People Called Me Lazy

My Fibromyalgia was diagnosed four years ago along with an autoimmune (Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis) disease and a connective tissue disorder. They both were gifts I got after menopause. Thanks. I’d rather burst into tears a hundred times and change night shirts six times a night than have this. I’m sure I’ve had Fibromyalgia for a long time, I just didn’t know what it was.

I never had the same amount of energy that other people had and I always needed ten hours of sleep. I can’t function on less than eight but ten is ideal. Let’s not forget the nap too. I used to nap every day for three hours, every single day and I would head to bed at 9:3o pm each night. Every bone in my body hurt, I  thought I had the flu,  without the temperature  but it never went away. New pain pops up like the springs of an old mattress and I just sit there in utter disbelief.’ No,’ I would say to myself,’ it can’t be. Isn’t there enough pain and discomfort?’ Sigh. Apparently not.

This pain I have makes me feel like a hundred years old; my 83-year-old mother is in so much better shape than I am. She does yoga once a week, she swims every day,  she is out of her apartment all day, going to the city, socializing with friends. She literally runs around without stopping to rest or sit down or G-d forbid, nap.  In the beginning, before she understood, (does she really understand now?) she used to tell me that I needed more exercise which is a common thing for people with Fibromyalgia to be told, over and over again. Read My Lips, NO CAN DO. I can barely make it around the block twice with my friends. They continue for a third loop and I beg off, mostly I’m fine with it, a few times I have had a twinge of embarrassment even though there is no reason for me to feel that way.

You get unsolicited advice from many people, people who don’t have a chronic pain illness. Go holistic, just get massages, change your diet. They might as well say dye your hair, or drink raw eggs or spin like a top and throw up as a cleanse. We KNOW the choices that are out there, really, we do. But generally we look to other pain sufferers for the answers not you. We know you mean well but frankly, it doesn’t help us.   Often, we don’t know WHAT to do and we are the ones that are suffering.  I’m there now. I’m not only caught up in the cotton-headed Fibromyalgia Fog (where am I, what did I come up here for?) that is my life but I feel unsure and anxious about my options.  I don’t know what to do or who to turn to or who to trust.  My energy is better from the medication I am currently on but now I have new pain in my legs. Great, I can stay up all day having more energy but with more pain. Do I have more pain from the side effects of the medication or from Fibromyalgia or wait, it could be from my auto-immune disease or connective tissue disorder. Listen up, world, I can’t speak for other people, but I am often unsure and clueless, trying to live in this world, day by day. I’m the first one to admit that I have no clue if what I am doing is right. How can we know that? We go to top doctors and hope for the best, sometimes it just isn’t enough. Do we settle? Do we stretch? Do we give up on medications? Is six weeks enough time to know that a medicine is working? Who knows? We don’t have the answers either, believe me it’s our fervent wish to understand and solve these medical mysteries.

I have stopped scheduling things in advance because I don’t know how I will feel that day at that time. My good friends understand, they will say “let’s talk the morning of” and I really appreciate it. My friend Sarah will just say “let’s see how you feel” and her concern (and no advice) is for my health and I know she just wants me to feel good and be happy; I also know she worries about me. I appreciate everyone’s concern, truly, I just sometimes don’t know what to say. I wish I was healthier too and in less pain,  I wish I didn’t have new symptoms from time to time but I do. Please understand that I like it a whole lot less than you. I know you feel bad for me but be careful of your words, saying “just when I thought you had every symptom in the book, you get another one,” is really not helpful. I know what I am going through you don’t need to tell me. Just be there for me, listen, offer me gentle hugs and a shoulder to cry on, be supportive. Take it from me, that’s plenty and more than enough.