can guess where this troublesome heart issue went!

If you guessed the far reaches to the back of the mind, YUP you are right. I pushed that nagging uncomfortable heart palpitation so far back in my brain it was ignored for months. I dealt with the chest pain, tightness, dizzy spells as I do everything else, I ignored it so long until I blacked out lunging my horse. As I woke up looking at my horse looking down on me only one thing came to mind. " I think I need to get this checked out! "

So the literally that same night before even getting a doctor's appointment I felt so ill, and my heart was beating something fierce my hubby rushed me to urgent care to get an EKG. There were small abnormalities in it, so much so that I got into my doctor's office fairly quickly, I was very quickly referred to a Cardiologist, who gave me a nifty halter monitor for 48 hrs. This, unfortunately, came back normal, I will note that they told me not to do anything crazy, so for those 48hrs I legit sat in the house watching Netflix.

As nothing was found on my monitor I once again just thought to myself it was my imagination that was causing the issues. Yes, I was still very much tired, but you know you can push through mild tiredness and that's what I did. I pushed through and ignored all the signs that my body was saying something was wrong. I mean I'm a young active person of 38years, so I shouldn't be feeling so tired.

But nothing prepared me for the biggest low I would have, I can't remember the day but I can remember it was in July of 2018. I remember the day before this "physical crash" I had lunged my horse and had taken my other mare on trail, where I rode a good 6-7 miles, it was a warm day, not too hot but perfect riding weather. I came home feeling a little ill, not enough for me to be like "Ugh, I'm sick!" but more the " OMG, So tired!" Which would have been normal if it wasn't like 6 pm. After putting my horse away I took my shower, ate dinner that hubby prepared, spent time with my daughter, then headed to bed, feeling a tad dizzy and out of sorts some.

The next morning, I could hardly move, my eyes refused to open and I legit thought I had gone blind for a minute until they finally lifted, and every bone and muscle in my body screamed in agony with any type of movement. I lied in bed, thinking to myself, "What did I do!?" As I know I didn't fall off my horse and there was nothing physically wrong with me. So I gritted my teeth and rolled out of bed, and once again IGNORED all these symptoms.

Apparently, my body had, had enough of me ignoring its symptoms cause that was the start of my new life, lack of energy, motivation, chest pain, shortness of breath, muscle pain, and joint pain. I tried my best to ignore this, and after a few doctor visits I got the confirmation that it was "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome"

Now you might tell yourself, - Okay so your always tired big deal, I'm tired too! - But let me explain the difference between being tired and being fatigued. Being tired you can still work through it, a cup of coffee, and energy shot, even a nap will give you the energy you need to get chores done and get your daily activities accomplished. But with the Chronic Fatigue, nothing helps, you can IV your coffee, take nap after nap, sleep 30+ hrs and wake up like you just ran a marathon up a mountain and down the other side. Your body is always playing catch up, but it never will.

Going day by day in a constant fog, because your body is so fatigued that just doing daily activities such as laundry, vacuuming your house, or even just dishes leaves you so depleted on the energy you just want to lay down. The worst of it is that it's not just physical activity that causes Chronic Fatigue crashes, it is also mental exertion! So, just being around a crowd of people does the same damage as physical exertion. So no matter what you do it's a lose, lose situation.

The physical toll that CFS has on your body is no joking matter either, it causes chronic muscle and joint pain out of nowhere, as I'm writing this I've been suffering from chronic neck pain that came out of no-where. It also causes your lungs to not function properly, I never had asthma in my life, but when I'm crashing I can hardly breathe so now I rely on an inhaler to give me that extra bit of oxygen. Your heart skips beats or overworks itself, my heart goes from a resting 65bpm to over 180bpm just walking up the stairs during a crash and when I'm out in bed it will drop way down to 30-32bpm, which hurts like getting punched in the chest.

The thing about CFS is that it will either get better or worse, unfortunately for me its been almost 2 years of learning to deal with this illness, trying to not get depressed because I can't do what I want to do daily, learning to not overexert myself cause I know if I do I will be out of sorts for 4-5 days after. It truly is the worst thing ever.

Now for you peeps reading this who suffer the same horrible illness I do, Don't feel bad if you can't do what you need to every day, chores don't go away, we can only do what we can with the energy we have. So what if the laundry doesn't get done for another day, who cares if the house hasn't been swept or vacuumed. That catch-all table that we clean all the time now has clutter all over it again. Who cares! Take the days relaxing do what you can with the energy you have, don't push it an hour a day is more than enough to get something done. You feel that crash coming on - for me it's like I just drank a bottle of wine - then sit and relax, binge a Netflix show let your body recover. You are doing the best you can, You are awesome!