Tired as hell yesterday. Went to the doctors to get the medical form done for the disability application, came home after that and had something to eat, and went back to bed. Woke up a few times to go to the toilet but fell straight back to sleep afterwards. All in all I was in bed for about 12 hours, sleeping probably about 11 of those.
Not exactly sure what's caused such tiredness. I'm usually pretty tired anyway, regularly, simply having HIV. And I may have overdone it a couple of times on the weekend going out. But 11 hours? That's a lot.
Perhaps it has to do with suddenly a lot of stress being removed. Last month was a pretty weird month. Still pinching myself. Very quickly the situation went from boring daily drudgery with work and all that was involved with that, a money situation that had taken a ridiculous amount of time to render satisfactory for the banks, to (in the space of just days) both those stressors being removed.
I have been through similar episodes of stress removal like that in the past. It's been explained to me by psychologists and counsellors that it's like a rubber band being stretched taught for a long time, and then when the situation is resolved it becomes lax. In those times there's usually been periods where my body tends to relax (like the rubber band) an the aftermath. In all ways that I'll let it; being physically, emotionally, mentally. I think it's well known now that the body responds to stress just as we do mentally and emotionally, and the last 8 months or so have been particularly worrying.
Perhaps a sign of this effect on my body was my previous blood results. The CD4 count had dropped a significant 100 points, although it was over 700 before so I wasn't all that concerned. However I got a bit of a surprise yesterday at the doctors as he told me it was time to get another test done (got blood taken after that) and so I remembered to ask him how much my last viral load was. Just forgot last time I saw him. It wasn't of a big concern, but had increased from 4,000 or so to 26,000. I'm sort of glad I didn't know that before in the middle of being stressed out as worrying about it may have made matters worse.
Doctor said that we needed to keep an eye on the viral load for the moment in case it keeps going up. Again, I'd not have been too worried about it had the numbers been on their own, but they weren't. That combined with the CD4 count may add up to the beginning of a trend. In which case I'd have to start meds again, which I'm not exactly eager about.
Or it may have simply been an indication of the stress that I was experiencing at the time, and these next numbers from this latest blood test will improve.
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