What you don't see

Warning: talk of vomit and self-pity over pain and fatigue follows.

Here's what my weekend looked like:

Pretty exciting weekend away at a theme park, right? Lots of fun, lots of rides - even did the scare mazes, because I probably won't have a chance in the future (subspecies was great, the others ok).

When I set my out of office on Friday, I spotted that I had booked off Wednesday as well as Monday and Tuesday - a whole extra day off to write and have fun in! And you can see I had fun - check out the photos from last night!

Looks great, right?

What you don't see is that the only reason I was still walking by the end of the weekend was that one of my friends had disabled queuing and could queue jump 3 people with him. You don't see that I took loads of photos of The Smiler because I couldn't bear to queue for it, even though I really wanted to ride it, but sitting there waiting for the others had stiffened me so much I had to walk around. You don't see me nearly crying because the others aren't ready to go home but I've been wanting to leave for hours because I'm done. You don't see me waking up on Monday morning, falling out of bed and staggering to the kitchen to feed the cat, with a splitting headache that stayed until Wednesday evening. You don't see me crawling back to bed after feeding the cat, then crawling out again a few hours later to collapse at Husbit's feet, crying with the pain. He cooked me food and watched me pick at it, then went out to do the shopping and some other chores. You don't see me throwing up the food I managed to get down me, nor the dissolvable aspirin I drank after I finished puking the first time. This is something that happens to me when I either don't eat enough or otherwise exhaust myself. I threw up the aspirin so hard it was coming out of my nose.

You don't see me sleeping the rest of Monday.

You don't see me staggering around trying to prepare the flat for estate agent photos Tuesday morning, and making nice talk and helping move stuff around for the photos, while in so much pain I wanted to curl up and cry. You don't see me curling up and crying as soon as he left. You don't see me so fatigued I couldn't even watch TV.

You see me at circus. You don't see me seriously considering not going, but finally deciding I have to to keep the fibromyalgia pain away and hopefully reduce the headache (which you don't see still not responding to painkillers) - and also because I don't want to let anyone down. You don't see me failing at a basic move because I'm too fatigued to pull it off, and needing the trainee instructor to demonstrate it to the class. You don't see me collapse in the bath after, and struggle to get out.

You don't see the frustration when I woke this morning and the headache still pounded and I still couldn't move easily. You don't see me crouched in the kitchen trying to make food, grateful that the gabapentin and circus has kept the fibromyalgia pain at bay and trying to keep from crying with the headache and the exhaustion and the frustration that I'm not writing, like I want to be. You don't see me napping, and being woken from the nap by a noisy gardener so curling up to watch TV and crying at everything because I'm so damn tired, and then the gardener leaving and me trying to nap again, only to be woken again soon after by school kids running and screaming on my driveway. You don't see the internal battle that eventually sees me getting up and dressed and nearly crying again, when me opening the front door is all the catalyst it takes to get the gossiping parents to call their children to heel and go their separate ways.

You don't see the angry letters I'll never send to the school.

You don't see the affection the cat has given me all day. You don't see the relief that follows the kiss Husbit gives me when he gets home. You don't see the look on his face when he realises I'm still in pain.

You don't see the wonderful feeling that spreads as the headache finally lifts and I can write this.

You don't see the fear that friends and work colleagues will take what you do see to mean I'm fine.