"lyme tired"

It's almost 3am, and I'm happily studying for my economics final exam. I'm happy because I'm feeling pretty great energy and strength wise. I feel simultaneously able to go to sleep, or run a few miles. I realize as I have that thought, that this is how I used to feel all the time. I would get tired, I would want to go to bed, but I would have physical strength. My current state, although it's doesn't always work this well, is due to the Cymbalta I'm taking. I've often struggled to describe the kind of fatigue that I have from lyme. In January, I did a little experiment in which I counted how many push-ups I could do each day. Some days I would be exhausted by 5, some days, I was still feeling strong when I finished at 30. The problem isn't a fatigue that causes lethargy that leads to muscle loss - I have all the muscle to do all 30 each day. The problem is that somehow, on some days, our body won't let us use the muscles. I don't know much at all about the physiology of how all this works. What I do know is that the Cymbalta drug I'm taking is a norepinephrine and serotonin reu-ptake inhibitor class anti-depressant. According to all the official websites out there, people don't know how this stuff actually works in your brain. On less official (but more awesome - crazymeds.com) websites I've read that it coats your neurons and that's how it helps with my nerve pain. Anyways, even though I still get tired very often on the Cymbalta, ever since going on it, I've always felt STRONG and ABLE. Before going on it, I felt like you feel when you can't open a jar in your kitchen, but about everything. Anyways, just getting this out there, while this moment of clarity lasts - so I can reference this later. :-) I tend to forget how I actually FELT in the past, but only remember how certain pain/fatigue affected me, or how I described it.

one thing at a time.

Recently I've been finding myself overwhelmed with the number of tasks, to the point that I end up ineffective at everything. Half the solution was just realizing the problem's root. Now when I sit down at my desk and start to freeze up, I just pause and clear my mind - then I think of one project to get started on. I've also made a couple changes to my work structure...

- Turned Spaces off on my Macbook
- Don't open a ton of Safari tabs to read later
- Cut my Google Reader down to 15 blogs
- Make new tasks lists for the day, or for the evening
(instead of just looking at the master list again and again).