Fatigue

Unless you suffer from extreme fatigue, you can't imagine how it rules your life. Fatigue is one of the symptoms of both Gaucher disease and Parkinson's, so I am cursed twice and unlike Cinderella who gets to stay out till midnight, I'm lucky if I make it to 10 p.m. Maybe this is because I don't own a pair of glass slippers, or have a fairy Godmother, but I'm pretty sure it's down to receiving bad DNA. I normally start to fade around 8 p.m. and try to stay awake until 10 p.m. at the very least, before I flop into bed. My head barely touches the pillow and I'm asleep, only to awake several hours later by insomnia and then whilst everyone else in my household are tucked up in bed, blissfully in the land of nod, I write or recently have taken to baking in the wee hours. If I get six hours sleep at night, it’s a miracle, but usually its less.

I try to rest in the afternoons, my eyes desperately stinging and if I am particularly exhausted I may be lucky and drop off for an hour. Around this time of day, for some strange reason, it is often with great irritation that the phone rings, waking me after having only just fallen asleep. When I hear the voice of the automated cold call, I slam the receiver down, as if making my exasperation known loud and clear, but let's face it, the company don't know or care who they are disturbing. I don't think anyone listens to what they are saying or trying to sell. I wish there was a way of blocking these annoying calls. Now wide awake and angry knowing I'll not get back to sleep, I resort to getting up and making a cup of tea. Most things seem better once you've had a nice cup of tea. I don't know if it's a British thing, but in any disaster, crisis or moment of desperation, there is something distinctly soothing in having a cup of tea.