Since I started taking them my mood swings have leveled off and Stef reckons my cognitive abilities have increased - until I became ill again and fell into this mini hole I hadn't really credited the latter observation, but now I do.
This is why it's easier to bear this time around, I can still think and communicate, I'm not just a worn out vegetable.
Yes, I'm still not at the cognitive level I would class as 'normal' for me, but it's a hell of a lot better than the level I was at when I first started dealing with this 'wasting disease'. I can write a legible sentence, a paragraph doesn't take me an hour to write and I'm not constantly referring back to my well thumbed thesaurus in an attempt to explain what I mean coherently when writing a blog post.
It's good to have the use of your faculties again, even if it's not quite the range of use you may have had previously - but then we all lose a little as we get older don't we? It's the nature of things.
I still prefer communicating via email because I can take my time to figure out what it is I'm trying to say, when I talk on the phone or in person I stumble and get flustered and end up sounding like a moron - which stresses me out; I'm not an idiot, I'm just ill.
I think I know what it's like for the lip reading deaf now - for them a conversation can only take place if they can see the other persons face and if during a chat the other person looks away mid sentence, the deaf person will miss some of what they're saying and possibly lose the context of what's being said - this is how misunderstandings arise.
It's a similar thing for me, only instead of being deaf I have lapses of concentration and when that happens it's as though I've lost sight of their face and miss half of the conversation, it's not that I'm not interested or I'm not listening, it's like I 'forget' to hear them.
When I'm like this it's very tiring to talk to people because I'm having to really work at following what's going on - it also means I'm filling in the gaps myself and so the conversation I remember having sometimes bears no resemblance to the conversation other people think we're having.
It's confusing and frustrating to say the least.
I can handle being tired now, It's taken me three years to stop beating up on myself about it. The aches are back, my throat is an on off hurty thing, but I'm not letting the tears trickle down my cheek as I languish in a pit of self pity, I have my mind and can think of the future.
This is why I've decided to start trying to sell my beaded creations on eBay.
I have problems concentrating on anything for long periods of time - the only thing that absorbs me enough is web design, but since I can't always focus on a computer screen for long periods due to the headaches it engenders, having enough concentration is not really a problem there. It'’s a challenge but I think I can handle it - I just have to try and curb my natural impatience and work within the limitations imposed by my illness.
Here'’s how I'd like it to work:
- Remodel my site from CSS css and html upwards, make it so that my blog and the cfs site fit into it more naturally
- Create alternate style sheets (for printing purpos, pda’s etc)
- Create an image gallery for my beadwork (to link to eBay)
- sort out a shopping cart and secure payment options (more hosting scripts to play with.. oh joy)
- Take over the world
Ok, maybe #5 is a little on the overly ambitious side, but it'’d be nice if I could actually garner an income again from something other than benefits. Because of my concentration difficulties and the headaches etc, perhaps web design is another dead end for the moment, but I'm still hopeful that something will come out of this illness apart from a lot of time spent in bed or on the couch.
I hate feeling useless.
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