People can be really nice

In the past few years, I sometimes thought I wish I had something like a broken leg that people would understand. I'm not sure I can even say I've had chronic fatigue syndrome because I was never diagnosed with it. (I'm better enough now that I can pass for normal. That is, I can go to work and do what I need to do as long as I allow time for rest and keep my activities mellow.) So in the past few years, I've felt that because I was not officially sick, I was expected to attain some level of competency that was really beyond me. I'd go out in the world and act like a normal person, then go home and collapse. Not having much of a social life, I was free of having anyone question what I did in my free time.

Anyway, here I am now with a wrist fracture. I've been okay the past three days, but at times it has been hard. At times I felt like I just can't live like this, how will I get through more than a month like this. One time I wore the same clothes to work two days in a row because I couldn't bear the effort of changing. But despite the difficulties, it's better than CFS because some people have been really nice. Sure, there are some of the same detrimental responses I got with CFS -- people telling me something that is hard for me should be easy, people telling me I should do certain things. But there have also been these heroes:

• Stephen, for all the things I described in my previous post, plus some others. Cooking, washing dishes, typing for me, bagging the trash, hanging up clothes, boiling eggs.
• Bob, for taking me to urgent care and waiting there with me for 2 hours.
• Meisha, for taking me to get the cast put on.
  
• Gail for taking me grocery shopping every week.
• Bob and Naomi, because when I gave Bob food from my refrigerator that I wasn't going to use because it was best for two-handed people, he took it home and Naomi cooked it and sent me back some delicious dishes which included my food but also many other things.
• Mario, for calling me to offer sympathy and Sean for calling to offer to engineer my radio show so I wouldn't have to miss it.
• The people who said "let me know if you need anything," including Jamey, Cagatay, and Christos.