FINDING BALANCE

Finding a balance.

I haven't got much to report today. I moved and stretched to no avail. I know that my innate inertia doesn't help but light exercise is still intolerable to me. After moving around and even going on a job interview I came home and wanted to cry. I still hurt. How in heavens name am I going to work on a daily basis if a simple interview makes me want to crawl under the covers?

I know that management is so important. I'm still unclear, however, how to put a smile on my face when the pain is spiraling out of control. The dull ache that is now a part of my daily life has my patience level on a very short rope. It's not that my anger at this illness manifests itself on the outside. It's just that I find it hard to find my joy when I hurt.

I know it could be so much worse. I've said it before and I'll say it again. My pain is nothing compared to the pain of cancer or the pain of the loss of a loved one. It can be a lot worse. I do appreciate my life and even though circumstances are very difficult right now, I still hang on to "it could be a lot worse."

I just need to find a balance. I need to get this flare under some sort of control so I can deal with life in general. It truly is a management thing. I know I will get this past my head and into my heart. I'm not sure when that will happen but I know I will realize this. I think the humidity has been around for so long that I haven't had a chance to feel good for an extended period of time. The length of time in constant pain has taken it's toll.  I do know that I need to learn how to find joy in the midst of all of this. Fibromyalgia is a life sentence but it's not a death sentence.

Have I lost my marbles?

It's learning to live with a limited amount of marbles in the jar. If I have a jar filled with 100 marbles and every chore, every act and every stressful emotion takes marbles out of the jar then I will be more conscious of what I do and how I feel. I won't have any marbles left if I waste them all on things that cause me to be under stress or upset. If I want my emotional needs met then I need to be aware of my reserves. There are the things that I must do but managing my life's physical and emotional needs takes discipline. I need to make my list and stick to it.

Maybe it's denial. Maybe I really need to take it to heart that this is a chronic illness and it won't go away. I can't make it stop. I've tried to hang on to my life before all of this hit me. I haven't wanted to admit that. Like I said before, it's easy to get this through my head but I need to get this into my heart. A big part of me doesn't want to face that. 

Maybe I have lost my marbles.

A BRAND NEW DAY

36%

As far as the numbers go, it is a little bit better. 

Not much but every little bit helps.  

Or rather, it should help.

But it doesn't.

I'm watching the news and the weather report seems to be more of the same. We get a few days of decent weather and now the weatherman states there are more storms heading our way. Great, just a another few days of shooting and stabbing pains and the dull ache that envelopes your whole body.

Geez, I can't even whine convincingly anymore. I've resigned myself to the fact that if I want to laugh and smile I will be doing so while being wrapped in a blanket of pain. If I want to walk and move around, which I will do, I will be in pain. Whatever I do right now managing this flare is my first priority. It's the widespread muscle pain that has been flaring up for so long. I am severely impacted by humidity and it just seems that it's been much higher than normal this year. 

So what do I do? I forced myself out today. I know I need to do this! So what happens? I come home a few hours later and fall apart. I just feel so stupid. 

So I will try again  tomorrow. I'm taking my medication so I can get a few hours sleep. I'm not even going to try to watch  a movie. Maybe 

As always I'm looking to tomorrow hoping for pain relief.

To a better day....................

WILL THIS EVER STOP?

45%

I just can't seem to catch a break where the humidity is concerned. I feel like someone took a baseball bat to my body. My legs are starting to spasm and that proverbial bat would probably feel pretty good right about now.

I just start to get a little improvement and there are a series of storms moving in off the Pacific. That's just dandy.

I can't even think tonight let alone write and it hurts like holy hell to type.

Here's another night of sleeplessness when I'm praying for the pain to stop. I'll try a movie but all I can think about is how much pain I'm in. 

I'm going to try the medication, then the heating pad, then a hot shower. If that doesn't work I'll probably want to be reincarnated as a horse because right about now they'd shoot me. It's another night of many that I hate.

