Cause and Effect

Well, more effect than cause, to be honest. Cause will follow later in the week, if I'm lucky.

The symptoms I described yesterday are having quite an effect on my life at the moment. Feeling weak and tired means that you tend not to get around to all those non-essential jobs you've been meaning to do for ages. Like painting the stairs, for example. I started that a few months ago but haven't been up to doing any more of it since then. The list just keeps on growing.

That's probably the most obvious effect this is having but there are others, too. I'm finding it difficult to concentrate at work for long periods of time so my productivity is down. That is only going to be exacerbated when the other guy at my level in the team leaves in less than four weeks' time. After that I will have even more stuff to do and be under greater stress than currently. We were already one person short so we know need to recruit two and it will be at least six months until they have both been recruited and trained and are up to speed with our systems and projects. Six months of me being the senior programmer in the team. Not what I need.

My mood is getting progressively bluer, too. Normally, I am very stable, emotionally-speaking, but the defences that keep me upbeat are slowly failing and with an unknown illness or problem hanging over me, I'm slowly sinking into depression. The situation at work won't help that, either.

I don't surrender to it easily, which can be a problem. If L was fully fit and capable of picking up the stuff I'm having trouble with, then maybe I would just give in and do less but her physical condition is not much better than mine and sitting in front of the TV while she is struggling in the kitchen just makes me feel worse. Maybe the couple of days off I've booked for next week will help.

What will definitely help is finding out what is wrong with me. I've got my suspicions but to know for sure would be a great relief. The problem is, I just don't know when that is going to happen.