I’m So Tired Today!
Who’s dealing with fatigue today? This girl. Boy, did I pick the right day to talk to you guys about this!
This morning I woke up after 7 hours of decent sleep and I felt pretty OK despite the more-often-than-not sour stomach (what I not-so-affectionately refer to as transplant belly). No headache, and a little sleepy, but overall decent.
After some coffee and breakfast, I tackled planning my day. Meal prep, shower, grocery store, exercise, blog writing, and making dinner.
An Analogy About Dealing with Fatigue
In 2003 Christine Miserandino wrote an essay called “The Spoon Theory.” In this essay, she describes how she explains to her friend while out to eat how she lives with lupus every day. She used a bouquet of 12 spoons she had gathered up from nearby tables to help illustrate her struggles. For every task she completes in her day, she uses spoons. A shower requires a spoon. Dressing requires a spoon. Working might require five spoons, and she only started with 12. She also told her friend that she could use some of the next day’s spoons, but then that would leave her at a deficit. The object was to show her how she had to think about every little thing she did.
Fatigue After Transplant
With a transplant, you often trade your original disease (in my case liver disease) for living with a transplant. Even though many people who receive a transplant go on to live relatively normal lives, I would be lying if I said everything is always roses.
Every day I am grateful that I received a second chance. Every. Single. Day. I’m grateful I get to see my kids grow, that I met my husband, that I spent quality time with my grandma before she passed away.
With that said, I also experience many challenges. And I know I’m not alone in this. As I’ve already said, I wake up most mornings feeling, well, yucky. I poop out (very technical term there) easily most of the time and usually go to bed feeling achy and exhausted.
I’m Not Always Dealing With Fatigue
Some days though, I wake up, feel great, and seem to have energy to spare. It’s as though I’ve started my day with 18 spoons in my arsenal!
As transplant recipients, we go through every day being just a little more alert than your average “healthy” person. We must be mindful of what we eat, where we eat, and how it is cooked. Our awareness of people we may be around who are sick is heightened. We constantly wash our hands and keep our distance (although COVID has certainly brought us some company in that area). Without exception, we have to take our medications on time all the time. We often carry concerns about sickness, infections, and rejection. These are all things we face regardless of the organ we’ve received.
How to Manage When You’re Fatigued
So what do I do? Well, for starters, I take stock of my spoons each day. Most mornings, I tackle things that require very little physical activity like planning, computer work or reading. Then, as my energy level comes up a little, I tackle the larger tasks. On top of that, I always keep in mind all of the things I want to get done in a day. In doing so I (fingers crossed) do not run out of spoons before the day’s end.
Today, I woke up feeling pretty decent so I planned my day and started on it. After my shower, I went to the grocery store. My relatively small grocery run was stressful and I was physically and emotionally exhausted because of COVID. The whole ordeal took two hours after getting home and cleaning everything off. I decided to do a little bit of yoga to calm my mind and stretch instead of Pilates (because yoga uses less spoons and re-energizes me). Then I sat down for lunch and settled in to write a little about fatigue.
I still have dinner to make, but I rearranged my meals for the week. This left me with a much simpler meal to prepare tonight. Because grocery shopping took more spoons than I anticipated, it was the right move to make.
Realistic and Flexible When Dealing With Fatigue
As much as I would love to be Wonder Woman (pretending I was her as a kid was one of my favorite things), the fact is I can only do what my body will let me do. And I want to be sure I have spoons for tomorrow too.
We all have our limitations and some can manage better than others can. But once you know what those limitations are, it’s ok that you have them and that you give yourself a break when you reach your threshold.
Learn to be flexible with yourself and allow yourself to step back when you need to. It will only help you in the end. You’ve been given a second chance and nobody is going to get extra points for quantity of accomplishments over quality.
After all, as Mr. Graft Diaries says, “We are human beings, not human doings.”
