“You feel fine, and then, when your body can't keep fighting, you don't.” ― Nicholas Sparks

This month I'd written about feeling good and the next one was about looking after my ABI. Back then I felt pretty good for how I was - feeling great where I'd gotten to in my recovery. But today I've dropped back a couple of steps.

I've known that so many people who had been through their brain aneurysm have fully recovered, went back to work and felt great. Others felt very similar to me - up and down, up and down. For me, this is related (I think) to my stroke, but I still feel that my aneurysm sticks its middle up at me and, even though it's clipped, just wants to feel that it still reigns inside my brain. Either that one or its the second one, still in there, not fixed.

Last night my beautiful dog was very sick. She wandered in the yard and found any sort of grass she would eat, she breathed much faster than usual, she drank two bowls of very cold water one after the other, she laid down and I worried about her. She would stop breathing often, and I'd lie beside her and hold my own breath until she started again. Some time this morning I had to go to bed. She slept, and this morning she is much better. I don't think I am.

Sometimes I think I am working on my recovery and am doing very well. I have started reading again, most days. I am still volunteering at the Redcliffe Art Gallery and once a month I do a 4-page newsletter for them. I have enrolled with Estrada's Diploma of Counselling and I'm getting through it fast. I occasionally write my blogs (I've done a total of 26 so far this year). I occasionally update my main website Reibus. I am the secretary for the Redcliffe Peninsula Poets group and I've designed a logo and some administration paperwork. Recently I've even joined the Labour Coalition Party and I read pretty much everything they post because, for me, fighting the extremely bad policies thought up by the current LNP government is my future.

But my recovery has dropped off this week. I'm wondering if some of this can be blamed on summer. Far. Too. Hot. I am so tired. I can't ever seem to sleep a whole night - 3 hours would be the max. Most times when I'm reading I'll find myself asleep. I pack up and go to lie on my bed for a decent sleep, but I can't sleep then. I am so hot - even lying down makes me even hotter.

I still don't have the decision from QIRC and it's 9 months since the court case, and wondering ever single day drags me down. I've planned on what I need to spend, because relying on my DSP will keep me in poverty. This year I've paid my car registration, RACQ for my road-help membership, the dues for both of my websites and ACA membership in relation to my Diploma of Counselling. Far too much for my income, so I've had to borrow from Centrelink. Doing that reduces my DSP for 6 months. That becomes a revolving situation - I can't save anything while I'm paying this back.

Perhaps I shouldn't be telling you about this... but getting it off my chest might help me.

This life is so different than I used to live. Sometimes I don't think my body will keep fighting.