First off...painsomnia sucks. Fibro has my skin and nerves flaring out of control, so that no matter how sleepy I am, the pain is not letting the sandman near me. I'm pretty sure that he has been kidnapped and locked in the back of a trunk somewhere. I've been dizzy and off-balance all day, just to add to the pain, so if I had gone anywhere with the Hubs this morning I'm sure that everyone would have thought I was drunk.
I could so easily just ramble my way through this blog entry right now. My brain is on overdrive. Have been trying to get together quotes and ideas for remodeling our soon to be "new" home and honestly, I'm exhausted and confused and cannot remember who gave us what price or what information. Hubs seems to remember each and every tidbit (or so he claims...I cannot counterattack this claim since I have Swiss cheese brain). And that brings something else to mind: why can he remember all of those little details but he can't remember to take out the trash or to give Coco her meds? Makes me wonder. LOL
Should I do an introduction? I mean, I'm sharing this with my close friends at first and then we will see where it goes from there, but intro? Let's see...I'm almost 39 (that just looks so wrong. I do not feel like I should be almost 40). I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in 2006 and with fibro about 3 years later. It's possible that I had RA when I was younger. I had problems with my ankles and my knees giving out when I would run on the playground, or even just walking to the bus. I would always joke that my parents should have named me Grace. Then, I also had my left knee lock up on me. I couldn't straighten it out at all. I was x-rayed, examined from head to toe and all that jazz, but they didn't find a reason for it. My mamaw (my dad's mom) and my aunt took me to a chiropractor and he actually had to come get me out of the car because I still couldn't walk. After a good hour or so of manipulation, my leg was FINALLY straightened out. Fast forward to high school, working at a local restaurant (in the kitchen because there was no way that I wanted to work as a waitress....nope. Too shy at that time, and actually having to talk to people made me want to pass out. Plus, the kitchen was full of GUYS. Need I say more?) After working there for over a year, I started noticing what I thought was carpal tunnel syndrome. My mom and my aunt both had problems with CTS and my aunt had actually had surgery on both her wrists, so I pretty much knew the symptoms. I chalked it up to working all the time and it just being a "family trait". Jump ahead to 2004. My son was less than three years old, I was working at a local hospital at the time and used the gym there (given that the YMCA close to us was constantly packed and it just wasn't working out time-wise). My left knee started to give me all kinds of problems and it got to the point where I couldn't work out without it giving out on me, or I would end up having to spend the next day icing it while I was at work. Went to the dr, was sent to an orthopedic doc, and was diagnosed with misaligned patellas. Sent to PT for 6 or 8 weeks. Everything seemed to clear up with the exercises I was given by my therapist and life continued on. I also continued on with working out several days a week (confession: I was a junkie. That was my high. I graduated from high school weighing just at 100 lbs and my abs were rock hard. I loved it. I also loved running, great stress reliever - and holy moly, do I miss that now.) So, during 2006, I was working out and had reached my first target weight of 130 (I really wanted to get back to 120; I had been 116 when I got married at 21. And please, no body dysmorphic comments about this. I hate my weight now, but I'm learning to live with it even though there is always that little voice in my mind that wants me to get back to even just 140). I got to work one morning and my ankles were hurting so bad...it truly felt like I had sprained both of them. I had used the elliptical machine the evening before and some weight stations (that did not involve my ankles). I talked to my co-workers and then showed them my ankles...a little swollen, but mostly just OUCH. By lunch time, both ankles had swelling on the outer side that was almost the size of a tennis ball. I immediately called my doctor, trying to keep my internal freak out on the inside, and they got me in that afternoon. First thing my doctor said: I'm sending you to see a rheumatologist.
I'm sending you to see a rheumatologist. Internal freak out meter went completely out of whack. The only thing that rivaled that was "I'm sending you to a hematologist" because around the same time my WBC (white blood cell count) was elevated and we could not figure out why. Now we know that it's related to the RA process and it still wavers from normal to slightly elevated.
After all the tests, and examinations and finally being diagnosed with RA (or as one doctor preferred to call it - inflammatory arthritis), I found out that there is a huge history of RA on both my mom and dad's sides. In fact, the great-grandmothers from whom I got my middle name both had RA. One of the hardest decisions was to determine how aggressively we wanted to treat this. Was I still planning on having another baby (John was around 5 at this time and we had gone back and forth on when or if we wanted another one)...if so, there weren't very many medications that I could take. We tried the conservative route for a while and RA seeped it's way into other joints. I gave up the idea of another baby. I cried. A lot. I switched to second shift for a while, just so I could be alone and not have anyone ask questions about how everything was going. Several of my coworkers got pregnant. Do you know how hard it is to be happy for a friend who is pregnant? That was just hard to type...but I was so angry. It seemed like, and still seems like, RA is taking away little bits of joy and the ability to look forward to things EVERY. DAMN. DAY. I got really good at faking it. Well, I was back then...now, not so much. I think the fact that I don't have a lot of real life/people contact has messed with my head and I'll pretty much say whatever I want. Full blown SAB (snarky ass bitch). And she likes to come out when I least expect it. Damn her.
