Tips, tricks, and life hacks for living with ME/CFS

I did a talk for my local support group. Here's a video of it. CW: discussion of suicide risk towards the end of the video. There may be other sensitive topics too, but I don't remember what I covered at the moment. I did a talk on tips, tricks, and life hacks for people with …

Heads it wins, tails I lose

Am I depressed or flaring? I'm tired and can't get the energy to do anything. I feel sick. I have a headache. My stomach hurts. My mood is low and I'm having panic attacks and anxiety. I can't get to sleep but when I do I can't wake up. I want to cry but can't. …

Why would you willingly risk becoming like me?

I'm so baffled by vaccine reluctance, especially in populations old enough to remember polio. Covid causes long term damage and disability in a devastatingly high proportion of the infected. Severe-acute-respiratory-syndrome-Coronavirus-disease-2019, aka SARS-COV-2, AKA Covid-19 attacks the organs, blood vessels, and nerves. It's not just a respiratory infection, it's a systemic disease. We are seeing data …

I’m out of lockdown, so now you can buy me a coffee.

While the rest of the world is seeing continued growth of COVID-19 cases, I'm safe in my bubble in the South Pacific. New Zealand spent 5 weeks in what appears to be one of the strictest lockdowns worldwide, a few more at what seems to be the most common version of lockdown, then 2 weeks …

Covid-19 update

I haven't posted in a while. It's been a weird couple of months, and I just haven't had the brain space to form a coherent sentence. I'm not sure I have a coherent post to write today, but I want to address a couple of things - covid and ME/CFS (triggers, the future, and my …

There’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza: failures of mobility aides to give independence

I went to an accessibility expo today. It was a bunch of companies promoting mobility aides and other accessibility and disability related equipment and services. While I was there I started pondering something that keeps coming up when I look at accessibility generally, anId for mobility aides for myself... It's like the old woman who …

I want my life back.

Feeling low. I know my vit D dose is due tomorrow, so some of it will definitely relate to that. So tired. So anxious... Sad... Scared... Tired... Frustrated... Sick. Everything hurts. I can feel almost normal after sufficient rest, but doing something as little as sitting up and eating puts me back into ME mode …

Virtual ME sanity

I was having a conversation recently about how isolating ME can be, especially for my severely ill friends, when the person I was speaking to said something that got me pondering: "Social media must have made life so much more connected for people who are unwell. I can't imagine the isolation prior to email, computers …