The Joy Of Cooking

Before fibromyalgia and all of my spinal and arthritis conditions, I loved to cook!  I never loved the clean-up afterwards, but cooking brought me such joy.  So much joy, that I even used to own a little "eatery".  I call it an "eatery" because it was inside of a mall, not a real restaurant.

As all of my conditions have worsened over the years, it's become so hard for me to really cook.  The pain is excruciating.  Some days, it brings me to tears to stand long enough to even fry an egg.  Therefore, I don't do a lot of real cooking anymore.  This truly makes me sad.  As I'm sure most of you know, fibro steals so much of our happiness.  Even the small things that people take for granted, such as cooking, are taken away.

I am SO proud, because I cooked a meal tonight.  A good meal.  I zested lemons, and chopped potatoes, and prepared 2 whole chickens.  I made lemon-pepper chicken, chunked potatoes, baby carrots, and fresh grean beans.  I had real, alive, eating, breathing people over for supper!  My daughter and her boyfriend, my son and his fiance, and a 12 year old boy who's parents are good friends of the family was hanging out with me today.  

In the middle of making this delicious meal, I was in so much pain I was fighting back tears.  Part way through the preperations I wildly wonderded what in the heck I'd been thinking, to undertake this task!  When the timer went off, I had to have my son take it out of the oven, and there's no way I could've ever carried the platter to the table so my daughter graciously did that task for me.

I hate to say it, but I was in so much pain that I wasn't even hungry.  Still, I forced myself to eat a little and indulge in the victory over fibro tonight.  I may still be sitting here hurting so badly that a handful of vicodin sounds like an amazing dessert  ....but I did it!  I beat fibro today!  I did something that I used to love to do, and I enjoyed it with my family!

**Disclaimer -the "vicodin" reference was thrown in to try to be funny, as I don't take any narcotics for my fibro at all.  I've refused them since diagnosis because I know that fibro is something I'm going to have to live with for the rest of my life and I don't want to become addicted to narcs.  I also realize that once I take one kind for so long, they'll stop working and there's only so many drugs out there.  I don't want to be in my 60's or 70's and in double the pain I'm in now, with nothing left to take because my body has built up a tolerance to all of the pain killers out there.  Some days (like tonight for instance haha) I wonder if the time has come to start taking something for pain, but alas I just pop a diclofenac 2x a day, grin, and bear it.  :)