Thank you all for birthday wishes...
Oct. 11th, 2015 06:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnpalmerAs I was joking with a friend - you know what chronic fatigue is? Chronic fatigue is realizing it takes *two weeks* to track down and remember all birthday wishes.
I can now add to it. It's waiting a *month* before posting a general "thank you" because you never quite have the energy to make a post! I actually started this post a few weeks back. Sigh.
Thank you, to anyone who sent birthday wishes, and to whom I didn't respond. (And thanks again to those to whom I did respond!) I noticed, and was very grateful - but if I didn't respond, I just lost the reference I tried to keep so I could respond.
I don't really celebrate my birthday these days. I don't have the family or friends nearby for any kind of full out celebration, and, honestly, to me, it's become "just a day" - but it's special for others, and that matters.
(And that tidbit makes me feel that much more guilty that I never remember to check even LJ and DW for birthdays approaching. But then, so many people are owed a hug or text or call that if I'm going to do birthday guilt, I've got a lot more guilt to wade through before I reach it.)
What is 49 like? Well, it's a lovely square of the third odd prime, a perfect cube plus a quad-dozen, a perfect cube and a prime, a perfect cube and a square (not really - 0 isn't really a "perfect cube").
Um. The age, not the number.
It's interesting. It's not old. Old is always a bit older than I am, at least until I'm really starting to break down. There are times I want to be like one of those legendary old folks, "died at 103 trying to break a stallion" so people can say "the damn fool! He *knew* that much physical effort would wipe him out for a day or two afterward!"
But what's been very interesting is that I've been finding my limits a bit better. Like, Sunday (ED: a few weeks back), I went out to my back yard to combat the wiregrass. I took my pick (technically, the pick belonging to the foundation contractor who bailed on the job and left tools behind - he's welcome to have it back if he comes to apologize and asks for it), and broke the soil deeply, to pull out the roots of the wiregrass and crumble the clods to be sure I got all the sneaky bits trying to sneak past the "moat" I've dug around my recently sown grass.
I realized swinging that pick that part of physical labor *had* to be learning your limits. No one (except maybe John Henry) could swing that pick full strength, hard and fast, all day. Pacing yourself is essential - throw it n times a minute, for the proper value of n, and you'll get 8 hours of work. Throw it n+1, you might not even get two hours of work.
While I know that I have a body that should be able to handle being a bit stupid, even at nearly-50, I also know that I won't like the results. So I would use the pick a half-dozen times, work on the dirt, 3-4 more times, work on the dirt. I completed two hours in the sun (two full hours of sun is a minor miracle this late in September in Western Washington!) Monday, I was a bit tired, but I completed 8 hours of *pretty* good mental work, and today, I'm feeling a bit better (but still a bit mentally drained).
I think I have the balancing act I need. Right now, I seem to be able to live a reasonable life. I'm not at my best (for example, "I was a bit tired" means sex for me was off the table, completely), but I'm finding a balance where life isn't all that happy, but it's bearable.
So that's something.
I have also been able to say, definitively, that when I'm having my symptoms, two things definitely happen.
One, I get lightheaded - not really bad, just enough that I've learned to recognize the difference from how I feel when I'm not having any symptoms. Isn't that crazy? That "lightheadedness" was tricky to figure out? You mean, this isn't just "being a bit tired?"
Second, my eyes either get dry, or get some other kind of irritation. (I assume they're getting dry, because it sometimes happens overnight and the symptoms match other people's dry eyes symptoms.)
Third is that my heart is more sensitive to stimulus, and I sweat very easily when in this state.
I'm going to bring that up to my doctor and see if these things help stir up any thought processes. If not, I'll bring them up with the cardiologist.
So: hello everyone, I'm trying to read what you write, and trying to respond as best as I can. And I try to throw out updates, but dang it, sometimes it's hard when the only thing to write is "did something brilliant in my job again," or "had another day-type day, not too good, not too bad". But at least it's not as hard as updating when "had another lousy day" is the only thing that comes to mind!
