Friday, April 12, 2013

HERE'S MY NUMBER SO I'LL CALL YOU MAYBE








The stress of chronic illness.
Where do I begin?


Chronic illness:  the invisible shackles that bind us. It's been said that we "acquire" Fibromyalgia due to stress. What they fail to acknowledge is the stress that chronic pain brings along with it.

One of my favorites is agreeing to something social. Now, in the back of my mind I'm thinking, "should I put several caveats in the agreement so I don't look like a no-show again?" 

It seems that everything is a fight. Not a physical or verbal fight but a fight of circumstances. You feel like you are fighting against the immovable object.  I was driven, competitive and work obsessed. Then I got slammed and it all went out the window. When you have to redefine yourself....well, it isn't pretty. We go from mach 2 to ZERO and that takes its toll. That alone brings all kinds of stressors. Most of the people I know define themselves by their work and I was no different. 

I was in New Home Sales and loved it. It took a long time to get over the fact that I would never man a sales office again. There is a lot of climbing stairs, movement and memory involved. There are days that I still have a tough time dealing with it, not only because of the income, but I loved what I did.

So, back to feeling like cow plop.

When I have something I want to do it's kind of a crap shoot whether I'll go. If the pain level is manageable...of course I go....but on any given day....well, that's up for grabs too. Weather seems to bother me and it's been haywire lately. 

We want to go away and the stress of traveling is just one more thing. When you can't sit for more than 20 minutes and it's a five hour flight......what do you do? I don't love flying on the best of days let alone the worst of them. Just to get the bulkhead seats I had to get a doctor's note and show medical records for a reason that I have to sit there. Then the humidity levels are much higher than they are where I live......I'm just hoping that I can sit my fanny on a beach and not care how much pain I'm in.

Did we say stress? It seems that everything has stress attached to it. It may not be overt but it's still there. Why? Because we cannot fly by the seat of our pants anymore. Every little thing has to be planned out and accounted for......and even then it may not work out. I get so tired of being tired and in pain. I want to shake it off and have pain-free fun.

I want to get out and call people and enjoy life. Now, I'm afraid that I'll be a big drag because I just can't do what I used to do. Pain, fatigue and nerve damage.....did I say stress?

Gee............

Everything revolves around me.

That used to be a good thing,

Now, it's a pain in the fanny.

Notice I said fanny.


Friday, April 5, 2013

THE BASEBALL BAT REACTION






Here we go again.
Is our pain all in our head?
If it is, what word would I use?
I found one.

I was reading a study on Pub Med.gov (I've included the link here) and there was a word for people that have a tendency to respond to illness and psychosocial stress with pain, fatigue and an increase in symptoms.

The word was Fibromyalgi-ness.

Interesting. I've never heard that word before and in the context I wasn't sure I liked it. If I get the connotation behind the definition, it's basically saying that if life gets too icky or we get sick we play Camille.

I can see me now. I'm going to place my hand on my head and faint dead away when life gets tough. If that was the case I'd be dead. I do believe that some people tend to be a little more dramatic when they are sick or hurt. Every man I've ever been with falls into this category! I've always said if men had to go through the pain of childbirth the human race would have died out.  Like everything else, there are those that magnify their symptoms and there are those that try to suck it up and hide them. 

What I think is Fibromyalgia is being shoved to the somatic disorder wastebasket.

I think I'll become Jeff Foxworthy........

If you have one or more that are distressing or disrupt your daily life......
You might be SSD.

If you spend excessive time and energy to these symptoms and your health.....
You might be SSD.

If you have a high level of anxiety about your health or symptoms.....
Well, you might be SSD.

BUT.......

If you have a predominate pain complaint....
well, you might be categorized in other psychiatric diagnoses.

I don't know about anyone else but I think this is a step back to the Stone Age....

Like I always say, I want to beat the crap out of someone with a baseball bat and let them live that way for weeks, months and years and then TELL ME THIS IS A SOMATIC DISORDER. 

(and just for the record, I'm not depressed, I haven't been abused, I haven't had tons of surgeries and I'm not overly dramatic about my health and don't sit wringing my hands about the pain)