It's been an interesting week.
Over the past few months, really ever since we moved, I've felt really fatigued. During the move I wrote it off as too much burning of the midnight oil to pack and prepare to move. Moving fatigue. After the move I wrote it off as solo parenting two very anxious children in a new environment without Jared around. Solo parenting fatigue. Once Jared moved to Utah and we got settled into our rental home, I wrote it off as perhaps a symptom of some depression. Depression fatigue. But here we are, several months into feeling settled, knowing life is good and our children are thriving, and I've still just been so tired. All the time. Caffeine doesn't really help much. Neither did my SSRI. And what really got me saying, "Hmmm" has been an ever-present and worsening brain fog that has me mixing up my words and drawing mental blanks all day. It got a little better by the end of my restful solo hotel trip last week, but came back with a vengeance shortly after.
As one does, I took my thoughts and symptoms to ChatGPT. Don't worry, first I took them to my doctor husband, but I wasn't wholly satisfied with his prescription of "Bloodwork." I mean, I am going to get bloodwork done in the next week or two to see if anything shows up, but I've had this fatigue/dizziness/brain fog in the past--quite bad right after a hit puberty actually--and the bloodwork I had done then didn't show anything and just made me pass out. Neat. So I told ChatGPT, hey buddy, I'm impossibly tired, dizzy, brain foggy regardless of how much sleep I get. This same thing happened during puberty and I got bloodwork done and it didn't show anything, but improved a bit on its own over the following months. What gives?
Chatty gave me a few ideas of what it might be, one of which was POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome), a neurological/cardiovascular syndrome where your heart rate increases significantly when you stand up. It can cause dizziness, lightheadedness, fatigue, brain fog, nausea, and a host of other issues. The best way to test for this at home is by doing a test where you record your heart rate after laying down for 10 minutes, and then you stand up straight and monitor your heart rate for the following 10 minutes. If your heart rate goes up 30+ beats per minute from resting to standing, you likely have POTS. Sure enough, my heart spiked 35 bpm, and so along with everything else going on and my health history, we're thinking I probably have POTS. In the name of being thorough and following doctor's orders, I'm still going to get bloodwork done to see if there could be thyroid issues or anything else, but if nothing shows up then I'll find a POTS specialist and see about getting a formal diagnosis so I can start learning about and implementing management techniques. Seems like it might be a lot of deep breathing and electrolytes, which feels doable. Maybe some dietary adjustments too, but we'll get there when we get there.
So that's my update from the week! Jack is happy-sad to be done with 1st grade and starting summer break. Our neighborhood pool opened up. I stayed home and rested (see: extreme fatigue) while Jared took the kids on Saturday. This is going to be a wonderful addition to our summer, along with all of the neighborhood friends Jack has made.
Oh, we have a house update too! Because the housing market has been slow, our home builder is going to start doing cheaper floor plans and materials to try and get their price point down. They know we've been set on one particular floor plan that was scheduled to start construction in the fall. They're going to try and expedite this home for us before they make the switch to the cheaper plans. So if all goes well, we will be under contract within the next two weeks, and they're even talking about letting us choose our interior and exterior packages since we'll be under contract so early. (Normally they sell nearly-finished homes and the buyer doesn't get much say in the finishes.) Now I get to start thinking about interior and landscape design, which is lots of fun for me. The home would probably be finished and ready to move into by early 2026. (They say January, but I'm going to assume March because that's how construction goes.)
And now for some pictures from our week:
