How I Am

Several lovely people keep checking in with me to see how I am. I think they mean "How I am feeling" as opposed to say, "How I am still alive after everything that has happened these past couple of months", although frankly that feels like a relevant question too.

The answer is "Ok". And also, "I don't know".

I'm able to attend to most of my daily needs- showering, toileting, getting dressed, eating and drinking, entirely independently. I can walk without help and without falling down. I can even manage the stairs with my trusty crutch. I left the house for the first time yesterday and that was totally fine. So really, when I think about it, I'm doing ok.

Certainly compared to this time 2 weeks ago, when a bruised and defeated version of myself lay in a bed on AMU hooked up to the magical 2nd dose of immunoglobulins that seemed to kick start my recovery. In fact some days when people ask me how I am, I feel like resorting to hyperbole and images flash through my mind of me cartwheeling around the room shouting "Spectacular!" and "Superb!" because physically, although I'm probably only about 85% back to normal, compared to how bad I was I feel about a million times better.

On the other hand, when people ask me how I am, I feel stumped. A simple question leads to a spiral of confusion. At any given point in time I find it almost impossible to identify a singular emotion that would cover my current state of being.

I feel genuine happiness at being home and reunited with Chris and my boys. I feel so much gratitude and huge crashing great waves of relief at how well my recovery is going. I feel stressed about our impending house move, and frustrated at the timing and how inconvenient it is and how little help I can be on a practical level. Although there is also a tinge of excitement mixed in there, of fresh starts and new beginnings. I feel worried about family and friends, who have their own struggles and who's battles, unlike my own are not yet definitely won. I feel terrified that this may yet turn out to be only an interlude in my own battle and that my symptoms might come back or I might wake up one day to find I can't move again.  I feel sad about the loss of our baby, about the plans we made that now won't be and the space in our future that now waits to be filled, or not. And occasionally I feel overwhelmingly and irrationally angry. I'm talking pure unapologetic rage. Towards people, towards things, towards life itself. It comes out of nowhere and in a flash it's gone again, leaving me wondering if a side effect of IVIG therapy is some kind of Banner-esque transformation.

The fatigue aspect of recovering from Guillan-Barre has been spectacular. Always inclined towards narcolepsy, in the sense that I have an ability to fall asleep any time any place (a distinct advantage when it comes to juggling shift work and motherhood) I now find myself like a cat. Delighted to be alive and yet unable to fully appreciate what life has to offer because I need to spend about 16 hours of every 24 asleep. Waking up is a several hours long process compared to getting to sleep which doesn't even require my eyes to be closed before the process begins.

Today I didn't get out of bed until 10am. I spent most of the afternoon sat on the sofa in my pyjamas wrapping ornaments and picture frames in bubble wrap and placing them in a box because it was the most "helpful and yet restful" thing I could think to do. Even so by teatime I was unreasonably exhausted and I fell asleep whilst putting Toby to bed, before even he himself went to sleep and woke up an hour or so later, summoning up just enough energy to transfer myself into my own bed before zonking out again.

Admittedly I'm awake now but that's only because Chris came to check where the hell I had got to and his presence in the room woke me up (and scared the shit out of me) so I decided to sit and drink some ribena and potter a little on my phone before falling asleep at a slightly more reasonable hour for someone (well) over the age of eight.

When I think of how I used to spend entire days from 6am until 7.30pm in sole charge of the kids and then go work a busy night shift before getting back home at 8am and then sometimes sleeping for a couple of hours or maybe not at all before continuing where I left off with shopping and cooking and cleaning and playing etc. It's hard for me to comprehend how I was even still alive.

These days all I can manage is some light packing and/or childcare duties (after about 12 hours sleep) and I'm done for. It's like getting used to a whole new pace of life. Pace being the operative word and something I think I am going to struggle with because I like everything doing yesterday and find it difficult to differentiate between urgent and non urgent tasks. Chris calls it "impulse control issues" as it often leads to me undertaking ridiculous tasks at the most inopportune times because I can't bear to just let it go for another minute. I know I am going to have to learn though if I want to keep the momentum going with my recovery without setting myself back. It's just going to be hard.

So, if you ask me "How I am" and it takes me a few minutes to formulate a reply. Or indeed if my reply is a garbled nonsensical string of words, then you'll understand why.