Cycles

For whatever reason, I often post when I'm feeling pretty sick.
Usually in the afternoon on a bad day. The last two days I've been feeling decent and I've been out of the house both days. So I thought I'd post now rather then when the crash hits (if it does).

I think I write when I'm feeling especially sick because it's a release .....as many of you who read this know through personal experience, there can be a cathartic effect when writing about how difficult it is to suffer chronic illness. Sometimes after writing, I feel like I've let go of something, but also that I may have connected - that I'm not alone, and I've sent my voice out into the great universe (or Internet as the case may be).

Morning is my best time of day. I always feel the least sick about an hour after I wake up. This is usually the time when I do some work if I have some to do (reading, editing, marking, writing).

My experience with this illness is an experience of cycles.

I have daily cycles - morning OK (or least sick) with increasing fatigue over the end of the morning into the afternoon, usually peaking in the 3-5 pm period. After 6pm I start to pick up a bit. I feel better than the afternoon, but still sicker than the a.m.

During the week I also have good and bad days...this can relate to how much I've been doing and if I crash, generally it's about 36 hours after an activity.

Then there's the yearly cycle...I got sick on the weekend of June 15th, 2002 and for the first several years during the fall I thought I was "getting better" only to be thrown into some-kind of relapse later in the winter. After 8 years I think I have enough evidence to support my observation that I seem to pick up every fall and then get worse sometime in the winter (late Dec., January, or Feb). My worst months generally seem to be March and or April.

For as long as I can remember, I've felt a connection and draw towards the natural world. I don't need to go into a history of me, but I spent much of my childhood outdoors playing in the fields, ponds and woods near our home. This love and passion led me to pursue degrees in outdoor recreation and natural science as well as a career in outdoor environmental education (for 8 of those years as a wilderness guide working mostly with youth).

As someone who spent so many years outdoors, I was (and still am - although less so) aware of nature's many cycles. The cycles of the moon and the sun for instance, or the cycle of the seasons. If you stop to think about it, we live in a world of circles or cycles. The earth cycles (rotates) and revolves (circles) around the sun. Life itself is a cycle - birth through death - and when things die and decay they serve to nourish other forms of life through their circle.

So I guess it doesn't surprise me, looking at the big picture, that whatever this illness is, I experience it in cycles. And I'm not alone. Sue at "learning to live with CFS" http://livewithcfs.blogspot.com/2010/12/laura-hillenbrand-in-elle.html
was mentioning a similar daily pattern to mine on her blog last week. However, there seems to be all kinds of variety within the M.E. community. People, for instance who never feel well, or never seem to have a "better" time of day or month. Or others who have an opposite daily pattern to mine - that is, they feel sicker in the morning and best in the afternoon.

If and when this illness ever gets figured out, I don't expect we'll all end up classified as having the same disease. In fact, I barely fit some of the descriptions as it is. I was diagnosed in the U.S.A. with the Fukunda criteria and then when I moved back to Canada with the Canadian Clinical Definition. But when I look at it, it's a stretch http://www.cfids-cab.org/MESA/ccpccd.pdf (for example, my neurocognitive issues are minor and I have no pain outside of throat and lymph nodes).