In 2001 when I was thrown out of left RTE, I decided to set up a little business doing web design.

The intention was to run it as a paid hobby, doing little sites for local businesses and the like.

It didn’t work out that way.

For reasons that I still can’t quite understand, the business took off in a big way, and within a year, I had major contracts with Lily O’Brien’s Chocolates to rebuild their small brochure site into a major e-commerce site, and with a subsidiary of O2 to build a major virtual private network linking all mobile phone shops to head office.  There were also numerous smaller sites and the business rapidly got out of hand.

I expanded the business to include hosting simply because it made sense to be able to provide an all in one package and to have complete control over the servers.

In the years since, I have never been short of work.  On the contrary, I frequently found myself juggling contracts to keep all the clients happy.

Over the last couple of years however, the CFS has taken hold, and I have found the design and development side to be more and more of a strain.  As this was supposed to be a hobby, not a chore, I decided to quit that side of the business and to just continue with the hosting.

Over the last couple of months, I have been doing the figures.  I have decided that the income from hosting alone does not warrant the hassle and responsibility of looking after fifty or so websites, and I made the final decision.

I am quitting.

Ending a lucrative business is not a light decision.  I have responsibilities to my clients, and they all have to be taken care of.  I have arranged that in such a way that no one should be inconvenienced in any way, and they will maybe even find life to be a bit cheaper!  From my own perspective, I will have a lot more time to concentrate on enjoying life.  I will have a lot more time for writing, both online and off.

I’ll miss the money though.

Damnit! I have just realised that it is nearly two weeks since I was last here.

One of the main reasons for this is a deterioration in the old M.E.

M.E. manifests itself in many ways, one of which is Restless Leg Syndrome.  Naturally in this day and age of acronyms, this is generally referred to as R.L.S.

R.L.S. is a nasty complaint in that it has an all pervasive effect on life.  During the morning, it is completely absent.   Around mid-afternoon, the first symptoms show up.  There is a mild tingling sensation in the calves and thighs which is easily ignored.  However as the evening progresses, it gets worse.  The sensation soon becomes like a series of constant electric pulses through the leg muscles, or else there is a sensation of dozens of ‘things’ crawling around inside the legs.

There are two very strange things about R.L.S.

The first is that the symptoms can be more or less instantly eliminated by standing up.  Also, leg movement helps a lot, so I seem to spend my evenings either standing around as if I were a stranger at a party, or else I am sitting frantically rotating alternate feet from the ankles.

The second, and more serious is that the symptoms are instantly magnified tenfold if the sufferer relaxes.  Any attempt at an afternoon nap is out of the question, as the legs are soon crawling, jumping and generally being extremely irritating.

Naturally, symptoms are very bad in bed, where one is at one’s most relaxed so sleep is difficult.  Even after getting to sleep, the legs continue to twitch during the night, so sleep is disturbed.

The result of all this is that the R.L.S. sufferer gets progressively more tired.  The sufferer feels tired during the day, but can’t get a nap.  Exhaustion sets in at night, and sleep comes, but it is disturbed.

There are no cures for R.L.S.  It is something that has to be endured.  There are medications that can relieve the symptoms, but they generally have fairly drastic side-effects, in my experience.

During the day, therefore, the brain is tired.  We all know what the thought process is like if we are short of sleep, but to the R.L.S. sufferer, this is a constant daily curse.  Thoughts are sluggish and there is little incentive to do anything that requires a bit of brain power.

M.E. manifests itself in many ways, such as the fatigue and occasional pain.  Of all of them,  R.L.S. must be the worst though.

M.E., or Myalgic Encephalomyelitis is not a pleasant complaint.

One of it’s most insidious problems is that it is invisible to others.  There are no streaming noses, or rashes.  You don’t look any different and others are therefore unaware of its existence.

To the sufferer though, it is a debilitating affliction.

Its symptoms are many and varied and seem to bear no apparent relation to each other.  The most obvious one is the fatigue.  Any form of physical exertion leads to an aftermath of pain and exhaustion.  And by physical exertion, I don’t mean running a mini-marathon – it can be anything from going shopping to mowing the lawn. 

Once the fatigue sets in, then all bets are off.  The sufferer can do nothing but rest and wait for the aches to pass.  Again, one of the symptoms is that the fatigue doesn’t set in at the time of the exertion, but rather a day or two later.  That person, dancing their heart away at the party may look absolutely fine to others, and in fact the dancer feels fine, but a day or so later is a different story.  That party could result in an aftermath of days of suffering.

There is no current cure for M.E.  Occasionally sufferers go into remission, but this is uncommon.  It is apparently a lifelong condition.  There is no medication as the illness itself is not really understood by the medical profession.  Medication is purely a matter of relieving the symptoms by taking pain relief.

The best way to cope with M.E. is to take the philosophical approach.  There is no point in complaining, or waiting for a miracle cure, so acceptance is the only answer.  The critical lesson that sufferers soon learn is the approach of pacing oneself.  If there is a function in the offing, then rest for a few days beforehand, and build up the energy.   Be prepared for a period after when the fatigue sets in.  Never plan on doing two exerting things within days of each other.

M.E. is predominantly a woman’s ailment.  60% to 85% of sufferers are women so the male with M.E. is uncommon.  Recently I read an excellent article by Darragh who has discovered that he is a victim.  It was a brave post, as the majority of men will not admit to such things as physical weakness and tiredness.  It is seen as ‘unmanly’.

Take heart, Darragh.

You are not alone.