Bork Slowly Borking

 Rough start yesterday, I think the CFS squarely kicked my ass, but by the afternoon I was a good deal better. All my plans for yesterday went out the window and ended up sitting and playing games for the most part. Which was ok. Adaptable. And not an entire write off of retreating back to bed. Although. Eh. Mmm. I didn't get up until nearly midday after an attempt in the morning was like the undead rising. I think on the whole I am improving. Certainly the CFS seems to be retreating, slowly. I am becoming more capable as each month rolls by, and, the real teller, I am suffering less when I step over the line or do too much or yada. I think also beginning to get a handle on the diet situation is also helping. Everything goes hand in hand with each other, a holistic thing made up of a bunch of separate moving pieces. Mental health wise I am also doing ok, kinda, albeit, I am "stuck" in several... ADHD like places.... where say the kitchen will go to shit and a combinatio...

 Ok yesterday ended up a bit of a shit show. In the morning I was fine. Lunchtime I started my liquid only diet, had a soup. Feeling not too bad I decided to go trim the ivy in the garden. But. Lets take a quick recap here. I had probably around 1,000 calories to eat the day before. I then inadvertently fasted for 24 hours. I then broke fast with a soup. Like. 250 calories. Then proceeded to do physical work. Mmm. 1250 calories for 48 hours ? Heh. Ok. So. I was kinda ok. But started feeling... mehhhh. Not my typical meh I have been of late, nauseous et al. Different. Older. Meh. Tired. Wiped out. Dizzy. Ah. Ah ha. It occurred to me belatedly that oh, I am leaning pretty hard into tempting CFS fate here by eating like shit, then being physical. So the afternoon I wiped out. Didn't feel well. Zero energy. I was cool. I put it down to being stupid with eating et al. I debated what to do. I could. a) sleep it out. because in theory I should be able to largely "starve" for con...

 Another day, another experiment. So, yesterday, I didn't do a liquid diet after all. I ended up getting a chinese the day before, and ofc, because its a lot, I end up with plenty of leftovers. I ate it in the evening, felt fine. Rice, varying meats, varying vegetables, noodles, and even a bit of chilli. No problem. Wait. I can have this during the day, different time, test eating the same thing at a different time rather than do the liquid thing. So I did that. And. No effect. No ill. So. It's not the timing. It's not meds. Of course, we kinda have to be careful here because single tests don't mean squat. But. Eh. We're moving fast, and if necessary we can revist things to test it. Also hilariously, does this mean I need to eat chinese for the rest of my life not to trigger feeling ill. Ho ho ho. But there's a good question. What does a chinese diet lack that a western diet does not ? Which magical thing(s) are in one and not the other ? Gluten ? So. More than ...

 Another day. Another bout of blegh. Today I eschewed bread. No bready products. I had a mushroom and spinach thinger with potatoes for lunch. Small portion. Felt ok. About 3 hours later I did not feel ok. Blurp. Sigh. I gritted my teeth and took Athena out for a walk feeling shit. Whatchagonnado. The walk helped a little. But I still felt ill by the time I got home. I don't know. It's definitely starting to give me a pavlovian response to eating. I'd. Rather not. Thanks. Eh. We shall see. Tomorrow I will go liquid diet. Soup. And then try something more solid in the evening. But I also really need to eat the exact same things at different times and see if the results vary. A cheese toasty here. A cheese toasty there. Moving on. Athena was very happy and bouncy on her walk today. Skipping along. We met a couple of dogs which she said hello to. One we stopped and chatted with. Hello. I've seen you a lot. Oh ? You used to have two didn't you ? Yeah. Used to see them o...

 BBQ yesterday. Ended up going feeling slightly green around the gills, but nothing too alarming. I had eaten a single piece of chocolate for the whole day. It wasn't random. I decided not to eat. But wondered if chocolate was a trigger. Results ? Inconclusive. A bit of yes. A bit of no. Who knows. So I ate at the BBQ. Will I get sick ? Yeah. Maybe. Probably. Sausages. Burgers. Even a couple of very mild spicy things. Salad. Bread. Cheese. Bit of chocolate. No ill effects. Nada, zip, zero, none. Ok. Today I got up feeling pretty good, had some baguette and quiche. Annddd felt queasy about 2 hours later. Nothing terribly bad. But yeah. Definitely. Blerp. The usual shit show symptoms, but mild. I don't know. Perhaps it's more of a timing thing ? Not sure. Experiments left to do. Eating the same thing at different times of the day seems to be an experiment I can run. Is it the thing. Or is it the time. Meh. Onwards. Of late I seem to be in a withdrawing mood. Like. Hardcore. I...

