Really wishing the fatigue would stop...
 

Sorry this is so long... I just need to vent, and I thought maybe some here would understand my frustrations.

I know I need to rest, but that's hard to do when I don't have any means at all of earning a living if I'm not working. I am now working two jobs (substitute teaching and working in an afternoon enrichment program at the middle school for that system) and still don't make even half of what I was making in May, even after working 7:00 am to 6:00 pm. If I don't work, I don't get paid what little I do make... therefore, I absolutely cannot take the time off to rest.

This week I ended up working both jobs every day... Monday through Friday... and by the time I got home from eating dinner with my husband last night, I was so tired that I fell into bed at 9:00 and did not get up until 7:30 this morning, and even that was only because I had to go to work (took the enrichment program kids on a field trip... I couldn't afford to pass up the $250 for one day's work!).

Now it's 9 pm on Saturday and I feel like I could go back to bed right now and sleep all day tomorrow too, but I can't do that because I have things to do and places to go. Ugh!

This is such a vicious cycle for me! I want to get the rest my body seems to be screaming at me to get, so that I can get back to feeling better and working efficiently, but I can't get that rest because even if I stayed home I would just be worried about paying bills or feeling guilty for taking a day off.

The mental exhaustion doesn't help... my depression seems to be getting worse and worse, but my "insurance" that I have gotten since my initial injury doesn't pay worth a crap... so I would need to find something that I could take that would be budget-friendly, which may or may not happen, since different anti-depressants work better for different people.

Oh, and I did look into the assistance that people have mentioned to me... because my husband works full-time and makes $30,000 a year, I won't qualify for any kind of help. We're on the verge of losing our home and/or filing bankruptcy, but yet we make too much money to get help.

I give up. I just wanna go to bed and stay there... lol

Oh, and I seem to be noticing a new symptom. These last several days, I've noticed an achy sensation towards the back of my head too... it's like right at the side of the back where people tend to think of the "crown" of the head ending... almost right above the back of my ear. Is it likely that I'm imagining this because I'm paranoid?

hello and welcome
 

Hi Courtney

Welcome here, and very sorry to hear of your head injury. It was recent so you are in early days of recovery.

You may not want to hear this, but I will say it anyhow. I don't know how you can recover from your injury and rest your brain at the same time. There may be people who have done the work and brain rest at the same time, but I just know from my own experience, it didn't work.

The hard thing I had to learn too is that horrible tiredness you feel is not like just plain fatigue. Brain tired is like nothing else I have ever felt and it will just shut you down. The other hard part about this is that no 2 injuries are the same and we all heal at different rates.

There are many good things to check out in the stickies above such as the vitamins and supplements that can help you.

But you do need the brain rest to really get better. That may mean when you get home from work you just go to bed and your family has to carry on in your place.

I was just looking at this site before I checked in here. So give this a look and she explains concussion fatigue very well.

http://www.fightingpcs.com/2011/09/c...its-different/

Keep asking your questions and others will weigh in.

All for now
poetrymom

Wow... this is exactly how it felt! I definitely felt like I was "shut down" for the rest of the night. I started to feel that way earlier in the day and forced myself to fight through it because I was in a classroom of kindergartners when I noticed it and knew there was nothing I could do at that moment. Luckily the enrichment program is more laid back on Fridays... it's basically recess all afternoon... so going in and watching the kids play wasn't too big of a deal... but making it to the end of the work day and to my bed at home was all but a miracle.

Thanks for the link. I'll go look at this right now.

courtney,

Georgia has a good Brain Injury Trust Fund. Check it out and see if it can offer you any financial assistance. You need to rest for your brain to heal. Your schedule is simply too much for an injured brain.

Hope the Trust Fund can help.

My best to you.

I wish you could work with me too! Maybe I need to plan a trip to Michigan lol...

I will see if there is a Brain Injury Specialist in my area. Something has to change; I have too much on the line right now to not be making progress in my healing.

Thanks!

Thanks as always, Mark. I will check into that.

Thanks everyone
 

Okay, so here I am several days after my "shut down," and I'm noticing a few things:

1) I still don't feel fully energized, even after a full night's rest.
2) I'm much more emotional than I usually am (and that says something, because I tend to be a bit emotional anyway)
3) I haven't had a migraine in several days, but I am still having my dull achy headaches.

Last night, I felt so tired that I knew I had to choose between going to the gym and decorating our Christmas tree. I knew I had the energy to do one or the other, but not both. I opted to do the decorating because we are having company next weekend and I knew I would not have time between now and then if I didn't go ahead and take care of it.

While decorating, I noticed that I had to work a little harder than normal to get the job done... for some reason, I felt almost child-like in the way that I had to think through which ornament was going on which branch, for physical reasons (weight of the ornament) and aesthetic reasons as well (what would look best where). This actually seemed to require much more thought than it would have in years past.

Winter break is just a week and a half away... here's hoping I can make it a few more days without a major episode. During the holidays, I will have a perfect opportunity to rest for several days, since both of my jobs revolve around schools being open. I plan to take full advantage of the opportunity!

Courtney, I'm no stranger to brain fatigue. Two things to relate from my experience: 1. If you haven't already, see the Vitamin and Supplement Regimen sticky at the top of the forum. The vitamins helped me with brain fog and brain fatigue.
2. Try to understand how much activity you can take before resting. Every now and then I need to take a full day rest because of fatigue.
Jamie

Jamie,

Thanks for the reminder about the vitamin sticky! I definitely need to be on that. Honestly, I've been bad about it for two reasons:

1) affordability of the supplements and

2) finding a way to ingest them all without getting sick. I've had weight loss surgery and only have a portion of my stomach left, so I can only eat so much at a time... it's great for helping me to eat reasonable portions, but not so great for protecting my stomach from vitamins and such. I'll figure out a schedule to make it work.

As far as figuring out how much I can take before resting, I'm lucky that today and tomorrow I'm only subbing half days, so maybe I won't be completely wiped out at the end of the week. In fact, tomorrow my half day starts at 11, so I even get to sleep in a little, whereas today I took a nap between the two jobs since my half day was in the morning. I'm definitely trying to pace myself so I don't get shut down like I did last weekend... that was scary!

The last full day I'll be able to work before winter break is next Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday are early release days, and the enrichment program doesn't meet at all on those days... and the whole system is shut down on Friday. So if I can make it to this weekend, next week will be much easier and then I'll have two weeks to rest up. Hopefully that will help.

Thanks again :)