Do not try this at home!

Sorry I haven’t been online, but (as anticipated) I’m suffering after last weekend’s exertion. Thank you for all the sponsorship money that’s coming in. The resultant exhaustion seems to be hitting me in stages, but at least the bruising is getting better. It’s never very pleasant to feel like this (needing help to get out of bed, etc) but I had expected it, and although I hate feeling so helpless, I have a great sense of achievement from what I did. I’ll never do it again, but its something else to add to the list of things I’ve managed to do WHILE ill.

However, I’m a little upset that one of the ME website’s felt they had to describe me as ‘recovered’ so that they did not appear to be condoning people with the condition doing anything like what I did last weekend. I feel like they feel I’m a bad example to other people with ME/CFS.

I’d like to point out that there are many, many things (too many) that my health won’t allow me to do, but sometimes, there are challenges that I know I might be able to do, although I’ll suffer for them. To me, this is acceptable. I did extensive research into the implications of the abseil and into the physical requirements. I was told that if I could get over the bridge rail, I could abseil. I didn’t go into this lightly, both because of my health and my various phobias. Incidentally, once I got on top of the bridge, I realised that it wasn’t the height I should be afraid of…it’s the drop!

Anyhow, I’ve spent six years mainly in bed (or on the sofa). I spent a few minutes abseiling. Does that strike you as irresponsibe?

I don’t want to just exist, I want to LIVE! Is that too much to ask?