Memorial Day 2012

Today was a tough day for me to get through.  See, my STBX husbands birthday is May 27th.  We always have our pool up, and grill out.  Sometimes we'd go camping for the weekend, or rent a cabin in southern Ohio.  I can't tell you how many times I thought of him yesterday.  Our daughter tried to get a hold of him so she could tell him happy birthday, but he didn't return her call.  That hurt her, which hurt me in return, as her mother.  

Despite him not being here this year, I was bound and determined to try and make this a great day for my daughter anyway.  Well, you all know what they say about the best laid plans, right?!  My son put the pool up for us about a week ago.  I figured that would give us plenty of time to have it ready to swim in by today. Well, we had one problem after another with the pool, filling it, etc.  I had one pouch of chemicals left from last year and figured that would be enough to get it going for us.  Wrong.  Today, the pool looked like a greenish-black sesspool.  Of course since I haven't worked in years I don't have a job to make money to buy  more chemicals, and the STBX isn't paying me support that he promised he'd pay when he walked out.  

Next, my daughter wanted chicken on the grill with BBQ sauce.  Go ahead and laugh, but I've never cooked on a gas grill before.  My STBX always did it.  Courtney (my daughter) wanted it so bad, and has been so hurt and disappointed over various things since her dad walked out, that I felt I had to try.  It took us until around 8:30pm to get the grill out and start making supper.  The electric start on the grill is broken, which I knew, so we have to light it with a match or lighter.  We'd had those long lighters that's used for that, and that's what STBX always used.  Of course we couldn't find it though.  We rolled up a piece of computer paper and used that to light it with.  Low and behold, after we were done, we found the long lighter.  She's trying to be nice and saying that the chicken was really good, but in all honesty it was pretty much a charred disaster.  

My youngest son is the only one of my children that's married.  Him and his wife are in the process of moving out of my house.  They stopped over to pick up a load of their things.  He casually mentioned to me that he'd seen his aunt yesterday, the one who STBX moved in with when he left me.  He said that he'd asked his aunt what his dad had been up to (he'd stopped to try and see him on his birthday) and she told him "Nothing much.  He's just been hanging out with his new girlfriend".  Of course hearing that today, even though I already "knew" he was seeing someone, really hurt.  By the time my son had left, I was sitting hunched over my desk due to my back pain.  I started having chest pain again (I think it's from anxiety), and felt completely wiped out.  I couldn't help it, but the tears started flowing again.  

My kids haven't heard from, nor seen their dad in almost 3 weeks now.  This is really hurting my daughter.  She had called and left messages for him to call her, for a week straight without receiving a phone call back from him.  Stuff like this really hurts my health and my depression.  When I see my daughter hurt, it hurts me.    All of this stress; him leaving, him not giving me monetary support (this past Thursday night when his check hit, within 5 minutes or less of it hitting he'd taken it all out exept for $15.40 that he left for us), not being able to get a start in public speaking for motivation and advocacy like I'd desperately praying for, feeling ill, all of it, makes me have pain and insomnia flares.

I'm not sure where I'm supposed to go with my life, but I'm still clinging to the idea that there's a reason for everything that's happening to me.  I still firmly believe that the reason I became so sick, with so many health problems, is because I'm supposed to educate people with seminars.  I do realize now, that in the grand scheme of things, my daughter and myself are better off without my husband here.  He didn't treat us right, even when he was here.  We both deserve better then that.  Still, I loved him very much, so it hurts.  It's so hard to get used to not having someone to do things with.  Someone to talk to. Someone to give me a hug, and care how I feel that day.  It's boring and lonely.  I know, that eventually I'll adapt though.  Eventually, I'll get a break in paid public speaking and I'll be able to support my daughter and myself.  I'll eventually have that to busy my time, and to get me out around other adults.  I'll be able to focus on making a brand new life for Courtney and I.  One that's better then what we had.

Some days, it feels like the depression is just too much for me.  The stress, feels like it's pulling me under a current and that no matter how hard I try to keep swimming, I'm going to sink anyway.  My fibromyalgia and arthritis was bad before he ever left.  Now, the symptoms are a lot worse.  I didn't think that was possible, but unfortunately I've been shown that it's very possible.  Some days, the pain is crippling.  Some evenings it takes everything I have, to walk across the house.  I moan and groan like I'm 80yrs old from the pain in my knees, every time I stand up.  

