Fatigue

For days, even weeks, I have been feeling tired. Extreme fatigue. I get to bed about 9 every evening, am not on electronic devices, there is nothing much worrying me- anyway nothing more than normal and I had no physical illness, that I knew of. The only thing I could find about myself was that I was not walking enough but I couldn’t find the energy to do it. January 13 was my TOEFL exam and after my GRE ( which I prepared for in 2 days), I had resolved to put in at least one month of study for this exam. Christmas came in between of course, but give and take a few days, I should have managed to put in a good amount of study time. No. It didn’t happen.

Most days, I dragged myself out of my sofa-bed and when I did, my eyes wouldn’t stay open. If I went back to bed, for a few more moments of shut-eye, I couldn’t get back to sleep and even if I did, I woke up same as before. There was nothing new in my diet except a Trader Joe’s Matcha Green tea that I drank every morning. All systems seemed working normally. I couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong or where it was going wrong.

I could study only on January 12- revise all the books I had borrowed with good resolutions more than a month back- the fatigue had driven me off my study time. I had almost no motivation and I knew I was not depressed.  The exam passed off well, by God’s grace.

Yesterday was the first working day after the exam. I resolved to do something about my illness if it could be called that. One of my other symptoms was the pain or feeling of pain behind my eyes. This suggested viral myalgia to me. Yesterday at work, it struck me that the extreme fatigue might be because of pregnancy. Could I get pregnant at 48 ? There have been stranger cases and I hadn’t had my monthlies for two months now, come to think of it. And husband had reminded me of this just the day before.

At work yesterday, I decided to do a pregnancy test. Luckily for me, there is a pharmacy at the Students center so, I managed to get a kit. I had had pregnancy tests done before but others used to do it for me. This was my first experience of doing it on my own. Good news, I am not pregnant. So that was ruled out. It must be menopause.

Second, I decided to start myself on an antibiotic and see if that helped. Three doses later, I am better. My fatigue has almost completely disappeared. I haven’t had a flu vaccine this year. Probably I am harboring some germ inside that is not manifesting itself in an extreme way but the fatigue.