Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Life with Mono - Week 12

A milestone I never thought I'd reach and still be feeling symptoms.

My fellow Karate classmates have been asking when I'll be "cleared" to come back to class.  Honestly I'm not under any medical restrictions; it all boils down to lingering fatigue and I've got it in spades!

Just this past Monday I stayed home from work because I couldn't walk straight when I got up, or string two words together coherently.  That miserable day of special hell was the culmination of a lot of me-not-taking-care-of-myself though.

You see, last week was my first week of working 8-hour days again (finally!).  I could feel myself slipping by about Wednesday, but I was determined to push through (hadn't it been bloody long enough already?).  By Friday I was beat and asked to go home an hour early.  Honestly I was surprised I'd made it that far.  I made it home safely and immediately laid down for a half hour.  I was too tired to sleep, but it felt so good to not have to be a functional human for a little while.

I had hoped to get some rest over Easter weekend, but I really should have known better as I was going to my mother's house for the holiday.  I love that woman to pieces but there's a few things working against anyone thinking they can convalesce at her place:

1) There's no guest room.  You can sleep on the hide-a-bed in the living room or in her room.  Though her room has a door, there's no point in closing it as the cats and dog will freak out no matter what side of the door they're on.

2) Her dog likes me.
Her dogs sleeps with me at night.
Her dog snores louder than a creature his size should.

3) Mom is not a quiet person.  My mother has a voice that carries and the house has a pretty open floor plan.  She's also been very distracted lately, so five minutes after I laid down for a much-needed nap on Sunday afternoon she called out, "It's 46 degrees outside!"
Thanks Mom, didn't really care.  Trying to sleep and all.
Five minutes after that she made some other pointless observation or asked a question.
I wanted to cry.
Fortunately exhaustion *did* allow me to sleep eventually but it wasn't enough (<sobbing> it's never enough!)

So I went into this week running on fumes and on Monday I crashed...into my bed and there I stayed all day.  Fortunately I felt worlds better yesterday and today I've felt better still, but just to provide a point of reference: the fatigue I feel today would have been worrying in my pre-mono days and it likely would have sent me home early to rest while guzzling down copious amounts of orange juice. (Now backtrack that to two days ago!)

Post-mono though it's just a fact of life.  And a relatively good day to boot as I don't have one of those lovely fatigue headaches to go along with it!

One of the nice things though is the fatigue I've been feeling lately has been different from the "heavy", oppressive fatigue I had experienced earlier in my illness.  This fatigue feels more "normal"; it just doesn't ever seem to want to go away.

Just today I was contemplating saying "screw it!", throwing caution to the wind and starting my morning exercise routine back up (easing into it of course, but finally starting to at least do my stretches again).  Cooler heads prevailed though and I did a little online research.

Sadly, experiencing lingering fatigue even 3+ months out is considered normal within the scope of mono and everyone, EVERYONE said "DON'T PUSH IT!".  "The fatigue is your body telling you that you still need to take it easy.  Heed the warning and TAKE IT EASY!"

*sniff*
So I'll be good (...or as good as I'm capable) and not pick my exercises back up just yet.  I'll continue to "take it easy" (try not to laugh too hard please).  I'm still going to keep up these 8-hour days at work because I really can't afford it monetarily to stay home and do "nothing"; but I'll stay away from my extracurricular activities a little longer.
And mono sucks.