Hello and welcome to the fourth weekly roundup. This week has both been busy, in that there were two streams, which have been edited and uploaded to YouTube, and two weekly blog posts (three if you count this one). I have also completed the 10-week Neurobiology of the Everyday course I was taking on Coursera. I have packed my time this week, not only with productive things like blog posts and streams, but also making time to spend with friends.

Over the weekend, I made socialising with a wide variety of my friends a priority. That took the form of much murder and lying to one another through the format of Among Us. Then when this grew a little boring after playing five hours in two days, we switched to the wonderful minigames of Jackbox. I hosted these shenanigans on my discord server. I have been trying to bring people together from all aspects of my life recently, and this weekend proved to me that I have surrounded myself with great people. There are people from the town I grew up in, from my university days, my online Dungeons and Dragons groups where I met people from all over Europe and the USA. What was refreshing was that when these people came together, they were able to just hang out and play games and have a good time. In the past, I have not been so lucky. I have an open-door policy to try and avoid conflict. All are welcome, then if they are uncomfortable, they can choose to leave. I do not allow people to bully others nor to try and force others away for their own comfort.

Along with the highlights of being able to interact with so many people and have a good time I have been struggling mentally and emotionally with my health conditions. My hypermobility flare up is over, my internal organs are settling down from their latest tantrum. Yes, my wisdom teeth did decide to make their development known, hindering my ability to talk and eat for a day or two. Yet, despite getting past all of this, I have this feeling like something else is bound to go wrong. It has been one thing after another without much of a chance to rest and to recuperate recently, so I am wary that things appear to be on the up.

One of the main reasons that I feel this way, is no doubt due to the chronic nature of most of my health conditions. What people who haven't been through something like this may not understand, is that often when dealing with these kinds of conditions there is no end point where you can say for certain that you will be better. Often, the medications you are put on are there to manage your symptoms while they try and figure out what is actually going on. Or in the worst cases, it is to keep you going when there is no cure for your condition. As it stands I have been left physically drained by consecutive flare ups from multiple ongoing chronic illnesses/conditions. This, in itself, would be hard to deal with without the mental and emotional drain of the conditions. 

One of the biggest things for me right now, is that the medications that once symbolised hope for improvement, now act as a stark reminder that I am not a healthy young woman. No healthy young woman should have to take a minimum of 6 tablets and use three other medications a day just to stay afloat. That does not even take into account the other medications and painkillers which I am prescribed to manage other symptoms and pain during flare ups. Being proactive about improving my environment and attempting to stick to my goal of tidying at least a little each day I was reorganising my desk. Whilst doing this, I decided to collect all of my current medications and put them away out of sight and to write a full list of what I have and when I should be taking them. I was aiming for an out of sight out of mind philosophy with this but it ended up costing me. In the process of writing up my medications list, I realised that on my worst days I can be taking almost twenty tablets with four other medications/treatments to manage symptoms and get me through the rough patches. Just the thought and worry of needing to keep track of this overwhelmed me. 

Now that I have had some time, and an essential phone call with my beloved Mother, I am ok again. Yes, it is exhausting to deal with, but I have made it this far. I have tests in my calendar and a new doctor who is pushing to help me improve my quality of life. They are trying to get me the answers I need to better live the life of a young twenty-something. With the love and support of my friends and family, I can push through where I must and rest wherever I can to get through this. It is all just a matter of time.

Thank you for reading and following my life as it progresses.