So I was going to post every day for a week! Yeah, that didn’t happen. I had a horrifically busy week at work and just did not feel like writing a blog after a 10 hour shift. Now, that is not to say that I wasn’t capable of it, or that my symptoms worsened or returned, I was just tired. The tired that comes from a hard day’s work.

I am not going to go into the day to day of it here (mainly because I cannot remember everything), but a summary of the week on the patch.

I was pretty much symptom free the whole 7 days of the patch. My head felt clear, despite a relentlessly gruelling week at work. I did not need to nap during my lunch break. I did have one morning where the office was overwhelmingly noisy and I lost my focus and concentration, but instead of this leading to a full on crash in the afternoon, once I had managed to get a break, and the noise had subsided to more manageable levels, my focus and concentration returned. I was able to walk either to or from work every day (roughly 5 to 6k depending on the route).

I did not push myself, no heroic return to running or HIIT workouts, no wild parties (I did have a glass of wine after work one day though), I tried to keep my routine pretty similar to my “new normal”. But instead of being absolutely wiped out at the end of each day, I went to bed with a clear head. I was able to complete many tasks in one go that I would normally need to separate into smaller chunks of activity and rest breaks.

I did manage to lose 2 halves of the patches somehow, but stretched the remaining ones for their full 16 hour release time so I only missed the final night of the week.

I am now on day 6 without the patches. I still have not really pushed myself or varied from my “new normal” routine, my head continues to be clear and I feel lighter. I was able to run around with my puppy at the dog park instead of trudge around. Mentally and physically I feel so much better and more like my old self. I have had some minor PEM (Post exertional malaise), I would consider myself at about 80% recovery now.

For the coming week I am going to try and slowly add in some extra activities to see what happens. If I remain at around 80% I will do another week of the patches in a couple of weeks to see if that boosts me to a full recovery.

I am still cautiously optimistic. It still seems like way too much to hope for that this has actually had a long lasting or permanent effect.

I will try and blog around once a week until I either crash and relapse or have maintained a full recovery.

Watch this space.