Melrose System

This week is ME/CFS Awareness Week (at least for some of the world), so shout out to all the folks out there living with this condition and here is a masterlist of every resource I've found so far on myalgic encephalomyelitis...

🔹 General info:

It’s not just ‘chronic fatigue’: ME/CFS is much more than being tired

What is Post-Exertional Malaise?

🔹 Diagnosis:

Diagnosis of ME/CFS; What You Need to Know

ME/CFS and Blood Tests – an in-depth look at what blood tests should be done to ensure your diagnosis of ME/CFS is correct, what the results mean, and when blood tests should be repeated

🔹 Managing fatigue:

Post-Exertional Malaise (PEM) – What It Is and How To Avoid It

Pacing Tactics

Ideas for Managing Fatigue (Note: This piece is sponsored by CareCo Ltd and features affiliate links)

🔹 Other symptoms:

Strategies for Brain Fog – This article is aimed at people with long-COVID but the strategies suggested may work for anyone dealing with brain fog

Sleep Tips for New Spoonies – not specifically aimed at ME/CFS but many of the tips will apply

🔹 How to cope with ME/CFS:

Energy Conservation – a Tumblr post by @rthritis

Energy Conservation Techniques; Home Management – a Tumblr post by @rthritis

How to Keep House While Drowning: A gentle approach to cleaning and organising by KC Davis [📖 book recommendation]

11 Tips For Making Meal Prep Easier to Save Spoons

The Tray™ – how to feed yourself without preparing food [🎥 video]

Tips to make showering easier when you are physically disabled – a Tumblr thread not specifically aimed at ME/CFS but many of the tips will apply

The 7 Types of Rest & How to Use Them to Feel Better [🎥 video]

The Bedbound Activity Masterlist

🔹 Treatment, diet, and lifestyle:

All Current ME/CFS Treatments

The low histamine diet – a resource from Johns Hopkins' ME/CFS clinic

Dietary Supplementation for Fatigue Symptoms in ME/CFS – a journal article looking into supplements like L-carnitine and guanidinoacetic acid, oxaloacetate, CoQ10–selenium combination, NADH and NADH-CoQ10 combination [📃 research]

Fact Sheet: Food and ME/CFS – covers what foods are best to base your diet on plus some information about supplements, weight gain, weight loss, gastrointestinal symptoms, and when to see a dietitian; by The Association of UK Dietitians

🔹 Other:

Tips for Applying for Benefits with ME/CFS [🇬🇧 UK]

Please let me know what other resources you would like to see on ME/CFS; asks (including anons) are always open and you're welcome to reblog or comment to make a suggestion.

I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study

after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines

et voila

GIVE IT UP FOR BIRD NUMBUH 5, THE CANADIAN GOOSE, Branta canadensis!!!!

bird 6/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata

I know what I am doing is wrong

I know there is an activity that looks similar that is not wrong

Why is it always me who suffers? 

I am the one standing in line for you,  the one rehearsing your name in my head.  I am the one dreaming forward  while you remain untouched by the weight of it. 

I am the devotion.  I am the offering.  I am the quiet surrender no one asks for. 

I give, and give again,  until my hands are empty.  And still, I am the one who waits. 

I am the call that goes unanswered,  the pulse checking for signs of life.  I am the watcher,  the one who carries the consequence of caring. 

Why me? 

Why am I chained to thought,  to feeling,  to this relentless awareness of everything that could break? 

Why can’t I shed this skin of empathy,  this slow torture of being present? 

Why can’t I be free? 

Why must I feel  When feeling costs so much? 

If choice had ever been mine,  I would have rewritten myself.  Softened the edges.  Dulled the depth. 

I would never have chosen this place.  This life.  This gravity of being me. 

He figured out that this was because the doctors were dissecting corpses inbetween delivering babies, while the nurses weren’t, and came up with his controversial “hey, why don’t we all wash our filthy, filthy hands before sticking them in a woman?” theory.

The result, short term, was that the mortality rate on this one maternity ward decreased by a ridiculous amount. They went from “write your will before you come here, because you’re probably gonna die” to “we’re not 100% sure, but you’ll probably live”.

The result, long term, was that Semmelweiss was hated by absolutely everybody, lost his reputation and had his career suffer terribly.

His eventual reward was that eventually people finally started sashimg their hands with soap before operations, history remembers him as a misunderstood hero, and the instinctive angry and defensive reaction so many people give whenconfronted with new ideas that conflict with their established view of the world is now called ‘the Semmelweiss reflex’.

Love at first sight