No matter how much pain I'm in, or how dark and dismal my future may look to me right now, I know that there is light at the end of the tunnel.  I'm a fighter.  I always have been.  Therefore, I pick myself up and carry on.  I refuse to allow a man I've loved to ruin me.  I refuse to lay down and cave into the pain of my illnesses.  One of these days, someone in the right field will hear my cry.  They'll read my words.  They'll talk to me, and see what my seminar is about, and what I have to offer their audience.  I believe in not only myself enough, but in everyone with a chronic pain illness and/or an invisible illness enough, that I won't shut up.  I'll keep thinking, and reading, and researching, and blogging, and sending emails until someone reaches out a hand for me to grab.  A lifeline that they throw to me, to pull me out of the water.  Then, in my seminars, people will not only hear my voice, but the voices of all of us who suffer from these debilitating conditions.  When will that day come?  I don't know.  I do know though, that it will come.

National Fibromyalgia Awareness Day - Do You Know These Facts?

Anyone with Fibromyalgia can tell you how "real" this condition is.  How debilitating it can be.  How much pain, both physically and mentally, they deal with on a daily basis.  Many people who do not have Fibromyalgia will say things such as Fibromyalgia isn't real.  The pain is in a person's head.  There's no reason why someone with Fibro can't exercise and that exercise would help the pain. 

I'm here to attest, Fibromyalgia is a very real condition.  When a person has Fibromyalgia, or any other chronic pain condtion, they often go through the grief cycle.  They have to accept that they have this limiting condition, process the information, and come to terms with it.  A lot of times, it takes quite some time for people to get past the denial stage, and the anger stage.  I'm still not sure that I'm all the way past the angery "Why Me?" stage, to be completely honest.

Doctors and researchers still aren't quite sure what causes a person to get Fibromyalgia, but there are some risk factors that have been proven to have a correlation to a person getting Fibromyalgia in their life.  The two risk factors that I found the most interesting, are being born prematurely and having bad growing pains as a child.  My doctor, Carmen Gota, at The Cleveland Clinic, is the one who asked me if I was premature (yes, I was) and if I had bad growing pains as a child (I did.  I remember laying in bed, and laying on our living room floor bawling in pain and agony in my legs as a small child). 

Research has proved that people with Fibromyalgia have a real psysiological and neurochemical problem.  Research proves that there's a malfunctioning of the central nervous system, commonly called the CNS, which includes the brain and the spinal cord.  There appears to be a variety of abnormalities that occur in the peripheral soft tissues (the muscles and connective tissue) and the peripheral nervous system that communicates with the CNS. 

CNS research on Fibro has shown alterations in pain-related chemical transmitters, reported in the spinal fluid.  Elevated levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines have been found by may research teams.  These are the substances that form a communication link between your body's immune system and the neurological system. 

Brain imaging has shown that the blood flow and metabolic processes in the brain are significantly disturbed.  The autonomic nervous system is not functioning properly in people with Fibromyalgia.  Research on the primary pain conrol system in the spinal cord shows that it's not filtering out or decreasing incoming noxious signals from the peripheral tissues.  Even the "Fibro Fog" one suffers with Fibro, has been documented by memory tests from researchers, proving an inability to concentrate.  Research has also found that Fibro patients have high levels of nitric oxide-producing enzyme, which explains why patients have an intolerance to exercise.  -No, they're not just being lazy.  It hurts, it's hard, and exercising can leave one almost crippled in pain.

There is more research.  There is more proof, that Fibromyalgia is a very real, potentially debilitating, condition.  If you suffer from Fibromyalgia, don't ever let anyone tell you that it isn't real, or it's all in your head.  Start pulling out some facts about Fibromyalgia if you're confronted by someone who says it isn't real, or it's that bad.  I had someone say to me once, "Well, at least you don't have cancer.  Be grateful for that, because Fibro won't kill you.".  My response to that was "No, you're right, Fibro won't kill me.  It assures me that until enough funding, enough research, enough demand to find a cure is made, that I don't have any chance at being cured.  It assures me that I will have to live every. single. day. of the rest of my life in pain and feeling like a fool when I can't remember a word in the middle of a sentence.  When I walk to the kitchen then don't have a clue why I just walked there.  I don't have chance of getting better, as most cancer patients do.".  I refuse to let anyone belittle my condition.  My condition is very real, and very hard to mentally deal with, let alone the physical aspects.  Education is key to demanding more research and a cure in the future.  Do your part.  Join me in advocacy and awareness in a very real, very painful, condition.