Tired of Being Tired – Where It Got Worse

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I've been blogging elsewhere since July 2005 and a recurrent theme in my posts is how tired I am. Emails to friends many times end with “Gotta go to bed, tired”.

I've always had low energy. As a child, I was very sedentary. I was known as the bookworm, at home, at school. I'd read in the car. I'd read walking home from school.

In 2001, I was hired at the place (three eight hour days) where I'd been volunteering for the past year (for four hours on two days a week). After a few months, we decided we wanted to move, so we started looking for a place. To make a long story short, we decided to sell the mobile home we'd just finished paying for, and move to the country.

But before we moved, I got sick. Sicker than I'd ever been in my life. I think it was a combination of stress, and also the black mold we uncovered under the flooring in the mobile home we were living in. If I remember correctly, the refrigerator had been leaking and it went into the corner of the room, down under the floor boards. When we moved the fridge, the floor was warped, so dh pulled it up to replace it, and found a ton of mold under there.

I ended up with pneumonia, and was sick for a month. I signed the paperwork while I was nearly delirious. We couldn't move to our new home though, thank God we owned the old place, because the new place was 50 miles away. Dh took a couple of truck loads of stuff to the new place,  and we just stayed put in the old place. I was afraid to move out to the “middle of nowhere” when I might need to be rushed to emergency. I was so sick I couldn't go to work for 30 days. I was so sick, I didn't even have the energy to sit at my computer. I had to stay in bed and my husband and Younger Son waited on me hand and foot. They'd get me started out in the morning with a pitcher of ice water, and I'd lace it with some juice concentrate. I had no appetite, but then I'd suddenly be so ravenously hungry that I'd become nauseous. Dh rigged up a line that went to a light in the living room so I could pull on the line, the light would go on and they would come to see what I needed. Younger Son would come in and list off the things we had on hand. I remember eating a lot of buttered noodles. It was one of the few things I could stand the thought of eating without getting even more nauseous.

The rumbling in my lungs and the coughing was so horrible, I finally went to urgent care, where they diagnosed me with bronchitis induced asthma. They gave me medication to stop the wheezing and coughing. I couldn't take the cough syrup, it caused me to have a horrible nightmare where several men sat around a table, telling me if I took another dose I'd better be prepared to meet my maker. !! I didn't take another dose after that.

Finally I was well enough that we could make the move. I didn't do much physically, but I was able to stay up for about four hours so it was long enough to get moved.

I went back to work, but I could only work four hours a day, then I had to go to my friend's house, who still lived in the mobile home park and take a nap before I could drive the hour drive home.

I had to ride one of those little golf cart things at the grocery store to do any grocery shopping. I remember that it took several months, maybe 4 months, to feel like I was back to my normal self.

I think at that time, my adrenals took a massive hit. Six months later, I was diagnosed with asthma. It is typical for asthmatics to have adrenal fatigue. And I think adrenal fatigue is a symptom of gut issues. I was on antibiotics during the pneumonia. I tried and tried to not take antibiotics, but I was literally afraid that I was going to die, so succumbed.

I was reluctant to go on medication for the asthma. My primary care physician couldn't convince me and referred me to an asthma/allergy specialist. He managed to convince me, and put me on Flovent and Serevent.

Over the years he guided me to weaning myself down to one medication. And I use it once daily. That seems to be enough to manage my breathing. It is a corticosteroid. At certain times of the year, I can breathe better, so I have a habit of stopping taking my medication because I'll forget one day and don't start wheezing, so I'll think I'll just stop.

I did this a few months ago, and as the days went by, I became more and more fatigued. I suspect my body has become dependent on the corticosteroid to stimulate my adrenals. This is So reluctantly began taking my medication again. I didn't know what else to do.

I have a lot that is expected of me. I work 32 hours a week. I drive a minimum of eight hours a week, sometimes more like 10 hours. I milk our goats. I manage our finances. I manage my husband's two businesses accounting. And then of course there's trying to get some housework done, and cooking several times a week. My dh washes dishes, but he just doesn't see the counters, or the floor, or the stovetop. Or the living room floor, or the build up in the toilet bowl. Yet he will fuss about how messy and claustrophobic the house feels, and complains that “no one helps, he has to do everything”.

I haven't trimmed the goat's hooves in many months. It really needs to be done. But my husband doesn't know how to do it, and when I ask him to help me hold the girls feet, it is hard on him because he has plantar fasciitis and hurts to stand in one place. I usually ask Younger Son to help, but I don't have the energy to even think about getting out there and trimming hooves. I sometimes think my husband used to think I was just doing hoof trimming just because. But now one of my girls' hooves are nearly four inches long. They grow out real pointy like those pointed toes shoes.

Right now it is the Christmas rush. I don't know if we will be celebrating Christmas this year. I am however, trying to get cards out for my husband's business, and from our family (I started sending cards again a couple of years ago).

Well, I'm rambling.

My point was to get across the level of tiredness I experience. I want to think it's because I have a lot on my plate, but I used to be able to do the grocery shopping, in the past few months I have had to just give that up altogether and let my husband do it. My boss let me start working at home one day a week, that has actually helped me quite a bit. A couple of months ago I was going through a very difficult time, where I was tired, and stressed out, having anxiety attacks, and hot flashes very frequently. I had to take Kava Kava for almost one solid month to help myself out of that.

I hope I am able to help myself on GAPS, and regain some energy. I remember what it feels like to have energy. I actually feel like doing something.

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