Apr 22

 Slightly better sleep last night. I mean. Horrible. But. At least my eye is not bruised to the touch today.

Rolling nausea and constantly dizzy, and, of course, pains all over. But the pains are down half a notch. I think I managed to get a couple of hours of genuinely recuperative sleep last night amongst the hours of bullshit. The nausea and dizzy I have today is not good. Sigh. Just. Ignore it. As minor as it is in the scale of things, the nausea is a real bitch to deal with because it saps any little enthusiasm or concentration you have and leaves you feeling ill.

Eh well.

As of last night I stuck myself on the "fast" required for another private health test. They call it a fast. To me it's just a limited diet. It kinda starts a month out, no antibiotics, no this that or the other. Then more restrictions the week prior until finally the last 24 hours. Nothing but plain chicken, white rice, eggs, white bread, plain tea and water. And in the last 12 hours. Nothing at all except plain tea or water. Well. By my standards. This is a breeze. I regularly do 24 hour fasts anyway ( and when I am sleeping like 18 hours in a day, I don't even notice that time ! ).

I did fret a bit whether I could maintain over the 3 hours of testing the test required. 3 hours of functionality is not easy for me. Sometimes I can do it. Sometimes I can't. I can't tell when I am going to flake out. And today I was nauseous from the start, dizzy, felt ill.

Fuck it. Let's go.

So this test is a SIBO breath test. You can go look up what they do for that. For me it was eight samples of breath over 3 hours after having primed myself with some "lactulose". It's supposed to make bad bacteria lurking in your small intestine show themselves ( they feast on the lactulose then breathe out all their waste gas.. which the test then picks up ). My previous non SIBO specific tests had basically surmised my small intestine was buggered - and to know for absolute sure, a follow up SIBO test was recommended.

So here we are.

And maybe this is the thing causing a bunch of my issues. Incapability to absorb certain things, the nausea and yada.

Big maybe.

Anywho. I did the test, I paced myself with it. Played a game whilst I did it - because whether I wanted to or not, I figured playing a game would make the time fly and not let me fret about it. Which it did.

In fact. It flew way too fast. I set Alexa up to give me alarms. No problem.

But what was really surprising was how fast each period felt. 20 minutes felt like a minute. 30 minutes felt like 2 minutes. The 3 hours felt like 10 minutes.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

It sounds stupid. But it was really very... revealing. I have never clocked myself like that. But it seems that hyperfocus ultra concentration thing is stupid strong in me. An ADHD thing. It is my work superpower. But I kinda thought it was less focused than that. I understand that sometimes I can concentrate on something for hours. But. I thought I was kinda being normal. Ish.

But those 20 minute alarms were very revealing.

And perhaps I really am not helping myself by going through starvation and dehydration when I just get stuck all day in say, work.

Albeit these days I flake out after about a maximum of 4 hours if you're lucky. An hour if you're not.

Anyway.

Test done. Scheduled to be picked up by DHL tomorrow. All good. 

Whilst doing the test I lamented with myself - feeling terribly ill - that this was pointless. Like rearranging deckchairs on the titanic. But. In the end I reflected. It is another crossed out line ( or not ) on the list. It is a test and a yes no. I also then thought that I often have the same thing when trying to methodically find a difficult work problem. This is a pointless test ! But sometimes they aren't pointless even though you think they are. The whole methodical process is very necessary and absolutely essential.

So. The individual bits of the breath test ? Could be a waste of time.

But as a whole. Testing everything as you go. It is not. It is very important. You can't find the problem. The docs don't really know. Testing one - stupid or not - thing at a time is the only small hope you have of finding something. It's science basically. Painfully slow. Methodical. One tiny step at a time. Science. And maybe you get nowhere. But you are finding shit out as you go along.

So. Uh huh.

At the very least I am taking a bit of satisfaction at again doing something positive myself, getting a test done, getting my ducks in a row and ready to be tested. As stupidly small as that is, it's not easy for me. So. I'll take that as a win.

Athena is doing a little bit better.

Surprise.

Perhaps it's just the up and down each 24 hours. But. She's definitely doing a bit better. Struggling less. Settling down more. And. This is also in the light of the fact I have slightly lessened one of her meds to see how she does.

As evidence of that, today, for the first time in I can't remember how long, she went out on the roof to have a sniff around. Well well.

Don't get me wrong here, she's still a bit wobbly. And her legs sploot. But. She's improved. 

It could just be temporary. And in any case. Her remaining time is short.

But she's a bit better today. And I will take that and be happy.