scotiadair

Last week I found myself praying, for the first time in my life. This was a very surprising experience, to say the least, as I've never been a "religious" person; "spiritual" would be more accurate. This need to pray appeared to be propelled by a deep and irresistible compulsion, coming from a depth of my soul that I find difficult to access normally. It's an experience that is strange to admit to.  I've done rather well taking things in my stride, approaching the obstacles in my path, making adaptations, staying focussed and positive, maintaining sanity in the face of the mammoth changes and limitations that have been forced on me by chronic illness. Yes, I've let myself have my down days, my angry days, my lonely days. But on that particular evening, I very suddenly and very viscerally felt this absolutely negating sense of despair that I could do nothing about. Apart from pray to the Cosmos, the Universe that connects us all.  It is glaringly...

Last weekend I attended the Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival , an event that is a personal highlight of my year. It is more of a concerted ritual than New Year's Eve or Valentine's Day, possibly even Christmas. It's a highlight because it is so inspiring and uplifting that each year I leave reinforced by the shared stories of adventure and being human in nature. It nurtures my desires to live more adventurously. I've always had background dreams of being a sponsored outdoor athlete climbing, running, cycling, kayaking, freediving around the world, and being able to document my loves - be it geopolitics, environmental conflict, species conservation, anthropology or simply human connections with the natural world...you get the gist - through writing, films and photographs.  National Geographic. Royal Geographical Society. The North Face. Oh yea, baby! Living my dreams - freediving in Southern Spain, 2013  © When I quit my corporate career job i...

Today has been a bad day. Another worst in a series of progressively bad days, weeks, months, years. Today I went for a 30 minute walk with a friend, which was a big achievement as it's the first I've been able to get out for a walk in a couple of weeks, and it involved some stairs, which I mastered. We watched a kestrel hovering just above us, mastering the gusts of wind. The air was crisp and fresh, the burn was bubbling and alive, the birdsong elevated in the cool temperatures. When we returned to the car I saw that the back passenger window had been smashed in and my laptop and external harddrive taken from the inside of the car. Now, it's been a tough time recently. Let me just list some the things that have happened in the last 6 months: I've been off sick from work for six months now, unable to work or live and enjoy my life as I would like to. My sick pay is about to end, so I won't have an income from next week. Treatment for ME through the NHS is...

It's been over four months since my last post. When I wrote my last entry, Losing My Mind , I was still working full-time, trying to make things work and get through my days. I had tried to keep some relationship with my bike - and therefore some sense of freedom - but through the harsh realities of this illness I was shown in no uncertain way that I couldn't do it. My life was whittled down to simply trying to get to work and make it through the day. I came home and went straight to bed. There were no reserves left to make dinner, or spend time with friends, or go for a walk. My tank was empty. Whilst I was starting to accept some of the illness, particularly the very many symptoms, I was still struggling to accept that drastic changes were needed. I was still powering through. I spent a few weeks trying to work from home for three days a week, to alleviate the pressure to perform in the office, and to allow myself invaluable extra time in bed in the morning and space to...

Over the last few months, one of my neurological symptoms has been degenerating noticeably quickly. It is noticeable - and most distressing - because it involves something that I rely on every day, and which has been my biggest asset throughout my life. My brain. So called "brain fog" is one of the most characteristic features of ME, and distinguishes it from the "chronic fatigue syndrome" that most people have heard about or think ME is. It is literally what it says on the tin: my brain feels foggy, sluggish, dusty, decaying. At the start of 2013 I first noticed that I was finding it harder to concentrate for longer periods of time. Then, it became harder to multitask. Pre-diagnosis, I attributed these things to lots going on in my life.  But this year, things are changing rather rapidly. Over the last few months, I've started having more worrying signs. I appear unable to keep doing one task. I get sidetracked completely into doing somethi...

For the past 24 hours I've been locked in a bit of a battle with myself. A few of the girls at work - myself included thus far - are heading out to the local hills after work today, for an easy ride around the reservoirs. It is mostly flat firetrack, with two "short" climbs. The idea is that it will be a leisurely mountainbike to balance out the normal downhilling and long hours out that we normally do when the boys are in the group. I've been out on my bike three times since November last year, all of which proved to be a bit too much in one go. When I say too much, they have all been between 10-20km - which for the old me is a warmup, nothing more. My brain says this is nothing, but my body has been telling me otherwise.  So right now, I'm locked in a battle of my mind and body. My mind is fighting to go out, for two reasons.  Firstly, I've really not spent any time on my bike since before winter, the weather is now perfect, and I'm absolutely itch...

Despite having (unknowingly) lived with many of the symptoms of ME for the last 12 years, the drastic downward trend in my wellbeing and increasing symptom severity over the last year that led to my diagnosis in January didn't really rock my boat all that much. I had just pushed through it all, stubbornly kept going. It wasn't until my first appointment at the ME-CFS Service at the hospital that things really began to sink in. In what has been my longest NHS appointment ever, I spoke for over two hours with my appointed specialist physiotherapist about my clinical history, symptoms old and new, and other related info. To date, my symptoms, whilst many, had all felt individual, and not part of one big "thing". Finding them linked to the same origin - my ME - was overwhelming. I felt like I had just been handed a death sentence. It was so apparent that there were many things - like my sports - that I simply could not do without making myself feel worse. In the coupl...