Stomachs Speak

Antonio’s Pizza (Photo credit: The Pizza Review)

When I’m upset, I can’t eat. When its miserably hot and humid I can only eat certain foods, fruit, cold veggies and gazpacho, When I’m worried I don’t eat a thing. But, when I’m unhappy, I can eat the entire refrigerator plus everything in our pantry and then order a medium pizza with extra cheese and mushrooms. Why is that?

I guess you would call me an “Emotional Eater.” Lately, I haven’t been emotional so my weight has been low. No, don’t  do a cheer, don’t be jealous or wag that finger at me and say you’d like to change places because when I’m happy all those jeans that I just put in the basement fit me. I love food, I ENJOY f00d and fantasize about food and now I don’t care. For a foodie it isn’t fun. Trust me. Maybe I’m depressed?

I also don’t know my body image which is a little scary. I was talking to a woman outside a gym that I contemplated joining for two months and I said my concern was that there would be only 20- somethings and skinny girls there. This woman glanced at me oddly. I am, by no means, thin, but the way I was talking, it sounded like I was really overweight and that’s how I felt. Scary stuff. This nice woman was overweight and I only realized when I left I sounded like a crazy person. I think there’s a term for this Body Dysmorphic Disorder?  I’ll have to look it up but my sense is that you don’t act the way you really look or you think you look a different way than other people perceive you. I’ll have to ask my shrink.

Which basically gives my mother, yes, she the mother who “left the NY Times page open to the fat camp for girls” for me to see on the kitchen table when I was a young teen, totally perplexed. For all those years that she looked up and down my chubby, curvaceous body with a critical eye, now is lecturing me on being too thin. “You should eat more” she says, “how about dessert” Do I have a shot at winning here?  You really don’t have to answer, I know. Mother-daughter relationships can be very complicated, or am I the only one?

It’s too hot to eat but I’ve been drinking plenty of liquids to keep me hydrated. What I don’t understand is that even with the air-conditioning on, I still feel hot and I still feel the humidity.Does the fact that I have Fibromyalgia make things different? I can’t win because in a matter of weeks, months, I’ll be complaining about the cold weather, shivering, my bones freezing at the slightest wind and I will be wearing my down jacket in the fall. The only advantage of winter is that I’ll be hungry and will feel like cooking, pea soup, stews, banana bread, muffins.  Now? Not so much.

Glass of Lemon Water II (Photo credit: MEL810)

A Dream Is A Wish That Your Heart Makes

Image by Bob.Fornal via Flickr

I speak with a raspy whisper a voice unknown to me when I was younger. Starting in high school I became the adolescent lioness that practiced roaring with my brown braided hair that ran down my back in lanky curls. I learned to lick my ferocious lips with pleasure getting into funny escapades with my best friend Paula. I spoke with great assurance to teachers and professors whose titles meant nothing to me. My body language stated that I was their equal because I too was involved and able to keep up a conversation; I read the book review from the New York Times.  Of the many poems I penned one was selected as the winner to  recite in person to the poet, Rod McKuen. I mattered back then and I turned heads as I wore my black leotard that clung to my body like a kiss, my worn denim jeans that hugged my body with a warm embrace and my brown clogs that clicked and clacked happily down the hallways. I had a voice back then, a sweet, cajoling, flirtatious, strong voice that I no longer have. I had a lot of dreams when I was younger but in the past four years, saddled like a working mule, with Fibromyalgia, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis and Chronic Pain I seem to have lost them.

I used to dream that I would publish a book and it would be a best-seller. I saw myself on Oprah, chatting it up, I could practically hear her whisper into my ear: “you go, girl!”  Oprah and I would be friends, and I too would get all the presents that the audience gets, including: the trip to Austrailia, a brand new car wrapped in a giant red bow and one present each of ALL her favorite things, retroactively, of course.

I used to sing out loud, off-key and high-pitched, but that didn’t stop me from believing that Simon and Garfunkel or John Denver would welcome me up on stage to sing with them. I could see the white stretch limo parked outside my apartment building to pick me up. All our neighbors and friends would be hanging out of their apartment windows to see me. After that, I was so sure that I would be the first mega millions lottery winner that I worried about security and who would handle my new financial windfall. Could I deal with all this money? Four years ago with my diagnosis of Fibromyalgia and Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, things changed. With the focus on my pain I lost all of my dreams and tried to learn how to cope.  The dreams died like fragile moths hitting a glass door, violently and forever.

