Billygean.co.uk

I have a new GP. Partly because I moved house and partly because I do not want to join a gym.

She has grey straggley hair and apologises about her eye which is weeping as she ushers me in. She looks a bit like Emma Thompson, so that is what I shall call her.

“What can I do for you?” she says.

“Well,” I say, fiddling with the blood pressure cuff around my arm. “Where are you on post viral fatigue?”

She leans back in her chair and taps her pen to her mouth.

“A believer, non believer?” I say, prepared to pick up my bag and leave if it’s the latter although admittedly probably with the blood pressure machine embarrassingly in tow, like at work when I stand up with the headphones on and fall over.

“Oh definitely a believer,” she says, leaning forward and removing the cuff. “Blood pressure fine. My friend’s got it, and her son. It’s one of the most complex illnesses I’ve ever come across.”

She meets my eyes and I nod. “Well, I had that,” I say. I rattle off the story, roughly the contents of my about page though with hopefully less information about tampons.

“So what I really want to know, is what I can do,” I say. “You know – within reason. I want to be able to work full time.”

She appears to think for a moment. “I mean my friend’s son had it for four years before he got back full time,” she says. “About four years. But he got there.”

“Four years would be okay,” I say. “It’s the not knowing. This latest virus hit me harder than any did last year. I feel like I might be getting worse. And I want a career, and possibly children and…”

I feel a release, as I say this to EmmaThompson, a mother-like figure in her chair. They’re thoughts I don’t really admit to anyone; the fear that my life might be blighted.

“What I would say,” she says, self-consciously dabbing at her infected eye, “is that you can’t control any of that. It’s reasonable to expect recovery. And I think you’ve got the ‘best’ kind – with a sudden onset and a gradual recovery.”

I nod quickly. Maybe I just can’t see that recovery yet.

“What are you going to do after this?” she says, and for a sheepish moment I think perhaps she wants to take me shopping and adopt me.

“Well, finish work,” I say, “then I am going to do some housework and some baking, because I find it therapeutic, then I might go to the cinema.”

I smile as I see that even if I am not 100% yet and office-bound, I am nowhere near as ill as I have been.

“Billygean have you heard of pacing?” she says.

“Yes.”

“Do you know what it means?”

“Just – doing less?”

“It means accepting the limitations your illness imposes upon you so you can use some energy to recover,” she says.

“So… should I miss out the cinema?”

“You know what I think?” She says. I look at her. “I think some CFS sufferers got so sick because they don’t relax.”

“Yes.” I say, vividly remembering when JayJay told me he had seen four lawyers and two accountants just that morning. “So should I – what, just lie down and do nothing more often?”

“Billygean,” she says, closing a window on her screen. “You need to learn how to be lazy.”