19^th July

I can’t remember what I did. It’s gone. Organised some buy nothing stuff.

20^th and 21^st July

Sleep in, went to show in the afternoon. Went to Trixs. Ate the bad dinner, woke up vomiting at 4am.

Couldn’t do much didn’t feel like eating.

22^nd

Woke up, walked Clifford.  Mostly rested, still sick after weekend. Cooked dinner, emptied bins.

23^rd

Woke up, blog work. Quotes for insurance. Photos of work to post on Etsy. Washing. Cook dinner. Changed kitty litter. Attempted to get Clifford to run around yard.

I’m sitting here on the 27^th of July looking at the blog posts I didn’t write. Life got way too busy for me. I can feel myself getting more and more tired (if that is the word) as I’ve had to do that bit more since J had her surgery.

Last Saturday (the 20^th) I woke up and felt the best I have felt for some time. It was a good day. I decided to take myself to a show, which was on in the afternoon.  The producer of the show is someone I have been trying to help out/mentor as a drag performer and a person going through lots of changes. They held the show in the afternoon thinking of me, and wanting to be more inclusive of young people (teens).  I made it to the show and it was great to see a few people I hadn’t seen for a while, and even people who are my Facebook friends who I haven’t met or had little chance to talk to. The show itself had lots of young performers, doing stuff on stage for the first time. So that was nice.  I even managed to get dressed for the show. When I say I managed to get dressed, I mean I got out of my track suit for about the second time this winter.

After this I went to my other partner T’s house.  She had made dinner, which we weren’t sure I could eat. She is normally pretty great with my very restricted diet and she had looked up what I could and couldn’t eat.  I was unsure.  We had dinner and we watched an entire Netflix season of some show about glass blowers. It was pretty good.

We went to bed, sort of late. It’s always sort of late for me on Saturday nights, but I do this knowing the consequences – in that I will be ‘extra’ tired/suffering from PEM (post exertion malaise) on Monday/Tuesday.  About 4am I woke up and I thought, ‘I’m going to throw up’. Throw up I did, until every tiny thing that was possibly lurking in my insides had come up.  It was the damn chick peas in the dinner.

I hadn’t ‘properly’ tested if I could eat them or not, but, was pretty sure my tolerance to them is low. Well, now I know I can’t eat any, at all.

As part of my ME/CFS, I have bad food intolerances. I have used the Low *FODMAP diet as a guide for a few years now and it seems to be a good guide for me. It’s not meant to be a permanent diet, it’s meant to be one that you go on for a while, a couple of months say, see how you feel. Then ‘test’ or reintroduce foods from different categories, to work out your intolerances. It’s not one you’re supposed to be on forever. Although I kind of am.

The big ones I can’t have are garlic and legumes – none or I am very ill. I shouldn’t have lactose, I have to have gluten free products, not because of the gluten but because of the fructans that the flours make, which happen to be the same flours that make gluten. I can’t do a range of vegetables, and I can do some but not others. So, I can eat some types of pumpkin but not all types of pumpkin. There’s a bunch of fruit I can’t eat and I think there’s stuff in some soft drinks I can’t have.   I also get bad reflux, which is a separate issue, but it means I can’t have foods/drinks that are too acidic.  So it’s a big balancing act. Most of my main meals are meat and three vegetables, cooked in different ways, if I have the energy.

On the 21^st I was completely wiped out because of the early morning porcelain bus episode.

The 22^nd I was still wiped out from the weekend. I did manage to walk Clifford, I cooked dinner and I emptied the bins. The rest was resting.

The 23^rd was still very quiet. I had very sore stomach muscles and was still quite weak from the vomiting. I did some work on these blogs; Took some photos of my work to post to Etsy; Did some washing; Changed the Kitty litter and cooked dinner.

With these blog posts, I really have only done the things I have said I have done. No other tasks not listed, or activities not listed, except for maybe having showers. I did shower every day. I wanted to write a diary for a week so people could get an idea about what I do with my time.  I do about 5 to 10% of what did before I became ‘fully’ unwell.  It’s really not much compared to my previous life.   I also wanted to just get writing, because I want to write more.

Information on the Low FODMAP diet is here.