Fatigue and Fog



     I lost a bunch of weight and have kept it off for a year now.  With the weight loss, my sleep apnea receded.  Unfortunately the fog and fatigue from my fibromyalgia (which I didn't have before the accident that gave me my traumatic brain injury) remains.  So although I am no longer sleep-walking through life, I just don't have the energy that I used to.  On top of that, I have various aches or trigger points which seem to be diagnostic of the fibro.

     Unlike some unknown to me percentage of folks with fibro who treat it with prescribed drugs, I take no drugs for my fibro.  I deal with mine through a combination of exercise and extra rest.  There are days when I force myself to get up out of bed.  There are days when I suddenly have to take a nap.  And there are a few days where nothing much at all gets done.

     The brain fog I combat by the little cognitive games I find on the net-- use your search engine and type in "brain games" if you want to try them-- which are designed for kids but do force me to think in a logical manner.  I also do research for a few of my blogs as well as sudoku.  From time to time when I get stuck on a problem, I ask myself what a logical person would do.  If I cannot come up with any thoughts on that one, I call up a logical person and ask them for ideas.

     One of the things that I have learned throughout my brain injury is that there are times when I have to say "enough."  When there are events in life which yield more stress, then I have to cut back someway somehow somewhere so I don't get all twittified.  An example is that my list of daily todos has gotten shorter over necessity.  Another example is that when I feel burned out, I know that is not the time to volunteer to help other folks.  The energy just isn't there.  When I take on too much, I pay for it.  I hung up my superman cape some years ago.  After my brain injury, I kicked it to the curb.

     If I don't take care of myself, then I cannot be of service to others.  If I say yes to every little request that comes along, then I get fatigued and brain dead.  If I never say no, then my yeses won't mean anything.

     I suppose some folks learn all of this without having had a brain injury.  I was a go-getter who kept going long beyond any reasonable person would have gone.  Keeping my health as my first priority means I can no longer live the way that I used to.

sapphoq healing tbi