I woke up at 2:20 am, wide awake. You know the feeling. Thoughts about random nonsense marched through my brain like ants at my sleep picnic. I eventually got myself up and came downstairs for some guilty pleasure: HGTV. I shared the watching with a house centipede walking around my ceiling above me, keeping me company while hunting down the spider population. It was a wary peace. Those things give me the shivers.
Around 3:00, something started rumbling internally. By 3:30 it was full blown intestinal misery. So much for sleeping the rest of the night – I spent it in the bathroom or on the couch next to the bathroom waiting to return to the bathroom. Ulcerative Colitis is no joke. Body? I sincerely apologize for indulging in Pizza Hut one last time yesterday afternoon. I remembered loving it when I was a kid but it’s a mistake I shan’t repeat as an adult. Lesson learned. Pizza Hut (dairy and grease) combined with UC and my lingering cold and cough made for a miserable night.
I needed a good night’s sleep, too. I worked my tail off yesterday cleaning the house preparing it for the baby who didn’t come here. I cleaned off surfaces we haven’t seen in weeks (hi coffee table!), I did dishes, I did laundry, I put away all sorts of detritus in our bedroom and changed the sheets and organized and folded and put away nonstop from 4:15 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
But you know what’s positively exhilarating? I did it. I didn’t nap or stop every 10 seconds to rest. And I didn’t collapse at the end of the day a mere shell of a human. My foot and ankle put up with the abuse remarkably well and I got it done.
This morning at 5:30 when I gave up my cozy spot on the couch for a resentful cup of coffee, I didn’t just sit down. It took me ages to finish even making the coffee because I was absentmindedly cleaning. Coughing, but cleaning. Like I used to. Before foot surgery.
Suddenly I stopped cleaning and wondered: could I possibly be back?!? Is Enbrel going to tackle the fatigue after all? Is this foot actually going to heal?
It won’t be a particularly good day off 6ish hours of sleep last night and this lingering cough and the vague feeling like my guts can’t be trusted, but hot diggety, this newfound hope is going to get me through it.
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