Saturday, June 5, 2010

BOUND BY PAIN


 There is a cloud over me. 
It feels like impending doom. 
What is the reason for that? 
I know that I may be feeling better today but it's only temporary. 
I am bound by pain.

I tend to second guess myself now. I never used to be that way. It's as if I am on hyper-alert status watching and waiting for the boom to drop. I'll have a day where I don't feel so bad and then, without warning, I will start feeling my old friend. It just wants to drop by and say, "I'm still here so never forget that."

As if I could ever forget that.

If it isn't the humidity it's the seven-inches-from-the-midday-sun kind of heat. I've always hated it and this year is no different. I'm watching the news and there are excessive heat warnings being issued. We will be experiencing near record highs. It's funny that I stayed in Las Vegas but it's my home and my family is here. Other than that, I hate the summer months. My power bills will be through the roof because I can't sleep when it's hot in my bedroom. So from now until October I will have one other thing on my whine-bitch-moan-and-complain list and that is how fricking hot it is outdoors.

A few years ago I would be walking people through framed homes or on-site to view available home sites. Yes, I hated it but I was still able to do that. That's all changed. I went outside today and felt like I was almost going to pass out. There are just so many things that affect my body differently since the Fibromyalgia. It's as if my skin is sensitive to my surroundings. Does that make any sense? Everything feels magnified and I don't understand it.

I know that Fibromyalgia isn't as bad as other illnesses but I haven't found the golden ticket that brings me back into some semblance of a life. How do you clear the fog enough to read legal documents and comprehend what you've read? How do you get rid of the fatigue and the pain enough to want to get back into life? I find myself getting angry at the Lyrica commercial. I know it's stupid but I wish it were as simple as taking a pill and I could do all sorts of things with my hands and my head. It looks to me as if the magic pill will bring me back to the point where I was when I left. It doesn't say anything about the inevitable weight gain and what that will do to your body both physically and mentally. The other thing is that if you can't live in the present how in the heck do you plan your future?

So what to do? I am bound, not by a physical chain, but by the ugly barbed wire of pain. Even as I write this I have to stop because my hands feel heavy and weighed down. I have to move my legs because I can't stay in one position for too long. I even have to read a simple post a few times to make sure it makes sense to me. I don't feel comfortable in my own body anymore.

The only thing I can do right now is bring things around that make me happy. Aromatherapy for sleep. Music that soothes the soul. Flowers that make me smile. A lump of carbon compressed over time reveals a beautiful diamond. So that tells me that even though I am being compressed and stressed over time I will believe that I will become that diamond.

Either that or a complete basket case.



3 comments:

  1. Hi Rose,
    What a pretty post this is. I love your words. You're right, fibromyalgia isn't as bad as some other illnesses, but knowing this doesn't make the pain any better, or the fatigue any less or the grief of what we have lost any easier does it?
    Everything is magnified. I've been stuck inside for two days. I get nauseated in the heat and the direct sun, forget that! So much for a bit of a tan.
    It's nearly 8pm and just now am I able to go outside. That's because I perspire so much I had to get out of bed, which I was in because I made a trip to town, used my brain about an hour, and had to feel some strong emotions with it, and well, that put my skinny bones in the bed. My clothes are falling off of me.
    As to the Lyrica commercial, I know which one you speak of. This is not the one I wrote about in my blog. I must have seen another one. The one I saw all the women were crying. It was about the pain and fatigue, not Lyrica. I tried Lyrica. I could stand the weight but that stuff sent me into spaceland!!! My words came out really crazy too. I was actually amazed at how well it treated nerve pain but I absolutely could not function on it.
    Anyway-- have you ever considered moving to a cooler environment. Somewhere in the mountains? Maybe we could move to the same mountains!
    I don't know what to say. I'm sorry for us all who have it. I really am. I wish we could get well.
    Love,
    dogkisses

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  2. Hi Rose (and Miss Dogkisses :)),
    I totally can relate to the heat thing. I do get absolutely nauseous! I have to have a fan or some kind of air blowing on me at all times...most inconvenient for anyone else.Though I have dear, dear friends who understand and bend over backwards for me. They are my Bunco ladies and my life savers.

    The sensitivity thing I get, too. Everything is magnified--heat, sound, smell, touch.

    Those commercials--yes, there is the Fibro one that speaks to the pain and fatigue. But the Lyrica ones come across as a magic bullet. Take our drug and boom all your troubles are over and you can stand on your feet arranging those flowers and smiling it up for customers for as long as you need/want to. NO problem! Damn. It minimizes the pain and fatigue--and everything else those commercials do not address--that Fibro patients deal with.

    No, we are not dying. We are not suffering the heartbreaking side effects that others face with treatment of their diseases. But, Fibro is a serious,chronic, life changing, incurable disease.

    I will think about you in Vegas this summer, Rose and you can think about me in Tucson. From one woman's hell to anothers.

    Love and a cool wet towel from,
    me
    CJ

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  3. Hi Rosemary -
    Your words really resonate with me... and you are not alone girlfriend! I don't know when I have been comfortable in my own body... I cannot remember that far back... but we CAN be comfortable in our own mind if we do the work.... It is funny, each time I think of you, I envision something opposite from barbed wire and chains... I see wings and a lightness.. honestly, every time I see your name or read your comments on my blog, I see you that way.... You are a diamond to me.
    Hugs and love
    Jolene

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