I can now add to it. It's waiting a *month* before posting a general "thank you" because you never quite have the energy to make a post! I actually started this post a few weeks back. Sigh.
Thank you, to anyone who sent birthday wishes, and to whom I didn't respond. (And thanks again to those to whom I did respond!) I noticed, and was very grateful - but if I didn't respond, I just lost the reference I tried to keep so I could respond.
I don't really celebrate my birthday these days. I don't have the family or friends nearby for any kind of full out celebration, and, honestly, to me, it's become "just a day" - but it's special for others, and that matters.
(And that tidbit makes me feel that much more guilty that I never remember to check even LJ and DW for birthdays approaching. But then, so many people are owed a hug or text or call that if I'm going to do birthday guilt, I've got a lot more guilt to wade through before I reach it.)
What is 49 like? Well, it's a lovely square of the third odd prime, a perfect cube plus a quad-dozen, a perfect cube and a prime, a perfect cube and a square (not really - 0 isn't really a "perfect cube").
Um. The age, not the number.
It's interesting. It's not old. Old is always a bit older than I am, at least until I'm really starting to break down. There are times I want to be like one of those legendary old folks, "died at 103 trying to break a stallion" so people can say "the damn fool! He *knew* that much physical effort would wipe him out for a day or two afterward!"
But what's been very interesting is that I've been finding my limits a bit better. Like, Sunday (ED: a few weeks back), I went out to my back yard to combat the wiregrass. I took my pick (technically, the pick belonging to the foundation contractor who bailed on the job and left tools behind - he's welcome to have it back if he comes to apologize and asks for it), and broke the soil deeply, to pull out the roots of the wiregrass and crumble the clods to be sure I got all the sneaky bits trying to sneak past the "moat" I've dug around my recently sown grass.
I realized swinging that pick that part of physical labor *had* to be learning your limits. No one (except maybe John Henry) could swing that pick full strength, hard and fast, all day. Pacing yourself is essential - throw it n times a minute, for the proper value of n, and you'll get 8 hours of work. Throw it n+1, you might not even get two hours of work.
While I know that I have a body that should be able to handle being a bit stupid, even at nearly-50, I also know that I won't like the results. So I would use the pick a half-dozen times, work on the dirt, 3-4 more times, work on the dirt. I completed two hours in the sun (two full hours of sun is a minor miracle this late in September in Western Washington!) Monday, I was a bit tired, but I completed 8 hours of *pretty* good mental work, and today, I'm feeling a bit better (but still a bit mentally drained).
I think I have the balancing act I need. Right now, I seem to be able to live a reasonable life. I'm not at my best (for example, "I was a bit tired" means sex for me was off the table, completely), but I'm finding a balance where life isn't all that happy, but it's bearable.
So that's something.
I have also been able to say, definitively, that when I'm having my symptoms, two things definitely happen.
One, I get lightheaded - not really bad, just enough that I've learned to recognize the difference from how I feel when I'm not having any symptoms. Isn't that crazy? That "lightheadedness" was tricky to figure out? You mean, this isn't just "being a bit tired?"
Second, my eyes either get dry, or get some other kind of irritation. (I assume they're getting dry, because it sometimes happens overnight and the symptoms match other people's dry eyes symptoms.)
Third is that my heart is more sensitive to stimulus, and I sweat very easily when in this state.
I'm going to bring that up to my doctor and see if these things help stir up any thought processes. If not, I'll bring them up with the cardiologist.
So: hello everyone, I'm trying to read what you write, and trying to respond as best as I can. And I try to throw out updates, but dang it, sometimes it's hard when the only thing to write is "did something brilliant in my job again," or "had another day-type day, not too good, not too bad". But at least it's not as hard as updating when "had another lousy day" is the only thing that comes to mind!
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