A better week

Woke up this morning feeling really shivery and achy, with legs and arms like lead and like I could sleep for at least 12 hours more...so things are back to normal then! ;-)

Managed to get out of bed for 9am for a call with a potential freelance employer which felt like a major achievement given the mega sleeps of the last few days. The work's not guaranteed but if it does happen it might help sort out my dwindling finances but it's quite intense work so may have a bad effect on my health. Still, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Trying to resist going back to bed now as although I'm really sleepy (well, I have been awake for almost 3 hrs, clearly any normal person would need a nap by now), I need to drag myself to the library and try and get some work done on my dissertation. I'm seriously behind but I'm hoping that if I can just get started on it then the rest will fall into place.

In other news, I've been sent a big stack of questionnaires from the ME/CFS clinic to send back to them, presumably so they can assess how bad I am before they give me an appointment. Hope I get an appointment before the Tories inevitably cut the service!

And in very exciting news, I am going on holiday! It's just for a week at the end of August to a little apartment in Portugal but I am so looking forward to it as I'm sure that some sunshine, doing very little and spending some proper time with the boy panda has got to have a good effect on my health. The only disaster is that I can't find my passport...not sure if it made it to Manchester in the move from London, if I've given it to the charity shop by accident or if it has just vanished. Oh well, will keep looking!x

Magic Monday: Sleeping Beauty

I am very, very confused. It seems that I have slept for 18 hrs straight! Ended up staying at boy panda's house last night as wasn't feeling great and was woken up by what I thought was him coming in to say he was off to work. It turns out had actually come home from work meaning that I had slept through the entire day!
So it's not great for having a productive day and general sense of awareness (how did I miss a whole day!) but I guess my body wanted to rest for some reason so will try and think of the positives.
Also, while dead to the world in bed, at least I coldn't spend any money!x

Trying to keep afloat

I feel a bit like ME/CFS is pulling me under at the moment. I feel like it's affecting every element of my life and there's nothing I can do about it because I have no energy.

In no particular order, here are the things that are particularly worrying me today.

• I have been struggling all year to try and keep doing my MSc whilst trying to work but the ME/CFS is making it impossible. I only have a month or so left and yet I am lost and behind in my dissertation and the exhaustion and brainfog are making it feel overwhelming.
• I've been given a conditional offer on a PhD place which I would love to take up but it's dependent on the marks I get on my masters. I got some marks back from the essays that I handed in recently and although I haven't got them all back, I don't think my marks are going to be good enough to fulfill the conditions. Again, the ME/CFS is responsible for most of this and it's just making me feel really tearful and defeated.
• I'm worried about money. I've had to turn down some offers of freelance work recently as I'm just not well enough to do it at the moment but my savings will run out soon and I have bills and debts that need to be paid so the money has to come from somewhere.
• I have to go for some more blood tests and I am so physically scared of them that it makes me sick and tearful just thinking about them. I have put it off for two weeks now but I'm going to have to go and I hate going on my own but there's no one to go with me.
• I feel like my symptoms are getting worse not better. I'm trying so hard to sort out my sleep in the hope that it will make everything else a bit more manageable but can't seem to even do that at the moment. I'm fed up of aching all the time and I'm scared that my brain isn't working how it should do.
• I really miss my friends. They're all spread out around the country but none of them live in Manchester and I'm not well enough to go and see them. Some days I'm fine but other days like today, I feel really alone and isolated.
• I'm tired of living this weird half-life where I can't do the things I need to do let alone the things I want to do and I don't like not feeling like myself anymore.

I have to keep thinking that things will get better but days like today just come out of nowhere and knock me sideways. I know lots of people are suffering much worse than me and I should be grateful for the things that I do have. Let's hope things will be brighter tomorrow x

Not very happy panda...

Just thought I should write a quick post in case you were wondering where I had disappeared to. Having overdone it trying to get my last assignments in for my masters, I had quite a bad crash of ME/CFS symptoms. Had a few days over the weekend resting as much as I could and was starting to feel better when suddenly I felt a whole lot worse.

Thought I had caught the tummy/fluey bug that is going around but then had horrible burning pain for a few days and one trip to the hospital confirmed that it's actually a kidney infection. Again. Have been given a week's worth of strong antibiotics, told to rest and to go to A&E if it gets any worse tonight but fingers crossed it won't.

I feel shocking and am a bit worried as last time I had to take antibiotics they made my ME symptoms worse but have to take them to get rid of the kidney infection. Meh. I have no appetite (this is UNHEARD of!). I am supposed to be working on a big thing for uni with a deadline of next week which I haven't been able to even start yet!And I have no knitting with me :-( On the plus side, I was at the boy panda's house when I started to feel ill so at least am being looked after and am staying in a nice comfy house rather than my horrid flat!

Sorry for the miserable post but I just wanted to say sorry for not being able to read and comment on your blogs and twitter. Normal happy panda service will hopefully resume shortly x

First Magic Monday!

My god, do I need something to cheer me up today. It is miserable weather, pouring down with rain but still a bit muggy so poor little internal thermostat cannot decide what to do leaving me roasting hot one minute and freezing cold the next!

