I used to be an avid gamer, I still am a gamer but I no longer have that urge to play every game and blog about it. That was when this blog was as its’ height and I had trillions of visitors who enjoyed it. But slowly through time my urge to play every game possible and write about has decreased. For two years in a row now I have considered retiring this blog but each time I carried on but wrote much less about games.

But as one gets older, attitudes to hobbies and goals in life changes.

Four years ago I started being unwell.  Lots of pain and fatigue and other symptoms really ruining my days. Not just any old fatigue like wanting an early night but fatigue from waking – all day with arms and legs so heavy that is feels like you are carrying a huge sack on potatoes on your back. Oh and the pain – all sorts of random pain that could be there one day and not the next only to bite back the day after.

Four years struggling to get an idea from my Doctor about what the hell was going on. Test after test revealed bugger all. Until finally I saw a rheumatologist
who diagnosed Fibromyalgia – it is apparently like an arthritis of the muscles but without the degeneration of joints.  Some think it is an imaginary disease and poo poo the idea, others know it is real through long term research. Lets face it, 30 years ago Doctors thought Multiple Schlerosis was imaginary and look where they are now through research.  The World Health Organisation recognises it as a real disease as does research and I know it is real and to the naysayers I will just say think yourself lucky it is not you.

Of course while there is no test for it, there is also no cure. It is not a terminal disease that will kill me but it impacts my life every day with some form of disability.  The funny thing is every day is different, every hour is different and sometimes even every minute.  Somebody said to me the other day “why are you suddenly limping?” in an accusary way -  I was not limping a minute before. But that is the nature of the beast – it randomly hurts at any time, any moment.

You may be asking yourself why I am writing about this on a gaming blog?  Well the days of my gaming blog are over. I have decided that Sprites & Bites will no longer be a gaming only blog but a blog for absolutely anything I like, whether it be world news, commenting of every day things or just having a moan about my daily symptoms, I don’t care now. This blog is mine and I dictate what goes into it.

If my long term readers do not like this then I am sorry, but it has to be this way to try and keep this blog alive. It cannot run itself when I have no interest in the content I am posting.

My life has changed and so will this blog.