Fatigue management (symptom update)

Quick post for this evening. I've been spotting that my level of fatigue is gradually growing over time. I'm having to start to adjust my routine a little to take this into account, and this post is just a short note to describe what's happening.

I'm finding that its is quite easy to feel very tired. I'm beginning to have to prioritise what I do on some days so that I'm able to complete those things that are either necessary or that I want to, or in some cases both! This is essentially the beginning of my journey into the spoon theory.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory)

I'm lucky that I still have more days than not where I dont have a limit on my number of spoons, but there are a few days where I need to limit what I do.

I've found that my working week pattern is 8hrs on monday and tuesday, 7hrs on wednesday and thursday and 6hrs on friday (total = 36hrs = 4.5 days per week). This means that I have the bulk of my work done in the first part of the week, and if I need to take a bit longer than 6hrs to do 6hrs work on a friday thats no problem.

In the evenings, I'm probably doing a bit less, and I'm using the car a bit more instead of walking so much, which is partly an energy/fatigue issue and partly a speed/practicality issue.

At the weekends, I'm finding that I'm needing to have the odd weekend where I'm not doing particularly much, and I'm doing that to make sure that I have energy available for the other weekends.

The challenge for me is working out which things I should stop doing and which things I should carry on doing. These are hard choices to make. 

Life is also quite busy at the moment, but I know that I should be in a new house before the end of May, which then should allow me to be able to stop worrying about that and focus on being myself again. The worry about houses and similar related activities means that I also find it hard to relax and hard to get to sleep, and these dont help the fatigue.

Insurance - my first real negative

This post marks my first real negative of HSP. I am soon to be buying a new house, and part of the process for that is to have life insurance. This is the first time that I've had to apply for insurance since my diagnosis in 2009, mainly because when I moved house last (in 2010) we simply expanded the previous insurance to cover the new house.

I was seeking both life insurance and critical illness insurance. My broker found a company who would give a product which met my requirements, and so I applied. During the application they require full disclosure of medical history, which meant that I had to disclose my HSP, along with my depression.

The consequence of this, in the context of my general health, meant that they were unable to offer me critical illness cover at all, and the price for my life insurance was more than double the original quote.

My broker looked around the market and there were no other providers who would offer critical illness cover, so I'm unable to get that. Interestingly, my broker said that around 1 in 2 (or half) of critial illness policies pay out. Therefore their price is higher and they are cautious about who they provide cover to. 

I have asked my GP for a copy of the medical report they provided to my insurer, so that I can check that my GP has understood my HSP properly, and there are no obvious errors. If there are, then I may be able to either get a lower premium or get the critical illness cover, however, that will have to pass the budget test.

My background means that I'm tempted not to regard depression as a 'proper' illness. If I had instead of getting treatment for this struggled on, I may have been able to get the critical illness cover. On reflection, I feel that this approach would have been counterproductive, and I'm content that my treatment has improved my wellbeing, and this is sufficiently big a change for me to be able to begrudgingly accept lack of critical illness cover.

The positive news is that I could re-apply for insurance once five years has passed after completion of my treatment. So, I will explore the market in 5-6 years time and see if I can get a better deal.

What I'm not sure about is where this sits in the discrimination landscape. I guess I will find out in 5-6 years and see if the lack of depression changes my situation. If it does, then I can presume that mental health carries a bigger weight than my HSP, and if not, then I know that the HSP (and other health factors) carry more weight.

I vaguely remember back in 2009 that the genetics team told me about this possibility back when I was getting my diagnosis, so this happening to me isnt a huge surprise, but it does make me think about what I would suggest to other people. On one hand, getting a diagnosis gets certainty about your future, and the ability to plan for possible future outcomes. On the other hand, getting the diagnosis has the potential to make life more expensive in the future.  There is definetley a balance to play here, and my instinct is to advocate for knowledge over expense, but that may say more about my relatively privileged position.