I woke up in pain again. Running a list in my head of the activities I’d done the day before, all I could remember was computer, baby, and television. The day before was a blur. “I forgot…” as usual.
I’ve wished for relief from this continuous suffering, but each day I wake up in pain. I pray to God for healing and that I may accomplish his plan for my life.
Relief is a possibility, I believe that wholeheartedly.
A hint of what it feels like has happened to me only once. I woke up from another of my “total recall” dreams with absolute contentedness and no pain. You don’t easily forget God touching you and a bright white light going through you. I recounted my memory of what I dreamt to my husband and he looked at me with concerned yet understanding eyes.
“Maybe God healed you in your dream.”
This fleeting relief consisted of absolute numbness from the neck down and only lasted a few weeks. My family doctor was surprised at how tense my back was.
“You don’t feel those spasms?”
“What spasms? I don’t feel anything.”
I smiled, but my doctor’s wide eyed stare stayed firmly fixed the entire appointment. I was glad I had some relief, I didn’t care why. He hurriedly gave me a ‘script to see a physical therapist as soon as possible.
Is it “insert Latin name here”, “insert a heap of words” or “duh, that could be it, insert the most common ailment on the planet”? You can easily place what you in particular are experiencing into the symptoms of any number of other diseases and be the hypochondriac ALL doctors fear! I was lucky to have my ailment identified, Fibromyalgia.
Yes, my ailment has a name, but it still is elusive. Fibromyalgia has many different forms. It manifests in total opposites for some people. To name just a few symptoms, extreme suffering felt by one person but moderate aches for another, sharp pains in the neck but numbness in the fingers, loss of memory but total recall of nightmares and dreams. Experiencing only a few symptoms from this list due to the diversity of fibromyalgia in one individual to the next, you can appear to be a hypochondriac. It’s a “you have to live it, to know it” kind of disease.
Over the last 12 years, since high school, my health has progressively gotten worse… or more optimistically, not gotten better. When I was young, living in the San Francisco Bay Area, all I had to deal with were moderate seasonal colds. Then in my twenties, my family and I moved to the Midwest and I instantly got ill.
My first big fibromyalgic attack was my first semester at university. Stuffy dorm air, a multitude of diseases floating around and none were the culprit. While more tests needed to be done, it was decided I should be taken out of school to recuperate. Of course, this happened the week before classes, Spring term.
To any onlookers, I seemed to be healthy enough to pack up to leave and run around frantically getting needed faculty signatures to drop classes. If I wasn’t sicker than a dog, I know I’d have been called a “drop out”. I was pushing myself like a car running on fumes; I had the energy to get home, not enough to go anywhere else.
After “it” hit, all I could do was lie down, then I worked my way up to propping myself up to watch TV. This low level of activity got boring quickly. After a few weeks, I forced myself to recline in front of the computer. For some reason, I could handle looking at a dim computer screen, but couldn’t handle sunlight or our bright kitchen lights. After three months of this, my parents got a look in their eyes telling me they thought I was pretending.
“If you can sit on the computer, you sure don’t look sick.”
I had no enthusiasm or motivation to do anything other than what I forced myself to do each day. I incessantly felt queasy and my entire body beat in unison with my heart. I knew I still needed time to recuperate from the attack. It is the worst one I’ll ever have, though I know I can have a relapse.
While I rested, more tests were being taken.
I still quip occasionally to my doctor, “my first year here and you made me a blood donor”.
We didn’t find out what the elusive “it” was until the snows left. I’d had enough of lying down and sitting anyways.
“Have you heard of fibromyalgia?”
“I’ve sat in front of the computer for weeks and never heard of that.”
“A lot of doctors don’t believe it’s an actual disease. Many think its all in their patient’s head”.
I was relieved to know what I have.
Even if I get looks of disapproval from people who are uninformed about the disease, I’m at peace with the facts. When I feel better, I practice piano, I play with my son, I love my husband, I try to get months of backlogged projects done. If I didn’t have a supportive family and a wonderful husband who doesn’t think I’m crazy, I’d be in dire need of help.
(Written in 2001)