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Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Work, Sleep, Repeat again

Lately this is just about it... Work, sleep, repeat-- it does not leave much time for blogging either. Right now,I'm actually still working but I'm just watching the desk at the yoga studio, so it's pretty mellow. The last two days, I stayed at school late. Yesterday, I made parent calls for conferences this week until 5:00, then I drove home, ate and slept. Today I worked, went to a union meeting, worked some more and then came to the studio to work some more. Tomorrow I plan to go in early to meet with a student and then to work a bit more before the day officially starts. The hardest part, honestly, is getting myself out of bed. I can't seem to stop hitting snooze. Tomorrow I'll try to stop doing that and just get up. Maybe there will even be a nap in my afternoon forecast if I'm lucky. Maybe I won't even take work home.

Thursday, I'll spend all day in the salt mines from about 6:30 am until 8:30 pm, because we have parent/teacher conferences. I am dreading that long haul. Ever since my diagnosis, I have yet to make it through the day after conferences without being ill from fatigue. I am going to think positive since it seems I have been training for long days lately (LOL). I also just met another co-worker with MS, so I feel like I might have someone to commiserate with during tough times. She has had the disease for nine years and seems to be doing great. I think she is even busier than me, so I have a good model.

The good news is, I get a three day weekend. Of course, I'm working on Saturday. I am hoping it will be fun. I am presenting a yoga class at a diversity conference for teens. I'm not sure what to expect, but I have my fingers crossed that it will go well.

Sunday will be mostly about sleep. If I can get anything done during conferences, maybe I will work less this weekend. Last weekend, I worked at least eight hours on stuff for school, taught two yoga classes, and cleaned my house. I did watch about four episodes of "Dexter" while I worked. This made it all a little less painful. The rest of my time, I slept. I slept about twelve hours between Friday and Saturday, napped three hours on Saturday, slept another nine hours Saturday night and then took a two hour nap on Sunday. Many people with MS may be asking how I have been managing to do so much. Look how much I slept :) I admit that when I am working or commuting, I spend a lot of time fantasizing about my next nap.

Overall, I have been feeling decent, just tired, but I am having an irritating side-effect from my Copaxone. The lymph nodes under my arm and breast are swollen and hardened. I called Shared Solutions and they told me to call the doctor. Do you think I did? When I get a minute, I'll get right on that. Maybe tomorrow? I don't want him to suggest I try a new medication. I would like to stick with my Copaxone while I have to work all the time. It doesn't seem like too big a deal, so I am hoping the doctor will tell me to stay the course... Anybody else have this problem with their Copaxone? I know it's the drug, because when I took a few days off, the lymph nodes went back to normal and this side-effect is reported by some other folks on Copaxone.

These days, I'm trying to remain as positive and present as I can. I am truly just living one day at a time, but that keeps things more manageable.

Today I am thankful to have enough energy to maintain this schedule so far. I am also thankful to have the comforts that I am lucky enough to have.

3 comments:

Robert Parker said...

Oh, I hear you... I'm fighting the Deadly Omnipresent Fatigue while teaching school, myself. I've been fending it off with SMALL amounts of good-quality chocolate and, when I need the big guns, Starbuck's green tea latte (made from powdered Japanese green tea)--no sweetener, but one pump raspberry. Color's awful, flavor's great. Go for the chocolate or the tea when the fatigue starts to creep up on you, you have a prayer of fending it off. Good luck!

Webster said...

Nadja, I don't do much of anything physical during the day, and I regularly need at least nine hours sleep. So, if you can be as active as you are during the week, and play catch up on weekends, that's great!

I would at least put in a call re: the lymph node swelling to your doc. It should be noted on your file.

Herrad said...

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Love
Herrad