So for the first Magic Monday, I was thinking about someone who I really like and who really inspires me: Mary Portas. For those non-UK readers and boys, Mary Portas is a very cool retail and fashion guru who really knows her stuff. She has a TV programme called Mary Queen of Shops, where she goes to help independent store owners who have lost their way (some of them are really clueless and stubborn with it!) and whilst she is pretty blunt, she's always kind with it and really sorts them out. Plus she's very stylish and funny and I often daydream about her coming around to sort out my disorganised life...when I grow up, I'd like to be like her please!The last episode in the series is on tonight at 9 so that's going to be little Monday treat.

Hmm, though from next week, Monday TV is looking problematic. No Glee and no MQOS...what's a girl to do?!

First spoonie Sunday!

First of all a quick explanation for readers who don't have ME/CFS and are wondering what on earth a 'spoonie' is: it comes from this great explanation of what it's like to have a chronic illness and trying to manage it on a day to day basis http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/personal-essays/the-spoon-theory-written-by-christine-miserandino/ Although written about lupus, it really rings true for M.E. in my experience and it would be great if you read it!

So a quick history of me and M.E., I was diagnosed about 3 or so months ago but have been suffering with symptoms for about 2 years now. Interestingly, the more I learn about this illness, the more I wonder if I have actually had it on and off mildly for years. For me it was a gradual onset. I lived in London, had a really stressful and demanding job involving really long hours and lots of travel and seemed to pick up every cold/bug/infection that I came within a sniff of. I was always a bit tired from burning the candle at both ends all the time.

But then the tiredness came like I've never experienced it before. I needed to sleep in the daytime and my muscles and joints ached for no reason.I constantly had either a sinus infection or a kidney infection and sometimes when I was really lucky, I'd get both of them at the same time. I flitted between days of insomnia followed by bouts of hypersomnia where I'd be sleeping every second I could just so I could keep working.

Then after a particularly rubbish time at work, the company I was working for ran into financial difficulties and went bust. I remember sitting at home (in the noisiest flat in London, which really helped things as you can imagine!) with a face covered in coldsores, aching everywhere and looking for another job when I decided that something had to change.

I applied for a place on an MSc course in Manchester, got a temporary contract job for the summer and then in September made the big move oop north. My symptoms were still bad but when I went to see the doctors about it they put it down to a stressful year and a demanding job and I though they must be right. In October I had an almighty illness - raging fever, sore throat, splitting headache, limbs so heavy and so little energy that I couldn't get off the sofa. It was round the time of the big swine flu panic and it looked like that's what I had, although of course now I suspect it was just the worst flare of symptoms that I'd had till then.

Anyway, even though I recovered a bit from that, I still felt dreadful and was struggling to keep up with my masters and the freelance work that I'm totally dependent on for keeping a roofover my head and filling my tum with food. I went to the new doctors in Manchester quite in despair by this point and was lucky to get a sympathetic doctor who suggested early on that it might be M.E. and started the process of testing.

Unfortunately when I went back for the results, this lovely lady had retired! I then saw a decidedly unsympathetic dr and many many months later, I finally got a diagnosis and just this week (after seeing yet another Dr!) I've finally been referred to the specialist M.E. clinic. Hurrah!

The road to recovery is a long, sometimes frustrating and sometimes upsetting one but in the spirit of the Happiness Project, I'm going to focus on the positive things. If I hadn't been ill, I would never have been brave even to quit work and go freelance and do my masters which I had wanted to for years. I wouldn't have started listening to my body and realising it was unhappy but would have probably just kept on pushing it too hard for years. And finally if I wasn't ill, I would never have met some lovely people!

Right, long old post from me so going to have a little rest now but hope you all had good weekends and hopefully see you for Magic Monday!x

The weekend is in sight!

Hello all! Not posted for a few days due to a combination of being locked in the library for a few days and then doing a lot of being horizontal to recover from aforementioned essay blitz! While I've been trapped in a sea of books, I have been thinking about what I'd like to do with the blog and inspired by Annie's great blog http://www.fragileannie.com/ I'm going to have some dedicated posting days for different aspects of stuff I like!

So from now on, Mondays will be known as Magic Mondays. I don't know about you but I hate and always have hated Mondays, so I intend to have fill Mondays with inspiring stuff. Possibly a mix of people that inspire me, craft projects I'm working on, books I'm reading or just general things that have caught my eye and make me happy - hopefully it will sooth the pain of miserable Mondays!

Wednesdays will be Wardrobe Wednesdays - I was doing some much needed de-cluttering the other day and discovered lots of lovely things that I had forgotten all about...giving a new twist to the meaning home-shopping! So I thought Wednesdays could be about reminding me about fun and beautiful stuff I already own..as well as a place to show all the fashion/home/design things I covet but frugal budgets won't allow me to!

Fridays will from now on be Foodie Fridays...yum yum! So things I've seen/drunk/eaten that week, exciting recipes or posts from other foodie blogs that I admire.

And finally, Sundays will now be Spoonie Sundays where I'll chat about ME/CFS stuff.

In between I'll still be keeping you updated on how the Happiness Project is going and other whimsical thoughts that I want to share. In the book, Gretchen Rubin talks about blogging every day as it's easier to make yourself do something every day when you're trying to encourage a new habit to stick and I think she's probably right. I like the idea as well of posting as the last thing I do online in the day and then turning the laptop off so let's see how we go!

And of course, I know have the snazzy new camera to play with so will be able to make the blog a lot more pretty from next week, woop!

Hope you're all well and happy!xx