A brown-out is not a form of political protest against a new head of state, but a term used by workers in the electricity industry to describe power reductions that fall short of a complete blackout - bulbs dim, kettles take ages to boil, tv pictures shrink and lots of other stuff just stops working.
Well... I've been getting brown-outs, sudden bouts of fatigue - not just ordinary tiredness, but a sense that if I don't stop doing what I'm doing and rest right now, I will collapse. My brown-outs always happen in the afternoon - usually around four or five-o-clock - and the only way I can cope is to sleep for a while. Sometimes a ten minute nap will do, but recently I have been waking after several hours, having intended to have a short restorative doze.

Fatigue is one of the main symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis - for many, unaccountable tiredness is one of the earliest and most distressing signs of the onset of RA. Quite why fatigue has been affecting me so badly again, is difficult to know - maybe the underlying disease process is very active? I've had to up the dose of the main drug I take - and that has made me feel pretty lousy at times. Also I seem to have taken on too much (see my last post) and I certainly overdid things a few weekends back.

I've had lots of anxiety-provoking things happen recently. In some ways the anxiety has been the worst thing of all, because it feeds on itself, working away insidiously, robbing me of energy at a level at which I'm barely aware. And for me, anxiety points towards depression - and it takes a lot of energy to fight that decline. Studies show that around three-quarters of people with RA experience moderate to serious depression.

However, I feel I may be having a lucky escape - last night I slept solidly for seven hours, despite sleeping for four hours during the day yesterday (and the day before that). I woke this morning feeling truly refreshed, and as well as I've felt for ages. I turned on the radio and the first thing I heard was that Alan Johnson had been released... it is so important that news keeps coming from places like Gaza where ordinary people suffer terrible deprivation and oppression. Unhindered, fearless press access and comment is central to the maintenance of decent societies. Alan Johnson's release is a bright point of light at a time when trust between differing communities is under threat. It gives me great pleasure to be able to remove the "free Alan Johnson" banner from my blog!

So.... a good start to the day. Later I'm off to see Spiers and Boden play - they are among the most imaginative and skilled of musicians playing in Britain today and are a joy to see live. Then... a couple of days off travelling with my lovely Pen, who is simply the best partner I can imagine for me.
Not out of the woods yet, but I'm heading for higher and brighter land.

Sorry to have not been around for a while - there are people (not least fellow mind-blogglers) to whom I would like to have given more support recently, but, I suppose you can only do what you can do....