Over the past few months my physical health has deteriorated gradually, and it’s time to admit defeat; a blog hiatus is needed. It started with a chest and sinus infection that stubbornly refused to go away in October and resulted in a visit to the hospital at the end of the month. That visit was largely due to a false alarm. A blood test that my GP took showed the possibility of blood clots, however, it was a false positive as the blood had clotted on the way to the hospital. The hospital visit wasn’t a complete waste of time though; I was diagnosed with Costochondritis. Never heard of it? Neither had I. It’s a condition that affects the cartilage in your ribs, and they become inflamed. It’s quite common after chest infections and the like, and normally goes away after a few weeks.

As you may have guessed, as usual “normally” doesn’t apply to me and over a month later I still have it. I checked in with my nurse and we both agree that it’s most likely due to my hEDS, which I’ve read somewhere is quite normal.  So it’s my normal at least. I’m a little worried that it’s here to stay, a new symptom of my hEDS rather than a complication of what I’ve been struggling with, but I’m going to worry about that in the new year.

At the moment I’m recovering from a flu-like virus which brings me to the point of this hiatus. After recovering from the chest and sinus infection, and the costochondritis easing off the first time, I then got sick with this. I’d just started trying to get back to blog work and was already behind with book reviews and other work when I just felt absolutely awful. I don’t know what it was that hit me, but I’m still recovering from it now three weeks later. The sensible thing to do was to just step back and admit that I was struggling, that the past three months have been difficult and not let the guilt get to me.

I hate going on hiatus, but I am very fortunate to have wonderful friends who support me and as soon as I spoke up about it this on Twitter I was surrounded by so much love and best wishes. 

I have no blog tours coming up until the end of January, and I’m going to continue reading books for reviews while on hiatus. Book reviews that were due in November and December will be scheduled for January. I’m sorry for the delay, but my health has to come first, and I would not be giving anyone my best work while exhausted anyway.

I had my book review request form open for the past month or so and I’ll be going through the requests I received and will be replying to them over the next few weeks. Your patience is appreciated.

Until then, you can find me on Twitter where I’ll still be chattering and if I’m feeling up to it, I’ll be counting down the end of the year with my favourite books. I’m also sharing my homemade nail polish advent calendar on Twitter and Instagram every day if that’s your sort of thing.

I hope you all have a lovely holidays and new year, and I will be back blogging again here at Just Geeking By in January 2023!

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