Fatigue

Dealing with fatigue is horrific, you can be extremely hyper or happy for half a day but if you walk the smallest bit or get woken up ridiculously early your brain just shuts down, it's literally like the exhaustion after you've had a night out wearing heels, but I deal with it everyday. When I walk I have to physically think about; how my leg bends, how I move my hip and it gets so much worse when people try and talk to me while I'm walking, you've then got too; try and listen, think of what to say, remind yourself of where you are. If it's really busy in town or where I am, I literally get so frustrated because you then have to think about not bumping into people and how to react if you see someone you know, do I pretend I'm really happy? After my life's been destroyed by a nurses mistake of misjudging all my symptoms, do I pretend I actually know them? I only recognise faces now I genuinely don't remember anyone from before my stroke. So if I give you a confused look, that's why... 

I get so annoyed when I've planned to have a lay in and someone's like 'yeah meet at 9/10' because you'll get the worst of me, not the best and I try so hard to give everyone the best part of me, to give you something to just feel like I haven't wasted your time. If I feel my fatigue getting bad, I put music on, or just sing in my head which to be honest makes it worse, because I get thinking about all the lyrics. So don't moan to me that you're tired, when fatigue is literally impossible to deal with, Infact it's worse than loosing the use of an arm, because it's like your brains walking off to meet a bed but your heads telling you that you need to stay awake to please the person your with. If I'm tired you can tell; my face starts dropping and my arm drops, as if I've just had my stroke also I'll tell you I'm tired. Or I go really quiet and try to stop taking anything in, just because I'll fall into a heap on the floor and happily fall asleep.