Not really an experiment, but evidence. Yesterday I noodled around with some art, and had a tea, toast and a yoghurt at mid-day ish. Lo and behold, by 2pm ish, I started to feel off, and called an end to my noodling to go have a nap. Meh. Later in the evening I was starving, and rather unwisely decided to order myself a chicken wrap, salad, garlic bread. Which by my standards these days is stuffing my face. Went to sleep on a full stomach. Bad news right ? No ill effects. .... *scratches head* Mmm k. There are a couple of possibilities I can think of here. One. Wholemeal bread could be a mild trigger ? The wholemeal toast could be doing a thing ? Two. Timing. My digestive system is different during the evening compared to the day, and or, being very inactive/ sleeping slows down the process ? Three. Meds. Timing of taking meds messes with it all. I take a gastro altering pill first thing in the morning. I doubt it's this as those pills act on the liver and then back on the stomach ...

 Experiment. So, kinda impatient yesterday. I decided to skip eating. I wanted to see if the typical "I feel shit" et al would kick in around afternoon as per usual or not if I skipped eating. So I drank tea. And went for a nice walk with Athena. And didn't eat. And I didn't feel like shit. Not 100%. But alright. I eventually ate at 6pm. By 8pm I had started to feel rough. Ok. Could be a coincidence. At this point probably not. *Anything* I eat makes me feel like shit somewhere between an hour to 3 hours later. If it has something like black pepper or jalapenos in it will be way worse, and last for days. I guess at this point I repeat the experiments and see how conclusive that is and start to track nuances in effects. I will give a more liquid diet a go, and see if that makes me feel shit too. I'll also try eating tiny portions - but I already have a lot of data for that, and it doesn't seem to matter on the quantity, just, that you ate at all. It's highl...

 Much better this morning. Oh. Have I got through the worst of it ? Yes ? Yes ? No. Afternoon, the familiar blegh crept over me. Slept for a few hours. Got up feeling a bit better. Tidied the garden. Hung up the washing. Uh huh. Dizzy. Clamp around my neck pressure wise. Screeching ears. Weak legs. Marvellous ! Getting all the old symptoms again. Still. Heart palpitations. Dizzy. Neck pressure. Random pains. Face tingles. Pins and needles in fingers. Meh. Eh well. I have lapsed between being ok with it all - eh fuck it, if it's a spiral down I'm ok. If someone with terminal cancer can live life, then so can I. To the other end of the spectrum, holy shit this makes me miserable, when can I end it. Ho hum. I am trying very hard to extract quality time from my life where I can when I can. Enjoy the moments when I am not shit. Enjoy the fact I can do anything. Including just sitting huddled watching TV. That's ok. Could be worse. I am improving, from day to day. It's slow p...

 Better this morning. Played some games. Worse this afternoon. A deeply subdued mood has come over me. Motivation has drained out of the soles of my feet. Languishing feeling off and ill. My horizons narrow down. All I am fit for is huddled in bed, watching obscure sci fi. That's about the limit of my capabilities. I have shifted from the practical - how to deal with ongoing problems, to the philosophical - fuck it all, I am tired of suffering, there is little point. I am ok. Maybe there should be a drinking game for everytime I say I am ok. Everyone slams a shot. I am ok. As the afternoon has waxed into the evening I have started to feel a little better. Off. Wobbly. Left side of my face is once again "tight", tingly. My left leg is off. Dragging a little. I took Athena out for a walk. I went out without fanfare - a mess, clothes I've lived in for a few days, unshowered. It's not important. Athena enjoyed her walk. And it was alright. She's been off her food ...

