The Countdown is On! A Change is Coming!

After being gone for so long from this blog, it looks like I'm coming back to it soon.  We've had a roller coaster ride over the last 9 months.  Some was fibro related, other things became fibro related because of the stress that threw me into a flare from dealing with it.  I've got a post started I'll share with you next week about the craziness around the Martin house.

When I started this blog, I was in constant pain that pretty much never got lower that a 7 and when it did, it didn't stay there long.  I found an awesome pain management specialist and have learned a lot about how to pace myself.  Because of this, I am managing my pain pretty well and keeping it in the 4, 5, and 6 levels most of the time.  I still have plenty of days that hit an 8, 9, or 10. I'm just blessed to have some good days in between them now.

I've had lots of time to think about what I wanted to do blog wise. I thought about just abandoning it - for a very short period of time.  I thought about how boring my pain is this days and figured if it was boring to me, it probably would be to you guys as well. I definitely feel that I'm to be an advocate for those of us who suffer with chronic pain. So I'm coming back.

I'm coming back with new ideas that I want to share.  In addition to hearing about how fibromyaliga rules my life, I want to share research information, articles on our illnesses and have some guest bloggers come in.  I've also thought about doing some giveaways.  :-)

I don't know about you but housework, grocery shopping, menu planning and cooking can really be HUGE problems for me when I pain is really bad.  I'll be sharing ways to get these things done with your pain and how to keep these things from increasing your pain.

We need to relax whenever we can but I have a hard time just sitting watching TV or playing on the computer.  I'll be sharing ideas for activities that will be both relaxing and fun.  Right now I'm thinking about book reviews, blog reviews, crafts and sewing/quilting.


Sundays will be a no writing day.  My plan is to share something with you that had an impact on my life that week through pictures and/or a Bible verse.


I'd love to hear what you think about these ideas.  Is this the kinds of things you'd like to see?  Should I stop writing all together? What do you want to see on the pages of My Life with Fibromyalgia pain? Please let me know through a comment.

I'm Back! I Hurt! What's New?

I can't believe that I've not posted since January 14!  So much for part of the life changes I had planned. I did a update on how they are coming along over on Rambling Thoughts of a Southern Lady. 

It's been crazy around here since Thanksgiving. I wrote about some of it  here and here.

Between the holidays, kids coming to visit, sinus infections, a reaction to a new drug, the flu and the stomach flu, not much of what I planned has actually happened.

My pain has gone up and down much like a kid's see saw.  It's been a Level 4 and it's been a Level 9 it even hit Level 10.  Sometimes it's been at both ends of the scale in a 24 hour period. I can't take the flu shot because I had Guillain-Barre Syndrome when I was 14 but I've been blessed to not have had the flu for several years.  This year I got the flu.  For about 4 days my pain stayed between a Level 7 and Level 9.  I probably could have taken more medicine for the pain than I did.  Since I was also taking antihistamines in an effort to try and open up my sinus passage and I was home alone much of the time, I was afraid to take much more that my normal.  I would rather hurt and still be here to see my grandchildren grow up than to take a chance on mixing the wrong medicines or amount of medicines.

About a month after that I got the stomach flu that was going around.  I woke up one morning and felt pretty good and I was loving that.  A couple of hours later I took Mr. Supportive to work so that I could have the car to run errands.  The errands didn't happen.  I suddenly felt nauseous and got my window down just in time to deposit breakfast down the side of the car in the parking lot where he works. Right outside the big double glass doors.  The doors that his co-workers were standing at watching the morning unfold and drinking coffee. Of course the guys came running out to see if they could help.  Sigh... Talk about wrong time, wrong place.

I headed home and made it about 3 blocks when I knew I was going to be sick again.  Since I knew the Goodwill store had a clean bathroom, that's where I went.  I grabbed a washcloth off the rack on the way to the back of the store.  Thankfully I was able to make it into the bathroom and wet the washcloth before I got sick again.  After what seemed like forever, I was able to pay for my wet washcloth (or at least I hope I did), get to the car and make it home before I was sick again.  Once again my pain was up between a Level 7 and a Level 9.  After I had been home for a little while, it hit a Level 10 that I hadn't experienced since 2009. Between the pain and throwing up more than I did in both my pregnancies combined I barely moved for almost a week.  I was in a lot of pain when I had the flu but it was nothing like this.  This was the pain that I had before I was prescribed any kind of pain medication but this time I was having it taking 60 mg of Kadian every 12 hours and 30mg of morphine every 3 or 4 hours.


But as the saying goes, this too shall pass and it did.  It took me a while to build my strength back up but I did and started getting back on track.  For a while...

This is where this part of the story ends and a new chapter begins.

 

The Pain is Headed Down!!

I was so relieved to wake up Monday morning with my pain down to a Level 4: The pain is getting stronger, you are taking more OTC medications but they don't last long. You begin to cut back on your activities in favor of just sitting down!  I can function at this level! Not very well but compared to where I was Saturday night this is progress.  After all the Level 7, 8, and 9 pain that I've had this week, it is such a welcome relief.  I have to admit that to keep the pain at Level 4,  I took a good bit of my breakthrough pain meds. I don't like taking much of it but sometimes it's necessary and the last few days has been one of those times.

I have no idea what brought on this flare.  Sometimes I can trace a flare back to a specific event.  The only think I can figure this time is the extra stress that I've had the last couple of weeks.  I was excited to be able to curl up in the recliner at a friend's house, prop my feet up and enjoy watching the kids playing and everyone having a good time.  I even got to ride the Gator up to the horse barn and pet the horses.  It's been a long time since I've been able to do that.  I didn't last long at the barn but I made it up there.  Don't care if I did have to ride the Gator, I made it there.  When you suffer from a disease like Fibromyalgia, you get excited about the smallest of victories. The difference between my Saturday pain and my Monday pain showed how wide of a range of pain fibro suffers can have. It pretty amazing how quickly that pendulum can change and how wide the change can be. When the pendulum swings toward lower pain, it's a victory I'll take.

Stress plays a huge part in the pain levels of someone with Fibromyalgia. The last couple of months that I worked proved that.  I don't think I'll ever forget how horrible the pain was when I had to give up and stop working.  My stress was so high because my working was a necessity and I was not doing well at it.  I had worked so hard to get my degree and it was becoming pretty evident that I wasn't going to be able to use it much longer.  I worried about how we would survive financially and if Bill would find a job with medical insurance.(His employer had gone under when the economy crashed in January 2009.) Not being able to remember was frightening and stressful because I knew it was going to cost me my job. I worried that I would begin to forget things that I had known for sometime.  When I went out on FMLA that last day, I fully expected to go back to work.  Little did I know that it would take almost a year for me to get back to a semi functional person.  It took a good while to accept that I would never be the person I had been .  Sometimes I not so sure that I've accepted it after all this time.

Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue, Chronic Myofascial Pain, Neuropathy and is the deck of cards I've been dealt in this life.   I believe that the Lord has a reason for this and I'm determine to use it for His Glory.