The lost day

Around lunchtime today, I was rooting around the kitchen, looking for something to snack on. I saw a to-go box from a sushi restaurant and remembered having a lovely dinner with J. at a downtown sushi restaurant the night before.

But then I did a double-take. Was dinner last night? Or the night before?

It took me at least 30 minutes to properly reconstruct the events of the last two days. Sushi dinner was Monday night, all day migraine (including two long naps that broke up the day and made things even more confusing) was Tuesday. Today, Wednesday, felt like Tuesday since I never really had a real day yesterday. Tuesday was my lost day.

This happened to me a lot more frequently when I was more ill. When I served full-time as an AmeriCorps member in Florida years ago, I'd lie down on my bed after work on Friday for a quick read and not wake up until 15+ hours later; clearly I needed to recharge after a hectic week. Time felt out of joint and, though I could logically explain where the hours had gone, my mind and body remained confused about the passage of time.

From what I understand, this happens to a lot of people with chronic pain and/or chronic fatigue & immune dysfunction syndrome. Pain and exhaustion lead to marathon naps that are disorienting and, in many cases, not all that refreshing or healing.

So now I'm playing catch-up but still feel run down and operating at about 80%. Such is the migraine attack postdrome, I suppose. As always, I am being pretty hard on myself regarding how much (or rather, how little) work I've gotten done this week, but I know I need to cut myself some slack.

For now, I need to catch up on some work. ;/

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