Ok. So. Last day or so my health has gone downhill. Not sure if it's something I ate or what. I backtracked a few things. Sure enough. Black pepper. It comes and goes somewhat but. I feel shit. And at times I feel super shit. Heart palpitations. Twitches. Tingles. Just generally feeling siiicccckkkk, but not nauseous. Tired. Weird aching heavy neck. Heavy body, like it's filled with lead. Exhausted. Thoughts can scatter a bit. Holy crap. As today has worn on it has hit like a sledgehammer. So strange. 72 hours ago, I was ok. Now I am a shit show. I am not sure but I am thinking that all the symptoms are connected. That perhaps it's like a massive systemic response to *something*. Who knows. Buckle up and wait ( hopefully ) for it to pass. Cut my eating down to minimal. Plenty of water. See how I do. What this has done for me has shown me the difference between night and day. Mostly ok. And then really super fucking not ok. The difference is severe, when it's bad it'...

 Today has been an alright day. Not felt ill. Not felt super tired. Not felt miserable. Alright. That being said I had a 40 minute nap at lunch time. Heading off the snoozes. But that's ok. Civilised even. Maybe. Yesterday I took a risk. I've had an nduja sauce sitting in my fridge for a couple of weeks - bought before I was pretty damn sure that some foods were triggering me, and since languishing uneaten with some reticence about it possibly making me ill. It was either eat it, or throw it out as of yesterday. Ehhh fuck it. I love it. But does it love me ? So I ate it. With pasta. Noted the time I ate it. And got on with my day. This could be a mistake. But. That's kinda ok. I did it with, somewhat of an experimental frame of mind, prepared to spend the next several days feeling like shit. 50 minutes after eating I felt suddenly tired. A little ill. Sunken. Oh no. Ok. It's not terrible. I am going to have a lie down and a snooze. I did. Felt better. That was it. To ad...

 A week and change into my month off, and I haven't done much at all. That's the point. Is it ? Yes. Grumbles. The days continue to be something of a mixed bag, but slowly, oh so slowly, I think I am improving. Ish. The nausea et al is a whole lot better. A whole lot. It's not perfect, ho ho ho, definitely not perfect, and there are shades of feeling green at times. But the depth and frequency of them has reduced significantly. This goes hand in hand with what I am eating. I am 99% convinced now that some of what has been going on with me is a gastro thing, and of that, I think I have found some level of control on it depending on what I eat. Figured out some triggers. Not feeling like shit all the time has upped my feeling of capability. I can noodle around more. And feel less shit about it. Which has an uptick on my mood. However. I have very definitely been wrestling with my mental health over the days, typically in cycles of less than 24 hours. Erratic. Mornings are - w...

 Had a pretty active couple of days - Thursday, chiro, dog walk, picked up some DIY supplies, pulled the thermostat off the wall, chopped up some wood, did stuff. Friday a similar schedule, but with a doc visit instead of chiro. Ooh. Very. Active. I didn't crash. Felt ok. Asthma was shit. But, otherwise. Alright. I think my suspicions about food triggers might be paying off. That said, yesterday, out of the blue, whilst installing a new thermostat I suddenly turned green, nauseous, tired, blehhh. Went and had a lie down. But in the scale of things it didn't last long. I then backtracked, ok, what did I eat. A Greggs sausage roll ? A random packet of crisps ? Maybe the sausage roll had pepper in it, I didn't really think. But. Uh huh. Possibly a repeatable experiment. I literally didn't eat arse all except that all day, so, it very much narrows it down ! There are two things currently clouding my anxiety horizon. And such is the way of things, it's not their size, ju...

 The feeling of being sick all the time is still being kept at bay. Not great, and at times it feels a little.. mehh, but, a lot better. Still sticking to a diet, but, adding a few things in. Yesterday. Sugary things. Greasy things. Just. Poking around the waters. So far. So ok. Ish. I am loathe to try any kind of spicy things however as I am pretty damn sure that somewhere in there is a proper landmine. I have a lovely nduja sauce in the fridge. Love it. Not sure at the moment it will love me. I might give it a few days and try it. If it fucks with me, meh, something learned. Today I am still teetering on that edge of being ok / not ok. So close to actually feeling somewhat better I can taste it. But not quite. And fragile. I felt my mood descending this morning as I talked to myself in the shower. I have kind of noticed over the years that it can be a sign of a "bad pattern" in me. I can talk to myself at considerable length. 30 minutes or more. Long, and pretty much always...

