Teagan at the beach

I just thought this photo was so fun. It's my dog Teagan at the beach. We celebrated my birthday while my folks were visiting. I made everyone go to the beach for a picnic. I spend so much time home-bound I just wanted to be out near the water. So we went to Mission Marsh which is in town here....but it's lovely. We ate yummy food, cake (wheat-free but importantly chocolate), visited, flew a kite. It was a fairly short (3 hour) outing, but well worth it.

After my parents left I got a cold. Not a bad one, but enough that on my actual birthday I wasn't up to going out. Today's the first day I've felt better from the cold but now the M.E. is back with a vengeance. Fever, fatigue and weakness, painful lymphs, chest ache - same old.

I'm still putting off making a decision about the month long course I'm supposed to do this July. By next Monday I think I'll just decide because the need to buy plane tickets, find summer housing etc. is becoming more pressing. Today my decision is to take medical leave and put it off until next summer. For the last 5 days however, I've tended more towards giving it a go.

I'm starting back with the activity logs my specialist had me keeping for years. I log everything I'm doing including scheduled rests to get an idea of what I'm managing and what is causing me to crash. I'm trying to work at home 2hrs a day. If this seems at my limit or more, then I probably shouldn't go (the course entails more than this even with accommodations - probably in the range of 3 hours class and 3 hours work/reading a day).

My new GP recently ran a slew of tests looking for anything "missed" in the past. As per usual, most tests came back normal. I don't have an autoimmune disease, for example. The only irregularities were a mildly low white blood count (very common for me since the M.E.) and low iron (also an ongoing saga). I can't help but get my hopes up sometime that they might find another answer to why I'm so ill. I'm trying not to hang my hopes on XMRV but boy it would be nice to find out what's made me sick for almost 8 years.

No, I'm not a hypochondriac because I'd like a "positive" blood test and no, I don't really want an incurable retrovirus or an autoimmune disease.....but I would love to know what's making me so sick. And when tests come back normal sometimes it feels like the tests are saying "liar! You're not really sick". I understand that, as my GP and specialist both say, "they just haven't figured this illness out yet". But that doesn't make it any easier to go for years being sick and not really knowing why or having any significant treatment options.