What do you do when the number of people in your household not dealing with a debilitating chronic illness drops to zero? If you’re anything like me, the answer is Read A Book. The book in this case was The Fatigue Book by Lydia Rolley, who not only worked for many years in an NHS fatigue clinic, but had previously recovered from CFS herself, i.e. She Knows What She’s Talking About.
We decided to launch a Recovery Plan based on her advice. The key principles are simple – flatten out the rollercoaster of energy highs and lows by setting a baseline of activity which you can do on good days and bad without wearing yourself out. Not unlike Goldilocks, you’re looking for not too much and not too little. As your energy improves, you can gradually increase the baseline.
But first we had to have our house mostly replumbed and rewired. (Long story; take my advice and be highly suspicious of any hissing noises in or near your walls.) In mid-May last year, we were finally able to begin resting. Which was absolute bliss, as long as you didn’t look too closely – or in some cases at all – at all the things which had to be set aside until baselines improved. (Set aside in the metaphorical sense. One cannot, alas, actually set aside an unvacuumed carpet, nor a thickly dustcoated windowsill.)
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