I always dreamed I would get married and when I was 30 I did. I married my best friend and we’ve been married for 22 years. A year after our wedding we started trying to have children with no luck. My dream back then was to get pregnant and have a child, more than any of the previous dreams wrapped up together. Finally, after two and a half years of painful injections and grueling testing at an infertility hospital I got pregnant and that was one dream that did come true. I loved being pregnant and I glowed with delight, all the more because I had experienced such pain and anguish with the infertility process. When my son was one I got pregnant with my daughter and having a boy and a girl made all my dreams come true.

While I daydream about traveling to Holland to see the cheery tulips bloom or a trip to Spain’s countryside I know those dreams come with a huge price tag now: pain, special accommodations, and sacrifice. I am not the young traveler I used to be, I worry about traveling and all my limitations. I’ve accepted the aches and pains and sore muscles and swollen joints of Fibromyalgia and Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. I live with the chronic pain and the cloudy haze that encompasses my brain.  I can’t entertain the thought of a possible cure because I couldn’t stand to live in my body, hoping. I would not be able to cope with life as I know it today; my skin crawls stealthily out of my body just imagining it. I need to protect myself  and my friends from that faraway fantasy. If I could protect those I love from heartbreaking devastation and pain I would. My new reality is giving up on a lot of dreams that I used to have; like my size 10 pants, that no longer fit me. My new dream is trying to appreciate the good things I do have now: my family, my dog, my dear friends.  If I could I would spin a protective web, thick like golden honey that would protect my family from pain and heartbreak. Living in the here and now, appreciating every moment that we do have is my everlasting, unwavering and constant dream. I had to redefine my dreams as I had to redefine my life, my life as a chronic pain patient.

We Laugh, We Cry

6/24/10

Last night, on instant chat, I talked with my friend P. for a long time. She and I are sisters in this crazy world of  chronic pain and difficult, unusual symptoms. The auto-immune disease that I call my own, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis,  has its own set of innate problems, cells attacking cells. She has more physical pain and I wish I could take some away from her.

When we started talking, we were both subdued. We discussed our achy, ouchy  (I know that’s not a real word but it fits) symptoms. We were tired, tired of being tired, tired of being lethargic and uncomfortable. We talked about our day (some would consider this complaining but in our world it really isn’t). We were merely reporting and commenting on “the symptoms of the day” (you’ve heard undoubtedly about the ” soup of the day” well, this is different) and sleep deprivation, medications and diagnoses. We sound like we are pharmaceutical “reps” weighing in on different medications (we just don’t get paid for it and no free samples).

I got so frustrated at one point that I decided we were in desperate need of a new direction for our conversation. We decided on fantasies. (No, not that kind, get your minds out of the gutter!). We fantasized about a huge beach house (for me) and a very small one for her (so that when she cleaned it, it would be manageable. ) In MY fantasy, I don’t CLEAN my house, I just live luxuriously in it. I wanted neighbors, she did not; I kid her about being anti-social, she kids me back.

P. asked me questions about my ex-guru doctor and I updated her that the ex-guru doctor was still the guru doctor and I loved him (gee, had I not?) again, still, anew.  We’re a fickle bunch, we are.  She told me about natural remedies and I grumbled about how expensive they were and that I could barely leave the house to get the mail, much less drive to a costly massage or have a homeopath give me their remedies. (I’m sorry but I still have somewhat of a problem with the word” remedies”). We encouraged each other to plow forward, and she reminded me that “at least I had had one good day” which I was beginning to lose sight of in my quest for another.

We ended up laughing on both sides of two computers when I mentioned that perhaps we could have a “reality” show of all of us in the chronic pain/auto-immune/fibromyalgia/ CFIDS  and “other”categories.   I guess you had to be there but we took it so far that she was going to pitch my idea to producers. We LOL’d and ROFL’d so much that I had to help her up (virtually) from her  chair at home.  It was silly, it was ridiculous but it  felt so good to laugh and smile. In our world of chronic pain/illness  it’s an actual honor to be able to make one another laugh or put a smile on someone’s face.

I have been helped by so many kind people on this blog. But, I am the worst technical person in the world. It’s a wonder that I can even manage this simple blog (you’ll notice the elementary style with no photos or fancy techniques-sorry). If I were more technical, I too, would cut and paste and give awards (that are so special to me) to all my dear friends on this network (you know who you are!).

In my own way, I just wanted to tell everyone how thankful I am for the support, the humor, the  advice and encouragement and the friendships that have been made. We may have different symptoms but we have a common bond.   We take comfort in each other because only we can truly relate to one another. Doctors may sometimes not hear us, loved ones may not always understand us and we may feel a little crazy at times but, it’s our glue, our bond, that keeps us together.

Dedicated to all my blogger friends and to my friend P.