 Heating is on the blink. Turns on, stays on. In my fairly long history of being in this house, this is not the first or even the second time this has happened. I can't summon the energy to sort it out however. I suspect it is once again the thermostat. Just to confirm I need to switch the power off and pull the stat off the wall and turn it all back on again - without the stat, just bare wires. It's an old school stat, so, live power, 240v zipping through it. Not one to just poke about in with the power on. If it is the stat, the heating will not come on with it wrenched off the wall. If it's not the stat - then the heating will come on regardless. The modern thermostats are utter shit. In theory they should last forever. In practice they futz out every 5 years, sometimes 12 months. I think they dont do well with the live current. Whatever it is. Shit design. For the moment. I really cannot summon the energy to tinker with it. So. I am resorting to manually switching off t...

 Ok. So. I think this time off is going to end up being a bit of a journey. Which. I wasn't expecting. Yesterday I tried something different. A fasting day. Because if eating shit is perhaps making me ill. Fuck it. Don't eat. However. That can also be bad. But eh. So I did that. Fasting day. But also didn't feel particularly great. Not mentally. Not physically. Stuck in a bit of a twilight state. Which. Eh. Can sometimes be a thing when I fast. Not often. But. It can be a bit of a shock to the system in the wrong context. So yesterday I fasted and bassssiiiccaalllyyyyy curled up into a ball. And watched TV. Slept. Watched TV. Slept. Which is not a great pattern for me in the last couple of years since I got super ill, because it pulls me back to a place where I could hardly get out of bed, and leans into dealing with feeling ill by just sinking into half oblivion. Which kinda works. And kinda doesn't. So. Tricky. But I didn't feel super green. I felt a bit better. A...

 Well yesterday was a bit of a shit show. Alright in the morning. Ill for the rest of the day / evening no matter what I did. I spent a lot of the time in a zombie like low level "I feel ill" state. I couldn't rustle up the energy to do hardly fuck all. Played a game. Walked away feeling ill, exhausted, left it running for god knows how long. Oops. Managed to setup my painted catan set for a picture - which ofcourse, exhausted me. It's hard to say, it's very difficult to judge, but it seems I am getting slowly worse as time goes by. It fits and starts. Lots of false dawns. But I'm being laid low pretty regularly, debilitating, and I am losing ways to effectively deal with it. Despite feeling ill - and a little because of it - I ordered a pizza last night. This is weird. But sometimes, stuffing my face with pizza.. or other things... makes the ill feeling go away. Sometimes. So I did that. And felt better. Not entirely better. But back into copeable territory. ...

 Slept a lot the night before. Didn't make me feel rested. Despite that, yesterday started alright. I can do stuff. What shall I do. Chill for a bit. Then the common pattern kicked in. By midday ish I felt.. tired. Went and had a nap, felt better. By late afternoon I felt ill. Queasy. Shit. I bounced in and out of bed, couldn't quite sleep, felt green around the gills, just meh. An inauspicious start to my period of rest. Ho hum. On the plus side, I am not feeling horribly sad.. at the moment. So. I've got that going for me. It's early morning and I feel like I've been dragged through a hedge backwards. The thought has crossed my mind if I am suffering from IBS because I am suspecting a few food triggers and the timing of such is eh, suspicious. On reading about it, my symptoms fit, and hooplah, CFS and IBS often go hand in hand, a known thing, but they are not sure why. Perhaps it's just another facet to the slow car crash that is my health. On Friday evening I...

 It's been a week ! Went to see the family last week which went ok. I actually had a patch of 4 days where I didn't feel like shit, which, was nice. I felt pretty good on the day I was due to go down there, but by the time I was due to come back I had started to wobble a little. This week I have slowlllyy marched backwards as my energy has petered out thrashing out changes to the gnarly project at work. Not sure if its work, the house, or what. I'm not sure if I am gonna go visit my family again for a while. Or. At all. For a long while. Athena is not enjoying her visits down there. She's ok. But. Yeah. Picking up on her vibes. She doesn't like it. One of my brothers dogs is a bit of a jealous nipper, and despite being a tenth of the size of Athena tends to bite her legs, tail, sides, anything she can get hold of. By and large Athena just puts up with it and retreats. She doesn't enjoy it. And removes herself out of the way where she can. At times she went and s...