Sometimes There Is Roulade

I’m still learning to re-manage my expectations of myself.

Earlier this year, Something Happened that landed me in the emergency department, which is when I got diagnosed with adrenal insufficiency. It looks as though I’ve been having adrenal issues for a long time as my pituitary degraded over the years, but in April, something went badly wrong and things have been Not Great since then as far as my cortisol levels (and everything else levels) are concerned. Working out the right doses of hydrocortisone and how to get my other levels of Stuff under control is difficult. At the moment, I’m still struggling with intense fatigue, physical weakness, brain fog that leads to pretty nasty aphasia, and – it’s not *hunger*, but if I don’t eat a pretty substantial amount, I feel really rubbish.

The trouble is, I still expect myself to be able to do what I was doing two years ago, before the bursitis threw me for a loop and before whatever happened in April happened. I just can’t do that, though. It’s been pointed out to me (by zombies, she said, using passive voice) that I’m essentially operating in a state of sleep deprivation all the time, and that being tired is hard, so I need to stop being so hard on myself, and that actually hit home. I don’t know why “you’re always tired, so take it easy” is easier for me to take in than “you’re chronically ill, so take it easy”, but it is.

No, wait, I do know why. Society makes disabled people feel like they’re lazy all the hecking time because society fetishises productivity to a dangerous extent. I have many Thoughts about this.

Anyway.

I have been working on tempering my expectations of myself. Right now, my job is working on getting to grips with my medications and the supplements and suchlike I need to keep my potassium and electrolytes and all of that stupid necessary stuff in balance. (It turns out that your pituitary is responsible for most of that. Whoops.) It’s okay that I spend most of my time playing computer games and sleeping and planning for the crafting stuff I want to do when I’m feeling more energetic.

This morning, though, I felt… okay. Sort of okay. Okay enough to do some baking. So I made a banana meringue roulade. Then I was exhausted and needed to take a nap, but now there is banana meringue roulade, so things are not all bad.