Brain fog like Cleavers
climbs the hypothalamus,
choking thought's movement.
The haiku above describes exactly what brain fog feels like as a writer. It is like a heavy cotton wool in your head, slowing down everything to a standstill and choking out that which you rely upon for your existence; inspiration and the movement of thought.
Even writing this short blog and haiku feels a lot like swimming against a strong tide, and when you add severe nausea into the mix from my gut condition... well let's just say it is a combo that would floor anyone. I don't care who you are, in fact, the higher achievers and 'hype men' would kill themselves rather than live this way, as I have, for the best part of 10 years.
I personally think that those who go through chronic illness and find some way out of it are some of the strongest people in the world mentally, all the 'pain is just weakness leaving your body' dipshits haven't got a clue what they're talking about... because when that pain is every day for decades (at differing levels) they can't even conceive what that means. When there is no solution, and you just have to live with it; staying positive is a herculean task.
I have written in the past about my chronic condition when it had a name - SIBO (a post that got over 10000 views on medium before I removed it because they didn't pay me a penny through their partner program). But over the last two years, the 'expert' consultants at my local hospital have slowly come to a consensus that they haven't got a clue what has caused my condition, or what to call it, and have now promised to refer me to the CFS department, a referral to which I am still waiting to receive an appointment letter .
Chronic fatigue syndrome is one of the ultimate 'nothing diagnoses' as they have no way of curing it, and only slight advancing knowledge about where/how it is caused.
In my case, it is obvious that it's caused by initial gut problems that started over 8 years ago (originally diagnosed as IBS), which has now evolved over the years, changing and becoming less or more severe as gastroenterologists threw antibiotics at the problem. The upshot is that my gut microbiome has essentially been nuked, destroying all bacteria at the time of antibiotic impact.
I'm assuming the migration of bacteria into my small intestine (a place where there should be little or no bacteria - pls follow the following link to learn more research on the gall bladder's role in regulating the Small bowel) has now become a colony, and this contributes a large part to my nausea, fatigue and brain fog.
But the 'specialist' wants to hear none of this because traditional medicine treats only the symptoms, not the root causes unless they're easily identifiable.
So... I and millions of other people with so-called 'mystery illnesses' continue to suffer every day, due in part to the arrogance of medical specialists to even consider following alternative or holistic approaches in cases where their taught methodology has failed.
I have gone into appointments in the past with massive folders of research (all from NCBI (national library of medicine) or other medically recognized sources) and have either been shot down, ignored or gaslighted by my gastroenterologist.
Anyway, most of the time I can just wait out the flare-ups, and battle through nausea for the weeks/months it lasts to reach the 2-week respite that usually comes. But today I'm feeling near the end of my tether with it all, so I thought maybe just letting all the frustration out on the page might help.
I'm not sure it has, maybe a little.
All I know is I'm now exhausted from writing something that should have taken me an hour max, including editing/polishing the poem and been an undertaking of joy.
This gets to the heart of what can be so frustrating about chronic illness; it so often means you can't function at all, or even if you do muster the energy, it takes twice as long to make something just as good as what you consider your average ability.
Thanks for reading 🙂🌿
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