Storytime with Rachel F Hundred

When your body simply does not co-operate with your plans.

Two weeks ago, I reset my plans.

The bid work was over and I was back to my transformation work, back to the coaching and training in my own business, and back to slowly getting my writing groove up and running again.

It was going to be a busy first week back on plan, there was a lot of travel in the mix, but there was a plan. Mostly it was a plan that I managed to follow right up until the end of the first week when my body pretty much fell over in a heap. I pretty much needed a complete day of rest.

I gave myself grace.

It had been a ferociously intensive time since my family vacation at the beginning of July. My chronic illnesses had flared during that time. My body was still recovering. A rest day was warranted and I had already booked the day as an extra day of leave to give myself a really long bank holiday weekend.

I slept most of that day. Exhaustion seeped out of my bones and into my body like the tentacles of an octopus unravelling, clamping on, and sucking me under. I surfaced to feed the cat, feed myself, and nothing more than that.

I woke up the following day with all the signs of an early virus burrowing in. Sure a lot of the symptoms might have been my existing conditions, but I know the difference. I know the difference between achy bones, painful joints, and a foggy head when it is chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia, and when the same is the trumpeting herald of a virus. Moreover, my stomach was achy in that pre-nausea upset kind of way that made me a little uneasy to eat.

I tried to head the illness off and took another rest day. Maybe if I simply stayed still enough the virus would go away.

I awoke on Sunday early with a painful stomach flu. The next couple of days disappeared in a haze of fever, shivers, not eating because I didn’t want to upset my stomach, eating something bland with the hopes to get some energy. It was a miserable forty-eight hours.

I did not return to work. I took another two days off. I slowly tried to get some normalcy back in my diet. Chronic fatigue means I rely on nutrition as a core part of my energy intake with so little fuel, it was flaring badly. I cancelled an upcoming training delivery knowing I was not going to be able to make it. But I somehow managed to claw back enough energy to try to return to work partly on Thursday for a priority piece of work to get done.

While I was successful at getting it done, it cost me another day because Friday I woke up with a severe fatigue headache. I was down for the count again.

Luckily, I was starting to tolerate food and to eat normally again.

This weekend I’ve focused on getting my house back in order again. Having done a great warrior clean just before writing my last log, I’ve had to do another this weekend. I’ve paced myself though, given myself grace to rest in between tasks.

It’s the end of August and I have to admit that this month just has not gone the way I’d hoped. My body has not co-operated, but equally I know I pushed it too hard.

What does this mean? Unsurprisingly, my writing projects got shelved again this past week while I’ve focused on just getting myself fit to work. But there is a new month ahead.

My priority right now has to be getting my health back on track. That is the number priority for me in September.

There is work to be done, both on the transformation contract, and I need to regroup on the training contract this week, but I should not be so massively busy and pressurised that I cannot write every day even if it is only a hundred words. That’s my goal. Write every day.

I’d like to get Another Dimension done and published, but realistically I will write what I’m in the mood to write, whatever captivates me in the moment I sit down to write.

And even with this plan, the priority is my health. WIthout it I cannot achieve my dreams, and this July and August have shown me exactly why I need to focus on the long-term ambition of shifting my career to writing and reducing my reliance on consultancy work to pay the bills.

I said last time I’d reset as often as I need to in order to make my dream happen. Here I am again. Hopefully this time I pace myself better and my body comes along for the ride.

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