You know what nobody warns you about when you get the crash? I spent years teaching patients energy conservation. Pacing, I knew cold. But the cognitive part is what actually ended my career.
The fatigue, okay, I can manage around. The orthostatic symptoms, I know how to modify. But when your brain fog gets bad enough that you can’t remember patient names mid-session, can’t track three treatment plans at once, can’t trust yourself to document correctly, that’s not something you can pace your way out of. I tried.
Three months back, I attempted scaled-down shifts. Two hours instead of eight. Still crashed. Still couldn’t focus.
I started making mistakes I wouldn’t have made pre-illness, and that scared me more than the fatigue did. It’s not that I can’t work. It’s that I can’t work well enough for something where people’s health depends on my brain function. That’s a different kind of loss than the physical stuff.
Does anyone else work in a field where the cognitive part made staying impossible?