I'll try more later but right now I can't think of anything but pain.

THE MONSTERS IN THE SHADOWS

Fibromyalgia has many monsters. The one I hate the most is the fog monster. It has the audacity to steal my intelligence and my memory.

It's scary when you look up and have to open up the databanks and desperately search for the thought you were trying to process. It's scary when you look at a page of words and wonder if you can comprehend complex sentences ever again. It's scary when you walk into a room and can't remember why you went in there in the first place. 

It's very scary when you arrive at your destination and wonder how you got there. You wonder if the insomnia is shrinking your brain cells. Restorative sleep is hard to get with Fibromyalgia but it's that refreshing rest that helps manage the Fibro fog. I find that it helps to break up tasks or reading into small blocks. That way when the fog envelops your brain you don't give in to the stress of losing it. 


I don't actually have difficulty with my memory; I just have problems with the retrieval. It seems like there are problems in the temporal lobe area of the brain. If the persistent insomnia and subsequent sleep deprivation is the cause of the fog then what to do? If the body can't get enough sleep during the delta cycle the fog monster is likely to appear. Not getting enough deep sleep will impair your ability to recall information at an optimum level. Neuron connections are remodeled during the sleep cycle and if the cycle is not completed or broken and sleep deprivation occurs, memory problems will occur. It seems to be concentrated in the area of consolidating memories.


I find that if I write things down it helps. Also, I remember things better first thing in the morning which is weird because I am NOT a morning person.  I'm constantly doing things to help my memory. I play puzzle games where I have to remember faces or objects. I play match games and that seems to help as well. I worry about the fog. It's unsettling, scary and disturbing. I write not only to remember but to validate the emotions and feeling that accompany Fibromyalgia.


The emotions are complex. There's a great amount of fear and anger. The fear is that I've been given a life sentence and I'm stuck in this jail cell forever. There is anger; a great amount of it, that my body has betrayed me. There is anger that a car accident can trigger all sorts of central nervous system problems. There is also anger that I'm a victim of my own circumstance. My perfectionist tendencies don't help me and I continue in these tendencies so I've only got myself to blame. There is fear every single time I read a book and put it down moments later in frustration. There is sadness and grief of the life that I used to have. Every time the pain flares up there is a certain amount of resignation and depression that this is what my life will be forever more.


The monster sneaks out from the shadows and captures me. 

I need to buy stock in sticky notes.

WHY DO PEOPLE DO THIS?

My dear friend is going through a breakup. Whatever I got he got ten times over in spades.

It had all the tell tale signs. There wasn't anything of substance just a ton of sexual innuendos. Then came all the issues of the bed. It seemed that he was too used to sleeping alone. Wow, did that sound familiar. I got all sorts of grief because I was up late. Then it was the pillows, then the covers or the temperature of the house. He got the same plus more.  

The problem is that these people are users. With some, it's money but with others they use up all your emotion until you're depleted. By the time that happens you're second guessing yourself and them. I think the hardest part was to let go of the person that I thought he was, the person he created just for me as opposed to the real person that was hiding under the mask. I woke up just in time but it took a lot out of me. 


I know there's someone out there right now who's probably enamored with the person he's created. He will have her smiling and feeling on top of the world. She will be absolutely loving the wonderful emails and calls that keep her nerves on edge. It's the high, the buzz that he loves. He's talented and she'd never believe everything that his wife or I could tell her.  I wish I could not think about that but I do. I don't wish for anyone to experience that kind of heartache. It's a heartache that will bring her to her knees. It will do that because she'll never see it coming.

This has happened to my best friend and I hurt for him. He really wanted it to work. He was even willing to take on more than he should have but he did and with an open and true heart. The only silver lining is that it didn't last long enough to do real damage. He'll hurt for quite a while but he'll get over it. At least it didn't take him 14 years to figure it out.

We have gone through so many girlfriends, boyfriends and heartaches together. Usually he was comforting me. 

Now it's my turn to help him.