There’s an American political joke that says “If the opposite of ‘pro’ is ‘con’, then the opposite of ‘progress’ must be ‘congress'”. I reckon for me the opposite of progress is progression.

Probably the thing I find most frustrating about my FA is not knowing what’ll progress, by how much, and when. I know the condition’s progressive, and the way I understand FA works, that progression must be happening consistently, but I don’t notice it that way. With me what tends to happen is something unrelated to FA disturbs my routine and when I return to it, I notice significant changes.

The way I explain it to myself is that within my routine as the progression of my FA makes tiny incremental changes, I’m making tiny incremental changes too, to cope. So tiny that I don’t even notice.

When I used to work it would be if I took a holiday (and I found it frustrating because holidays are supposed to be relaxing but I’d know that when I got back there’d be some noticeable FA progression issue to deal with). Twice in the past few years a bad bout of ‘flu has had me bedridden for more than a week and when I’ve recovered something’s deteriorated (and yes, I always have the ‘flu jab).

The only good thing is that illness tends to decondition me so much that however bad my condition when I’m out and about again, I do actually improve for a while.

I just never quite get back to where I was. Progress before progression eh?