Early nights feel so good. It's nice waking up that little bit early too and not feeling like I'm on the back foot already, and that I need to jolt myself into the day.

Been doing lots of pre-emptive rests too these last couple of days. In fact, I have this ambitious plan to spend the next few weeks resting properly for pretty much a chunk of every hour during the day as opposed to sitting round in my usual stupor waiting to feel well enough to move/think/whatever. I was trying half an hour rest with half an hour activity, but it's mighty hard to get much done in half an hour and I was finding myself being more active to compensate.

Resting properly = lying down, eyes closed. No brooding. I can't do it too soon after getting up, and I'm not doing it so much when 10B gets home and I know there's times when it simply won't make sense, like when I'm out and about. But after I did a fair bit of it recently(even with the problem of dozing off) I noticed that I was more robust and on the occasions when I went a bit crazy and (heaven forbid!) went out, I recovered better than I would normally expect.

I am all about not having symptoms at the moment. I've reached a point where things really don't seem worth it if I'm going to feel like death warmed up afterwards. I am so sick of it and if I have to spend half my life lying quietly on the couch with a pillow on my head so that I can sit up for the next half hour and do nothing but *not* feel sick, fine. I'll do it.

I am so sick of feeling sick. For those of you who came in late, the 'fatigue' of ME/CFS is not tiredness. It's an excruciating sensation akin to having influenza. I don't mean a 'bit of a lurgy', I mean the sort of influenza that gets named after a country. You can't ignore it, it even keeps you awake and cna make you strangely hyper. You can't think straight. Other conditions that appear to have similar effects include altitude sickness, glandular fever, blood loss and RA(but without the specific joint symptoms).

Unfortunately, right now we've got a guy scrambling round fixing our TV antenna, which is nice but kind of limits my capacity to rest because I'm a bit neurotic. (And he's either an instrinsically unhappy man or he's having a very bad day - he keeps muttering mild expletives to himself.) I want to learn to rest properly wherever I am. I probably won't fully succeed on account of the sensory overload problem, but I wonder if with training I can improve. And there's always ear plugs. If at the very least I could train myself to let go of the physical tension, maybe I could cope better with the other aspects of overloading.

And I am a bit overloaded at the moment. I walked to the Post Office the day before yesterday, then we went out for dinner with Mum-In-Law last night and the restaurant was noisy and it was a bit of a walk to the car afterwards.

I have an excursion this weekend that I really *want* to do, so hopefully I'll come good. I will be doing it, no matter what, but it's a question of keepign the symptoms down enough to enjoy myself and not crashing too badly afterwards.

~~~

I wonder if my ambitious plan is all part of the bargaining phase Kubler-Ross describes, that people go through with grief. It's the "I'll be happy with what I've got if only I can manage x,y,z".

Perhaps not quite.

"I'll be happy with being sick and living this strange life if only I can ...be more active..." and I'm prepared to do this to do so..."

"I'll observe this over-the-top discipline in exchange for that benefit".

I don't know that it will work. I wonder how I'll feel if it does not. Angry at the universe for not fulfilling its part of the deal? I hope not - it's not as if the universe signed a contract.

I have to remember that I'm doing this because I want to see what happens, not because I'm owed anything.

~~~

It's so long since I've been out by myself. Bazza is getting dusty! This annoys me greatly. I've realised I love pootling round on Bazza now. Shambling round by myself like a normal adult human being.

Next week, maybe.