Day 2

Hi, well where to start? I will give some links to more clinical pages near the bottom for anyone who wants to know the general symptoms and information on Fibromyalgia. For me, it began about 6 years ago. I read somewhere that a physical trauma often triggers Fibro to set in. Where it was before that, I don't know. LOLOL Sitting in wait maybe.

For me it was a fall down a flight of stairs which seemed to be a bad fall but nothing that a few days rest wouldn't fix. I never broke any bones or anything. I continued working at my job. I worked graveyards and stood on my feet most of the night and cleaned a lot. I was very stubborn about sticking it out and working.

The pain in my legs, back, and shoulder subsided somewhat but didn't seem to quite go away completely. I thought maybe I could go to the doctor for some tylenol 3's or something just to get me through the next few weeks. I went through that regiment for 2 weeks and then I went back to the doctor and asked him if he knew why the pain was not going away. It was becoming more and more difficult to stand all night and my body began to ache after an 8 hour shift. This itself was very unlike me. I was used to working 2 or even 3 jobs at once without slowing down or having health issues.

At that time my doctor diagnosed me with Fibromyalgia, which I had never heard of. I was confused. I didn't know what to expect or how this would affect my life. I wasn't sure how long it would last or how it might affect my relationship with my granddaughter, who was then about 2 years old.

I worked as long as I could until I found myself in tears half way through every shift because the pain throughout my body was more than my mind could ignore. Even still, I was determined to stick it out because I loved my job and had wonderful bosses. I didn't want to let them down by quitting. My bosses could see that I was in pain but at the time even I didn't know what Fibro really was so I couldn't explain why I was in so much pain. They let me have a chair to sit on in between cleaning, hoping that would help. It did help a great deal but as time went on (about 4 months) it was just too difficult to even clean. I felt that if I couldn't do the job that I was hired for then it was best for my workplace to hire someone who could do the job.

I wasn't sure how that would affect me in a financial way. My granddaughter was living with me full time and even with the help of Social Services, it would be difficult to provide for us both. I was 41 at the time and had claimed bankruptcy the year before so my conerns were quite valid.

And so began my journey of forced unemployment while looking after my granddaughter and dealing with the depression that came with losing the job that I enjoyed very much.

One of the things that Fibro affects, for me, is my memory. It wasn't that great to start with, hehehe. Some details come and go and sometimes not in order so I may go back and forth through time as I write my journey in here.

At first I had headaches which I blamed on the stress of the situation. Then as time went on I became more arthritic "like". My whole body ached from time to time. It wasn't until a few months later that I connected stress to my pain level. My daughter was battling with her own issues which had forced me to tell her to live somewhere else. Therefore the worry about where she was, what was she doing, was she cold, was she hungry, was she safe, and was she ever going to survive her delemma, were all part of my stress.

To be continued...........

I was diagnosed in 2003 and about 6 months later I had to quit my job. The "bad" days at that time were a lot farther apart than they are now. They say that Fibro is not a progressive disorder but it sure feels like it. As I mentioned stress plays a large roll in the day to day pain level I feel. I didn't really understand that or even believe that stress could be so dangerous until one day in the Summer of 2003. My daughter had give Courtney a kitten to look after since she herself didn't have a permanant residence in which to keep the kitten. Well, with Courtney being only about 3 you can guess who took care of the kitten. lol One summer day the door was left open and the Courtney had decided to take her new kitten for a walk around the little group of townhouses that we lived in. Courtney put the kitten down on the ground to go for a walk and as we all can expect, the kitten ran to the nearest tree and there it was............ gone!

I noticed that Courtney was not within earshot. It's amazing how fast such short legs can take those little people. lolol Well pretty soon I could hear her running back to the town house. "Gramma, Gramma help me!" she cried. Anxiously I asked her what was wrong. "Mommy's kitty went for a walk" she said with genuine concern in her voice. So around and around and around and around again, we walked the townhouse complex. No kitten to be seen. We asked the other kids on the block but no one had seen the kitten. We must have walked around that complex for 2 hours trying to find the lost kitten. What, you might ask, would cause me such great stress from just losing a kitten?

Since my daughter was somewhat unpredictable, I wasn't sure how she would deal with her pet being missing. Since she had put the little thing in my care (via Courtney) I felt responsible for the thing. Since I could not predict how she was going to react to the situation, my anxiety went through the roof, hence, so did my stress level. It was that evening after Courtney was in bed and the day was finally over, that I realized the impact that stress had on Fibro. My entire body ached from my headache to my ankles. As I sat at the table near the kitchen window, once again looking outside wondering if my daughter was safe, I could feel the pain travel through my whole body. That was the point that I decided the doctor must be right. After all, they don't know everything, I told myself. LOLOL Stress did play a big part in how much pain I felt in my body.

I can pick up again tomorrow but while I was off work anyways I created a web page years ago and on it is a page on Fibromialga with links that I found at that time. I will give a link here and if any of the links inside the web site do not work, please feel free to let me know.

http://rachael1060.tripod.com/id13.html

I hope that will give the background to the disorder that will make this blog easier to relate to. If you have Fibro yourself, feel free to make a post here and comment or ask any questions that you would like. I can only answer from my own experience but maybe just knowing your not alone will be a help.