It’s been a rough couple weeks around here in the fibromyalgia department. It never fails. Just when I think that I have at last found something that is really helping me and I start having visions of a semi-normal life… ding dong – big ol’ flare calling. Man. Way to slam a girl down to earth you big kill joy of an illness. hrumph.
When I cam back from France I was riding a wave of high energy. The weather was so much better – so much dryer. Even though it rained part of the time, the atmosphere was less damp. What an incredible difference it makes to how I feel. I even took a few short walks! Walks people! I don’t take walks except a stumble from room to room in my house these days. But in France I walked – for more than a few feet at at time! That alone had me feeling like I could take on the world. So when I came back I knew that it would be hard, I knew that I would have a post-holiday come down. But I felt so good that I made a point to keep riding the wave of optimism and energy that I caught down there. And for the first week or so I was able to keep it up. I worked in the back garden, I worked in our allotment doing things I wouldn’t have believed I did if I didn’t know I did. We had a party at our house over the May Bank Holiday weekend and I trotted around the place with only my walking stick and the occasional wobble. Everyone said how good I looked, how great it was to see me up and about. I agreed – I felt great! I celebrated what felt like a new beginning to something fantastic and exciting.
And then I crashed. Hard.
In the weeks since I crashed it has been a struggle once more between my will and my body. My will is intense and strong, and it is not at all pleased that my body is once again calling the shots, and the directive is: stay put and do nothing. Not pleased at all. So I pushed with all my might and in my best little engine voice cheered myself on as I struggled to get out of bed and do something – anything- to prove that I was not losing this battle. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. I got back out to the allotment and dug in the dirt. I sowed seeds and planted starts in their new beds. Inspiration and visions came to me while I worked. It was incredible and I felt that finally I knew how to live with this illness, that I had found that something I was looking for that would push me —-through—- the pain and into life.
But then I crashed. Even harder.
I didn’t get up this time. I tried. I got as far as the kitchen where I realized that making my breakfast -at 11:30 – was all that I could handle. Even that was overwhelming. I ate and needed to go back to bed for a rest. By 1:00 I was flat out fast asleep. Woke up at 5:00 (yes, that is a 4 hour nap) only to eat and crawl back in bed where I fooled myself into feeling like I did something by putzing around the internet. And so it has been for the past week. Me sleeping late, doing nothing, and sleeping some more. My body aches and screams when I push it each time I climb the stairs. My own personal Everest those stairs are. But no one is cheering when I get to the top. Just me, letting out an exhale of relief that it’s only flat ground until I reach my bed.
This is a downer of a post. I know, and I apologize. It’s posts like these which I avoided writing for so many months while I have been neglecting this blog. I promise I won’t write too many of them. I do believe that I have found that special thing that is needed to keep me going forward and living with this illness, living with this body and not fighting against it. Part of that is being honest though. Honest about my joy, about my struggles and honest about my victories as well as my failures. They are all important. They are all me. They are all divine and they all keep me crafty – looking for a new way to do things, creating a life worth talking about. Even if I am just talking to myself.
Tags: coping, creative living, fibromyalgia, flare, life, struggles
