Flu, Fibro, or Arthritis?

Sorry for the lack of blog posts, I've been so sick.  I've had fever between 100-101, chills, sweating, coughing, sore throat, headache, wheezing, body aches, and stuffy nose.  In other words, I've been completely miserable.  As I sit here feeling miserable and sorry for myself, I wonder how much of how I feel is the flu (or whatever I have), how much is fibro, and how much is from the arthritis.

It's thundering and raining here, which is a relaxing combo for me.  I've drugged myself with some Nyquil, and I'm about to lay down for a nap.  I only wish I had a bed that didn't hurt me to sleep in.  Between the AC Joint Arthritis in my shoulders, and the fibro pressure points, I toss and turn the entire time.  I'll have to be up by 4pm though, to start supper.  Tonight I'm making meatloaf...brocolli, rice & cheese casserole...and macaroni 'n cheese.  Sick or not, dinner must go on.

What A Beautiful Day

It was just simply beautiful out today.  We hit 77 degrees, and full sunshine.  Oh how I've missed the sun, and the warm weather.  I gobbled down an Ultram, waited about 2 hours, then took my soon-to-be granddaughter for a walk in her stroller.  We only made it around the block because I'm so out of shape, and my legs were about to give out, but boy did I enjoy it!

2 Risk Factor's For Fibromyalgia

Of course, there's several things that doctor's have tied to developing fibromyalgia, but there were 2 things that my Rheumatologist mentioned to me that I didn't have a clue about upping the chances of getting Fibro.
She asked me if I was premature.  I was.  I was born about 6 weeks early, weighing 4 pounds, 10 ounces.  She also asked me if I had bad growing pains growing up.  Boy did I ever!  I remember laying in bed, or on the floor at time, crying and rolling around with the pain in my legs and knees.

Dr. Gota said that the premature birth is looked at as a traumatic experience in life...which we've all heard how fibromyalgia can usually be traced back to a traumatic life event.  I actually found this very interesting.  I never would've thought of being born early, as a traumatic experience.  I guess in a sense, this does make sense though.

I wasn't given the theory of how bad growing pains factor into fibromyalgia.  To be honest, I didn't even think to ask.  I was too busy with my mind turning, trying to process all I was being told.  Is this maybe an indication that I had fibro from an early childhood age?  Maybe since birth?  All my life, I've felt that something was wrong with me.  Even though I was in band, and a cheerleader, I still always felt that I didn't have the energy that I should have.  Even my mother would make comments to me such as "you're too young to be tired all the time, and have all these aches and pains you complain about".  If so, it's definately progressed and gotten worse over the years.  Hmmm....something to ponder, I guess. 

Super Woman Today, Probably Means I Crash & Burn Tomorrow

I didn't feel too bad today, so I took advantage of it!  We took my daughter shopping for her prom dress, then we went over and visited my parents for awhile.  On our way back home we stopped by Walmart quickly, then stopped and got a sandwich.  It felt good to get out for a bit!

After we were home for a little while, I decided to go out and bake a cake.  Chocolate, with vanilla icing.  Yum!  Then around 10:30pm my son said "I'm hungry.  Mom, you know what sounds good?"  I said "What?".  He said "one of your big, huge omlettes.  I'll go to the store and get the stuff to make them, if you'll make them.".  I told him ok.  So at 11:30pm I was standing out in the kitchen making four, four egg omlettes with all the fixings.  Ham, bacon, onion, green peppers, mushrooms, and cheese.  I finally sat down to eat mine, the 4th one, at 12:20am. 

Now I'm exhausted, my back is killing me, and my neck is killing me.  I'm hoping I can move tomorrow LOL.  My daughter took a picture of herself with her cell phone, while she was in the dressing room trying on her dress.  Therefore, the picture quality is very low and it doesn't begin to do justice to her or her dress.  In her picture, the dress looks kind of brown.  In reality, it's more of a drab green (almost the color of green that the old Army uniforms were).  The accent beads on it are a reddish-brown that matches her hair color almost exactly!  I'm posting the picture she took, but when prom day is here, the end of next month, I'll post some GOOD one's of her in it!

My youngest child, Courtney.  She's 16 and a junior in high school.

Another Weekend Ahead

Weekends seem to wear me out, but I so love them and look forward to them.  My husband is a local truck driver, so he's home every day, but a lot of times he doesn't get home until 6pm or so, and he starts his day out between 4-5am.  Therefore when he gets home, he's tired.  This means that we hardly ever go anywhere during the week.

Even though going out exhausts me most times, I still really enjoy getting out of the house.  I also enjoy being able to spend time with my husband.  During the week, he usually goes to bed between 8:30-9pm.  I don't feel that I get much time with him.  I enjoy longer conversation, him going to bed with me so we can cuddle up, playing games with our teen-aged daughter and her friends, and just generally a relaxing time.  Of course, this is also when we do all of our running and shopping, so it also wears me out.

