Off Topic?

It feels a bit weird blogging about my health so much instead of my adjustment to life in the Netherlands ... but dealing with my health is pretty much all I'm doing now. I haven't been able to do much studying, due to it being pretty impossible to concentrate much and process information. Even typing tends to get painful after a few paragraphs.

Our garden is doing great. Jan's been watering it as needed, though we finally started getting some decent rain over the past week or so. He's done enough watering that he doesn't want to do more of it, and we're looking into hiring someone to install a faucet outside. It's one of those things I take for granted back in the US, since houses always have them! After that's installed I can put in a low-pressure sprinkler system with a timer, so the garden can stay alive when we're out of town.

Another thing I took for granted in the US - window screens! I've read cases where tenants took their landlords to court for not providing them, whereas here most people don't have them at all. We bought two yesterday for our bedroom upstairs, and Jan installed them from outside on a ladder while I passed him tools through the window. Screens are different here as well. They don't really have normal pre-made ones at the stores. Either kits to make your own to fit, or rollable screens you have to adjust and install yourself. We got the rollable ones, which required a little sawing to get the right height, and some drilling while up on the ladder. I can see why the rollable ones are so popular, despite the extra work ... they can be rolled up when not in use, removing them as an obstruction from the view, then pulled down and locked in place when the windows are open.

We made our first Ikea trip in months yesterday too. We broke a glass, and another one was crusty and smelled like Jan-shampoo, so we through out those two and got 12 more. I also wanted a thick mattress pad, since I can only sleep on my sides, and that's been very painful lately due to the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. So I got a nice foam pad, which is helping a lot. I tend not to like the bed TOO soft cause it tends to make my back a bit sore, but the CFS pain has made it hard to sleep well, since I keep waking up with things hurting and having trouble falling asleep again.

One bit of good news is that my mega-doses of B12 and carnitine arrived yesterday, and seem to be making a huge difference already. I was very active yesterday, yet had minimal pains once I started taking the supplements, and NO crashing. For reference, I crashed a bit both Monday and Tuesday after working 3 hours sitting in an office, followed by several days of feeling like I had a nasty flu. But I did fine yesterday with no naps, lots of standing around, trips to 2 hardware stores and Ikea, and going up and down the stairs 7 or 8 times. Usually one trip up the stairs causes pain, and two causes muscle twitching. So I'm very hopeful that I can get functional enough to get out and start doing (Dutch) stuff again!

We have new neighbors moving in, and actually ran into them at the hardware store. They're younger than us ... mid to late 20s? They seem very nice and cheerful though. They were doing the painting thing, and probably aren't living there yet. The other neighbors had a marriage announcement party yesterday, which is apparently pretty typical here. Marriage seems a lot rarer here than in the US, at least before living together for many years.

Enough typing, arms hurt :-P

Health Update

I didn't notice til today that it's almost a full month since my first appointment with the internist. Well, the doctor confirmed today that I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), though if I'm lucky it might not be too chronic. Apparently there's decent hope for recovery when people have had it less than a few years.

Again the visit was very short, but he got straight to the point and told us that next he'd inform my GP (huisarts) of the diagnosis, and she would coordinate my future treatment. He mentioned physiotherapy I think (in Dutch), which looks like it focuses on managing symptoms and preventing deterioration instead of trying to "cure" CFS.

I did my volunteer work yesterday after a three week vacation due to Easter Day 2 and the boss going on vacation. I was able to handle it alright, but had to do too much walking to get there and back. The good bus stop is still closed, and now a couple blocks around the building are fenced off, and I had to walk even more to get around it. I woke up twice last night, first with a leg cramp and then with a shoulder cramp. I didn't even know shoulders could cramp, much less while sleeping :-P

I've been too wiped out to go to the library, so I've been looting my fiance's collection of Dutch books. I started reading his old Garfield books, which use Dutch in a more informal and conversational way. They're still fun :-)