I'm already tired tomorrow!

 Recently, I had a conversation with a loved one about my continued fatigue.  I kind of thought people knew.  

Yes, I nap regularly even though I get 12 hours of sleep sometimes.  No matter how much or how little sleep I get of any quality, life still makes me extremely tired.  Doctors have explained it this way.  I still have to think about every single thing I do.  Every step takes careful planning still. Dinner still has to be sequenced.  I have lost the reserve to push past the fatigue.  It is simply gone! I have all new pathways and some of them are still a bit bumpy.  Oh how I try not to make a brain Injury my excuse for everything but I do have limits different than most. Whether you think I do or not. The filing cabinet in my brain has been dumped and I am still searching for all the papers carried off by the wind. Imagine how tired you would be if your brain didn't filter out light and noise and touch. If you felt like you were constantly in a game of dodge ball with all these things and also had to carry on like "normal". Carry on like nothing was constantly bombarding you.  Nobody knows the actual extent of damage the aneurysm caused.  There are no studies of survivors of burst aneurysms. Doctors would tell you those people don't exist.  Blood touching brain cells outside a vessel  kills them.  That is what they do know.  My head was filled with blood, this we also know.  Reports state I have, "significant cognitive deficits."  

Another loved one just this week, "but you'd never know you were struggling right now." Another Mercy on my life, for short periods of time I do rather well not showing the actual struggle.  But tune in and you'll notice it.  My left hand will curl tighter and tighter.  I'll struggle with balance, I huff more often or sound out of breath.  I begin to answer everything with, "I don't know." My left leg shakes and I start to loose eye contact when people are talking.  I desperately search for words and call things by the wrong names.  We all do it.  I just do it more now than I ever used to.  Nothing irritates me more than someone telling me I don't have a problem or it isn't as bad as theirs simply because they can't see me struggling.  I've been accused of not having the same degree of struggle and honestly, who really knows.  Perhaps I just have stronger coping mechanisms from working with autistic children. Perhaps, it's a good day for me. Perhaps, we have a different definition of struggle! My dad always said, "don't compare yourself to others."  I'm tired. I struggle whether you see it or not.  There are many times it is just worth the struggle.  It is worth the nausea, brain fog, headache and a body full of nerves that feel on fire. It is worth the left side tone and frustration. My mom reminded me of the words of the young missionary, Elizabeth Elliott.  If you don't know her story you really should look it up!!  Her husband was killed by the people they went to serve.  When her husband was killed they were very young and she had a baby to care for still in a foreign country.  When she asked what she was going to do, a wise person told her, "do the next thing." 

The 'survivor tree' in NYC (another great story)

So, every moment we just "do the next thing," whatever that is.