Flat-Out Friday: Just Plain Tired

A joyous Easter weekend to all my readers! I hope each of you have time to spend with your families this long weekend, as our loved ones are the most important things in our lives. This Friday I'd like to relay some events of the last few days, and attempt to explain why I get tired so very easily, even from the simpliest of things.

Our houseguest left on Tuesday, and so Wednesday was a day of relaxation for Matt and I. I started playing my new video game, "Ni No Kuni" (which is absolutely fantastic), and I had a physiotherapy appointment in the afternoon. Simple enough. After physio, I decided to walk down the block to the Rexall and pick up a few things. Halfway there, I slipped on a patch of black ice on the sidewalk and fell. I went down on my left hand and knee. Luckily, I was wearing a jacket and jeans, and they helped cushion the fall, but I was still jarred. I scraped my knee all up and was muddy from there to my ankle.

By the time I went to the Rexall and came home (a round trip of 2 blocks, folks), I was exhausted. Now, I don't mean just plain tired. I mean exhausted. I was on the verge of tears. Every one of my bones hurt. And all from a seemingly simple fall.

My psychiatrist explained it like this: when these things happen, people are hardwired to produce a small amount of adrenaline to get them through the small shock; then, when the adrenaline wears off, we experience a small low, followed by our body's chemicals returning to normal. In my case, the smallest of incidents sets off my adrenaline which rockets up far past the normal range. It spikes for longer than it should, and then crashes down into an extreme low which takes me (what seems like) ages to crawl back out of. Hence, I get exhausted - all the chemicals in my body have gone haywire, and it takes all my strength just to function while they sort themselves out.

Here's me with my feet up at our wedding, a place I stayed most of the night.

Tattoos trigger the same response. Getting inked is actually putting your body in trauma, which triggers the same response as the slip-and-fall. The trauma just lasts longer, so therefore the recovery time is equally extended. Any kind of prolonged travel has the same result; similarly, so does prolonged standing, prolonged sitting, and prolonged walking. For most people, sitting is restful. For me, it's just somewhere else to be uncomfortable. In fact, I cannot think of the last time I was actually comfortable - I wake up from a dead sleep in pain some nights. When I head to the West Edmonton Mall for a walk, the intent is to make my body as tired as possible while getting low-impact exercise. When I'm at a social function and we leave earlier than most people, it's because the standing/sitting/whatever has made me too tired to continue on.

This weekend, I plan on sleeping. A lot. We do have some plans for Easter Monday, but we are taking it easy and gathering strength for next week when Matt is back to Wainwright and I am off to Ontario for a visit with my family.