This Classical Life

I am getting an MRI of my spine in the morning. It’s hard to know how to feel, it’s been a hard year for me, physically. I hope they find something treatable. Real hope for a day without pain is hardly something I remember.

Today is Day 9… am on the road to recovery, but still laying low.

I have been posting previews on my photo blog, trying to put the energy I have into processing since I can do that from bed.

One of the hardest things for me about living with fibromyalgia is that the symptoms are more or less invisible to anyone but me, and hard for me to describe briefly or coherently. Maybe that I hurt everywhere, everyday. I wake up with a dull pain in virtually every muscle in my body and more acute pain in 3-6 places. These places will shift and intensify based on triggers throughout the day. Triggers are things like pressure against my body, repetitive motion, standing for too long, anything high-impact… It’s even hard to describe triggers as they are complicated. I doesn’t hurt very much to bend over and pick up one thing, but it hurts worse with each thing I bend over and pick up, until I can’t stand it anymore. There are times I reach that point and push through the pain because I have to do something, but I end up in tears on the floor. Sometimes its worth it. Sometimes it just isn’t. I also get headaches and facial pain very regularly. And no matter how much I sleep, I have a hard time feeling rested.

I am on drugs and they do make a significant difference. But it’s more of a taking the edge off than taking the pain away. Perhaps like the difference between being hit by a delivery van and being hit by an 18 wheeler, you are still hit by a truck either way. One of the things that is most difficult is that even though I have hurt everyday for years, I never get used to the pain.

Talking about it is strange. I don’t want to feel sorry for myself, and most of the time, I don’t. I do get frustrated sometimes, but not everyday or every week. I have a pretty rich life. There are days that I want to stay in the fetal position and try not to cause myself any more pain than I feel at the moment I wake up, but I am just adventurous and extroverted enough to know that I can’t live like that for long.

People frequently and genuinely ask me how I am doing, health-wise. I don’t really know what to say. I’m not feeling as well as I was last month. That’s disappointing. It’s frustrating to feel badly and more frustrating to feel as if my pain is impacting so many aspects of my life. I don’t want to be a whiner, or spend my time feeling sorry for myself, I guess I’m starting to get adjusted to the fact that this is going to be a long journey for me, with no easy fixes. I have a regularly scheduled visit with the rheumatologist next week, and there’s a great deal more to do and to try.

Tomorrow is my long awaited appointment with the rheumatologist. I’m not sure how to feel. Chronic pain and constant fatigue has done a number on me this fall, on our whole family. I can’t remember what it’s like to wake up feeling good. We haven’t had anyone over since August. The house is a mess. The girls watch more television than ever before. But this seems so normal now. In this fallen world, with its troubles and pains, mine seem somewhat insignificant. It’s hard to even hope that things could change. I remember Abraham, and his hope against hope. I pray those three words I seem to pray more often than any others. “Help my unbelief.” And I try to remember that God cares for me.

I went to the allergist Wednesday, and he read my profile, talked to me for awhile and did a physical exam of allergy prone areas. He then told me I had no indicators of allergies, and he would do two simple blood tests that are good markers for allergies instead of scratch testing me since he was pretty certain I did not have allergies. He then declared that I had classic fibromyalgia (he did do the pressure points test) so the allergist was not the place for me to be. Continue reading Doctors and More Doctors

I’ve gotten some calls and emails asking what’s up, so I wanted to make sure I was clear. I have been feeling badly for many months, and each week it gets worse. It started out as difficulty sleeping, exhaustion and aches and pains and each of those symptoms has persisted, though the front running symptom has changed over time. I am now in near constant pain, that gets to extreme levels with any exertion. Lifting my kids into their carseats, bending over, moving at all. I wake up in pain and it gets worse with each activity. I am under a doctors care and am waiting for the results of extensive testing. But it’s despairing to feel so badly so often, and it’s depressing to feel incapable of doing what used to be mundane and overall, it’s difficult to cope with anything else because I feel so consumed with my physical state.

This post is for those who like medical details, feel free to skip this if you aren’t curious about that stuff. I had appendicitis. Now I don’t. Continue reading The One About the Appendix