2019 Summary

2019 = 3 & 3/4 years of ME/CFS. 

Achievements of the year (compared to the last three years):

- I did not get sicker! While my step count doesn’t really show any consistent upward trend this year, I had a better year on the whole, and gradually got more confident in my new level of ability. My crashes were max 2 days in length, which is a total win, and meant I was a bit braver exploring the edges of my safe zone. 

- I did almost all my own laundry! (Mum helped with the bed sheets). (This is big as our washing machine is downstairs)

- Did almost all my own food shopping, including going to the farmers market to buy delicious carrots. (A win because you just can’t get delicious carrots at the normal shop). 

- Took myself to the library several times, with a handy old lady wheelie cart. (Disability parking permit a big help doing occasional chores in town). 

- Went to lots of doctors and got officially diagnosed with endometriosis. Boo! But not at all surprising. 

- Drove myself to most of my appointments, except where it was too far or parking was too hard. 

- Was a hard core disciplinarian with doing one hour of yoga/mindful body movement almost every day. (Very good for maintaining movement in an aerobically constricted body, and calming the still-too-easily-stressed-out nervous system.) Even went out to a few old lady yoga classes. 

- Grew some things in the garden, like kale and silverbeet (with help from several very lovely, helpful people who did the grunt work)

- Pressure sprayed and oiled the deck. 

- Thought a lot about bushfires, organized a street meeting

- Made 800 paper cranes, and counting, for a friend who is far sicker than I. 

- Went out and hung around with people more. 

- Went to several of the climate change rallies. 

- Managed the share house merry-go-round. Four new housemates this year. All the advertising, interviewing, inducting, adjusting.....

Things I tried to see if it would help me get better:

- Billions of things to try help the endometriosis pain, five months of expensive supplements, special physio stretches, a mindfulness and cbt for endo course, acupuncture, some other Tcm stuff.... (none of this had any noticeable effect). 

- Took clay and charcoal for a couple of weeks two times to try and detox potential mould toxins from my body...

- Finally got over being a tight arse and bought a brand new allergy vacuum cleaner to try and reduce any potential toxic mould spores in my house 

- Took a selection of antiviral herbs I read about that are supposed to work against the Epstein Barr virus.
- Homeopathic anti herpes solution (meh, ‘twas cheap). 

- Continued LDN, which I attribute last year’s improvement to. 

- Continued occasional craniosacral therapy, as its the only alternative therapy I’ve tried that makes me feel something... (still dunno if it actually helps long term, but it’s relaxing at the time)

- Tried wearing an extremely uncomfortable neck brace, as some people in the global me/cfs community have found a structural cause of their fatigue (solution = getting your neck vertebrate fused! Must admit I didn’t pursue this avenue particularly thoroughly). 

- Checked in with old doctors and went to see one new doctor, who reconfirmed low iron and zinc and gut parasites. (Will continue supplementing, tried some antiparasitic herbs, which didn’t do anything noticeable). 

- Collected daily health data, made graphs, did statistics, unsuccessfully tried to figure out patterns. 

- Mostly paleo, high-vegetable, low-grain diet. 

Nicest things of the year:

- Went camping at the beach two times (Fortescue and Maria!) and to the Mt Field gov huts two times.

- Saw the fagus! 

- Went snorkeling in the summer time!

- Had excellent friends who helped me with many things, like going camping, vacuuming, gardening and trail-ridering

- Read lots of books. 

- Hung out in nice places like Strickland falls, the Springs and the Waterworks. Continued to frequency find pleasure in forced slowness. 

- Developed a new habit of going out to look at the stars every night before bed

- Had lots of nice plants in the garden to look at, and ate delicious mandarins, loganberries and stone fruit from the garden. 

Things I think I should’ve done more of, (but hey, napping and recovering from all the other things above took a lot of time too):

- Played music
- Learnt birds
- Arty and writery stuff
- Been better at doing the boring gut healing diet

So, things are alright at this level. 2019 was good. Happy new year/decade humans!