Everything adds up. One plus one equals two. It walks like a goat, talks like a goat, smells like a goat... it is probably a freakin' goat.
I finally got my knee fixed. And my knees- even the human one- feel great. But guess what... that's right... everything else has fallen apart. I've been keeping track of all this for years now. And it adds up to fibromyalgia. When my cousin died last year, her father told me that she had been on that pain patch that made the news. My cousin was my age. My uncle also told me that they are figuring that Grandma Viola (his mom, obviously) had fibromyalgia, too. Of course, since she's been gone for over twenty years now, we can't prove it. My own mother probably has it, but she's got a slew of other health issues right now that it would be impossible to name any one thing.
In the past two years, I've become much more aware of fibromyalgia and how it attacks the body. That's right, it "attacks" not unlike Chuck Norris. Only, its more like if Chuck Norris were a massive team of ninjas because fibromyalgia comes on quietly and when it hits, you don't even realize it. This ninja ailment probably runs in my family and for that, I apologize to my daughters. Some research points to the fact that men don't seem to be as afflicted as women. And chances are my own kids won't have a problem, but if they do, I am sorry.
The easiest way to describe how I feel daily is a giant bruise. You know how when you get a bruise of significant size, like say you were at a softball game and someone hit the ball in a wild foul and it slammed into your thigh... you end up with a rather large bruise the size of a baby's head. You can't stop yourself from poking at it because it hurts, but it doesn't hurt. It aches. If I don't move, if I merely sit as still as I can, I feel like a giant baby's head-sized bruise. I'd say at about a four on that stupid pain scale they have at the triage desk in the ER. If I move, the pain in that body part shoots up to an eight. And at the moment, all the pain in my body seems to be rooted in my right hip. That pain goes up to a ten.
They say at "ten", your pain would make you cry. It does. Almost every bloody day, I fight tears when I move. I hate hurting this much.
Every single morning for... I don't even know how long, years now, at least two, maybe more... I can barely move when I wake up. Every single muscle feels as though its been stretched and bruised and pounded. I thought, at first, this was related to foot pain. They say your feet are connected to everything in your body and if your feet hurt, you hurt everywhere. And fibromyalgia makes it hard for your body to achieve a full sleep, so you're always in pain. Pain, lack of sleep, more pain, less sleep, more pain... this circle. Over and over.
I have days where I'm so exhausted that I can barely function. Days where I take a nap and wake up even more tired than when I fell asleep. I have nights were I hurt so much I can't sleep. I lay in bed, my legs elevated (because of the swelling) and I stare at the ceiling. Or the wall. Or the fan. I give it about an hour, sometimes two and I get up. Then I end up staying awake till around three or four AM. Then I get so tired that I have no choice but to fall asleep. And it starts all over again. Tired, pain, no sleep, more pain, less sleep... And it seems that this is probably the reason my knee-replacement recovery took a full year. Every time I thought I could go a little harder, my body would give me a setback, causing me to slow down again.
Technically, I haven't been officially diagnosed, but after all the reading I've done online- and I've done a serious amount of reading from real and reliable sources- it all adds up to that massive, loud, smelly goat. Let me start a few years ago...
Picture it... my life... my body... the mid-2000s.
My thyroid went out of whack again. I was sure of it. I complained to my doctor- who, for these purposes will be called Jerkboy, because he was- that I was exhausted all the time. I could barely drag myself out of the bed in the morning, I would doze off while sitting up. Please, I begged, check my thyroid. (I have had hypothyroidism since I was eighteen years old). Jerkboy claimed my thyroid numbers were fine. But what about my total bodily exhaustion? He tells me I need to lose weight. I'm in pain, from my feet, from my knees... and 'round and 'round we go. We all know the saga of my knees- Jerkboy claims my knees hurt because I'm overweight. I tell him to check my records and he will see I was not overweight TILL the knees went bad.
This is the doctor who would tell me: "If you lost the weight, your knees would stop hurting..." then after a few minutes and discussing my foot pain, "You should stay off your feet." I was supposed to simultaneously exercise to lose weight while staying off my feet to ease the pain.
After another six months of being worn out and in pain and not being able to exercise, I ask about rheumatoid arthritis- it runs in my family. He says it isn't RA. He claims that one of the blood tests I had was for RA. It isn't RA, it isn't peri-menopause, it isn't anything... apparently, I'm just lazy. I ask if it could be fibromyalgia. He shot that down as fast as the ratings of a sitcom after they add a baby. He never even tested me for it. And now, all these years later, I wonder if he ever tested me for RA.
Fibromyalgia cannot be tested for through blood tests. Its sort of a practical test- hands on. There are eighteen tender points on the body that can help indicate fibromyalgia. Its also a process of elimination. Doctors tend to test for everything else- thyroid disease, rheumatoid arthritis, peri-menopause, and they do X-rayz, MRIs, CT scans... all to make sure the patient doesn't have another disease or disorder.
But wait, you say, Patty, you have had all these tests. Why didn't Jerkboy see this? Well, I always thought that Jerkboy hated overweight women. It turns out that he hates all overweight people. I spoke to a person at the VA hospital (he works there, I'm not saying who) and he had the same problem with Jerkboy. He refused to see that he became overweight BECAUSE of the knee problem, not that he had a knee problem from being overweight.
I have a doctor appointment on June 17th and I have a new doctor. She seems to be helpful and she seems to really care about me. She has been helping with some other issues and it hadn't occurred to me to ask her about fibromyalgia because of how quickly Jerkboy shot me down. I have a list of things to talk to her about (that's right, I write down stuff to ask the doctor). And I'm hoping that she says it IS fibromyalgia. Why would I want to be diagnosed with a chronic disorder? Because if we know what it is, we can live with it. If we know what it is, we can take measures, be they drugs or physical therapy or homeopathic, to make it easier to live with.
Treatment is usually something related to easing pain or inducing sleep. I'm not fond of adding another drug to my pharmacy that I already take, but if it helps me, it will help some other issues. I can't exercise, I don't have the energy. Sitting here at my desk, my legs and feet don't hurt. My shoulders are aching, my fingers are moving, so they don't hurt, but they have a sort of painful vibration. As soon as I get up (and I will soon, because my daughter will be calling for a ride home from work), the pain will shoot through my body like electricity. I have to "save up" my energy. If I know I'm going to have a busy day- say grocery shopping- I rest up the day before and I take pain meds before I leave the house. And I don't do anything for the rest of that day. I have to pace my activities.
I thought I was getting my life back when I became a Cyborg Sapien. Hopefully I will get my life back now and I'll be able to enjoy being bionic. Because so far, it hasn't been as much fun as I had hoped.