Wednesday night, I fell asleep around 8:30pm and didn't get up until 9:20am Thursday morning.  13 hours of sleep.  Wow!  That was the most sleep I've had in I don't know when!  Last night I was asleep around 2am and got up today around 11am.  9 hrs of sleep.  Even though I've had plenty of sleep the last few days, I still feel like someone has stuck an IV in me, and sucked out all of my energy.  I'm stiff and achy, and don't have the desire to do much of anything.  I'm still looking forward to my husband getting home from work, and the weekend ahead of us though.  I hope everyone reading this has a great weekend ahead of them!

Sleep Deprivation

Every little thing is bothering me emotionally.  I'm tired.  I hurt.  I went out to wash up the few dishes that was out there, and found 2 bowls sitting in the sink 1/2 full of milk with tons of dripping, soggy cereal still sitting in them.  I wanted to cry.  One by one I took the bowls to the trashcan and was spooning the wet, soggy cereal out into the trash.  By the time I'd accomplished that, washing out the sinks, and stacking the dishes my back hurt so bad that I had to come sit down.  Dishes will have to wait. 

Trying to ease the pain without having to take one of those evil Ultram pills, I thought I'd go rest in a tub of hot water.  I go into the bathroom and pull back the shower curtain, to see a bottle of shampoo and a bottle of conditioner laying on the floor of the tub.  As if that wasn't bad enough (having to bend and reach to pick them up), there was clumps of women's shave gel and stray hairs all over the tub.  At that point I just blinked back tears, threw my towel on the rack and walked back out.

The culprit of the kitchen and bathroom messes?  My 16yr old daughter.  The bowls were from her and her friend that spent the night last night, and the tub was from her shower she took right before she hurried out the door to spend the night with another friend of hers.  Had she been home, her little butt would've been cleaning up after herself.  I was so annoyed, disgusted, pissed off...whatever you want to call it, that I called her cell phone and told her that she's to be home by noon tomorrow and that she's grounded for one solid week.  No computer besides doing her school work, no cell phone, no one coming to visit or spending the night, and she isn't going anywhere. 

I have a ton of stress right now in my family life.  That, coupled with the sleep deprivation and pain is making things almost unbearable right now.  I want to cry so bad, but I refuse to let myself start because I'm not sure I'd ever stop.  When you're so tired and worn out, all the little things just seem to bother you 100X worse.  This has been a long, horrible day.  I'm praying that I'll sleep tonight and that tomorrow will be a much better day.  It better be, because I'm seriously about to snap. I honestly am not sure how much more I can take.  Oh, and my hand and finger is still numb.  One week now.

8:28am.......

That gosh darn Ultram.  I've never done illegal drugs so I don't have anything concrete to base this on, but I've always read/heard that cocaine makes you hyper/keeps you awake.  When I have a night like last night was from taking an Ultram, it almost makes me feel guilty.  -Like, it's some sort of legal cocaine...or crack..or...or...something!  All I do know for sure, is that it keeps me awake.  For hours.

So I've told both Rheumatologists that if I take a pill past 2 or 3pm, that I'm awake all night long.  The solution both of them gave me?  "Well, then don't take one past 2pm".  Hmmm....ok, because I can just command my body to not have any excruiating pain past 2pm, and that'll happen.  I think not.  If it were that easy, or I had any control over the pain at all, then I would never be in pain! LOL

I take the Ultram as a last resort.  I have to really be hurting to take one in the evenings.  Unfortunately, last night was one that Ibuprofen wouldn't cut.  So, here I still sit wide awake at 8:30am.  Am I tired?  Heck yeah, but no way I could go to sleep. 

For me, Ultram is a Jeckyll and Hyde pill.  It takes 50-70% of my pain away but then I have to pay for it by not getting any sleep.  When I do get sleep after taking one, I only get a couple hours because it's already so late in the day that I don't have time to sleep longer then a couple hours.  I'm sorry if this post is jumbled and rambling.  I'm just tired.  Tired of everything.  Tired of the pain, tired of the fatigue.  Of not having a cure, and of not having a solid universal treatment plan that works for everyone.  I'm really tired of the Ultram keeping me tired. 

My husband left for work at 4:30am this morning.  He told me to call him before I went to bed.  Every hour or so the phone rings and he says "you haven't gone to bed yet?".  Ummm....well no honey, I do understand what it means when you tell me to call you when I'm ready to go lay down.  He keeps harping at me that I better go get some sleep because he'd like to go grocery shopping and out to eat when he gets home from work today.  Well, I'd like that too!  That's the one thing I look forward to every week.  Pretty pathetic that I get excited over a date night of grocery shopping and eating out.  But....that's my life and I do.  I assured him that I'd be up and we'd be going.  So, I probably should try to go lay down and hope I fall asleep.