Tuesday 28th February 2017

I’ve not been feeling better fatigue-wise and so, given that I am supposed to have a follow-up hospital appointment 6 weeks after my last one 5 weeks ago, I decided to chase up where the appointment had got to.  I was hoping that it had just got lost in the post, but after spending an age trying to get to the right person, it turns out one has not been booked.  To make matters worse, the next available appointment is in May.
You can probably guess how that made me feel for the rest of the day.  I plan to go back to my GP and speak to a support group who specialise in my rare breed of illness.  Instead of feeling annoyed and pissed off I decided that I’m going to own my treatment rather than just be passive and get lost in the system.  I love the NHS but it’s not very good at dealing with anything non-standard.
I keep reminding myself that having a diagnosis still puts me in a better position than it did a year ago.
My real worry is that I’m not sure what symptoms are actual symptoms or (in the case of the recent fatigue) are just me feeling tired.  I’m not sure just how hard I can push myself and when I need to rest.  I want to push myself really hard this year but not to the point of being ill.
Weirdly, going to the gym tonight, my physical strength was better than normal.  My fatigue seems more mental in nature than physical.  My diet has been pretty steady since the end of November and as a result I’ve seen massive strength gains.  But I need to switch a few things around with my nutrition so come Monday, I’m going to start cutting again.  It should have the benefit of seeing me lose weight and hopefully tightening my abs up for summer but it’ll be interesting to see if the strength progress slows down or not.
Spoke to another writer friend today which cheered me up and took my mind away from illness for a while.  She’s complaining that she has nothing to ask me anymore as it’s all in The Climb.  We were due to meet up on Saturday but things have got in the way so we’ve had to delay.  We were going to have cake so I am a little gutted, especially as I might not be able to have it now with the change in diet.
I got words done, finishing off the scene I’m working on, and am proud that even though the last few weeks have been very stressful, it’s not stopped me making progress.  It often feels (and I’m aware that it can come across as such) that I get little writing done.  Looking at my stats, I got about 35,000 words written in February.  I wanted more a 70k month, hence why I sometimes come across a little frustrated with myself.
But, I think it shows an important point.  Those snatched couple of hundred words here and there all add up.  Even if life throws you a curved ball, those little gains all add up.  35k in a month is still very respectable.
My next task to plan the next scene.  We’re leaving the city this time to go up the coast for a delivery.  Today may be spent reading up about smugglers, and planning some amazing visuals.  I want to plan this scene carefully as I know the next scene is the HUGE action piece I’ve been working towards the last couple of weeks.  I’m super excited about that scene and so don’t want to shortcut this one just to get to it.
I’d just like all the uncontrollable distractions to get out the way so I can get on with the novel.  I think in years to come, if things go well, I’ll be one of these people who takes themselves off somewhere to go write a draft of a novel in 6 weeks or so.
Until then, I’ll continue to battle on!
If you want to follow more of my journey, then be sure to check me on my social channels.  Likewise, if you’d like me to expand on any point mentioned above, please say so in the comments.
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