Glandular fever

[NoDramaForTheLlama]

After general feeling unwell for a couple of weeks I had a blood test and have had glandular fever, apparently the older you are the worse it is and unfortunately it massively affected my liver and spleen and I have spent quite a while in hospital. I'm now two weeks from being discharged and probably four or five weeks from when they believe I actually developed it.

I am so tired although I know compared to lots of people I'm lucky in that respect and definitely am not suffering as much as others do! I so desperately want to get back to normal as I have 2 children who I've done nothing with this holiday, work and study to do plus I do/did a lot of sport.

Please does anyone have any advice on how to get back onto my feet and cope with doing stuff with the children and returning to work.

I have had glandular fever 3 times. I'll be honest, it took months to recover properly. I did part days at school and college and spent most of the weekends in bed recovering.

Learning to listen to your body is the first thing. Look at ways to cut down work such as a slow cooker to cook the tea and getting help from family members. Don't rush back to work, take it slowly or else you may find yourself ending up with post viral fatigue which can make your recovery take longer.

It's horrible isn't it? People don't understand what the tiredness is like-it's more like jet lag than anything.

Pacing is really important. It's really hard not to do too much on day when you're feeling good and paying for it for days afterwards. You'll end up yo yoing between utter exhaustion and feeling ok otherwise. It's much harder said than done, but try to feel pleased for the things you do achieve rather than feeling bad about what you could have done pre glandular fever. You can waste a lot of energy beating yourself up for being ill.

It does get better. The worst thing is the uncertainty-for some people it's a few weeks, others it's much longer. I really hope you're one of the lucky ones.