Saturday, April 12, 2008

Tired of Fatigue

I am tired. I usually have a good attitude, am pretty healthy, and thankful for that, but most of the time I am just tired. I am tired of having MS, tired of staying in most of the time, tired of taking medicine, tired of transferring from chair to bed and back again on a board, tired of sitting down. I am tired of being tired.

Once I read about a man who had MS. His wife and caregiver was healthy, a yoga teacher, and she was the writer. She said her husband stayed in bed most of the time, getting up in his wheelchair only every other day. When he was up, it was for only about three hours. Three out of forty-eight hours did not sound like much.

Now I have to admit, that is all I know. She did not say he was asleep most of the time, or he sat up in bed and had visitors or read or listened to music. She did not say if he preferred staying in bed or longed to be up. I jumped to that conclusion, thought he wanted to be up and about, but sadly, was unable to make that happen. I do not know how he felt, but I was looking at his life through my experience. I thought he was tired. This was a couple of years ago. My experience has expanded a bit.

My tiredness has increased. At first my body was tired, heavy, slow --not all the time, but often enough and long enough. Few days, if any, escaped the feeling as time went by. Fatigue. I am not unique among MSers, nor am I even unusual. MS has so many different symptoms, and few are shared by as many MSers (80%) as fatigue.