Ya know, some days life is a tad daunting. I usually sleep a restless sleep, awakened by burning sensations or random pains, despite my night-time dosage of amitriptyline. The alarm goes off at 5 so I have time to do my exercise bike, or my muscles stiffen up all day (although honestly, I'm so exhausted lately I have been missing it more and more – self defeating, eh?). I'm out of the shower by 6, have makeup and work clothes on at 6:30, help get the kids wrangled while packing my lunch and having breakfast. Then I'm on the road and jockeying for position on the interstate to get to the office in a timely manner.
I spend the day in an office chair working at a computer, getting up often so I don't stiffen up from staying in the same position for too long.
I go home and there's the kid-wrangling through dinner, then if there's no choir practice or kid's activity, I put da boy to bed at 8:00, which can take an hour.
Then into bed myself, and it all starts over again.
Not bad really. I know a lot of moms who do a heckuva lot more than I do during the day.
And I hate to whine. Sometimes anyway. But I'm gonna whine here. Just doing this much has become hard. And I used to do so much more. But now, pulling myself out of bed is painful as well as exhausting. I stay in the shower too long some mornings just because the warm water on my muscles feels so damned good. I can't always grip the knife very well just to cut up my son's banana. My daughter's basically on her own except for dialog – "Got your violin? All of your homework done? Put on your coat!"
While I sit in my office chair I can expect back spasms, shoulder spasms, electric shocks, chest pains, heartburn, neck aches. Also on a good day energy drinks will actually keep me awake. On bad days, I doze off during meetings, and hard as I try, I just can't f*cking help it. It's humiliating.
Last Friday, no matter how hard I tried, no matter how much Diet Dr. Mountain Dew I plugged into my gullet ("Hook it to my veeeeeeiiiiiiins!") I still nodded off several times during a packed-house industry meeting. When an opportunity came to leave the meeting early, I jumped on it so I wouldn't debase myself or my company any further.
In the evenings, I dread every moment I have to walk up or down stairs. Down because it hurts and I feel like gravity's gonna knock me over at any moment. Up because it kinda hurts, but more relevantly I feel like my legs are suddenly made of lead, or like I'm trying to walk upstairs while submerged in a pool of water. Kind of like in nightmares, when you're trying very hard to move quickly and you just can't? They refuse to work with me. And as much as I love our home, at these moments I curse owning a two-story house with a basement.
And at Alan's bedtime, sometimes he asks me to lay in the floor next to him. Every time he does, I pray he doesn't want anything after I'm down there, because it's damned hard to get up again.
And the weight. As I take these stupid fibro meds, my weight keeps piling on. Which makes movement even harder. I have another doctor's appointment on the 19th. I'm going to talk to him about trying to further refine my meds. Something's gotta make this better.
So yeah, I have my whiny pants on today.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Entry 21 - Snickers are on the 6th floor
I want to eat right now. I VERY BADLY want to eat right now. I got a tea instead.
Why am I so adamant about eating right now? Because I feel fraggin' miserable.
Fibro pain is shooting everywhere around my neck and back. My jaw hurts like hell. My legs feel like they're coated in concrete. I'm having trouble staying awake.
Food takes me away, if just for a minute.
Yes, I realize that's totally self-defeating. Oh well.
I'm gonna try very hard not to eat until dinner, but no guarantees.
Why am I so adamant about eating right now? Because I feel fraggin' miserable.
Fibro pain is shooting everywhere around my neck and back. My jaw hurts like hell. My legs feel like they're coated in concrete. I'm having trouble staying awake.
Food takes me away, if just for a minute.
Yes, I realize that's totally self-defeating. Oh well.
I'm gonna try very hard not to eat until dinner, but no guarantees.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Entry 20: My First Memory
Know what's funny? My earliest, earliest memory is about food. Specifically, highly unhealthy food.
True story.
I told Mom years ago about this memory I had. I wanted chocolate ice cream, and I wanted it bad. It was in the freezer of a short brown refrigerator, and I couldn't reach it. So I opened the fridge part of the appliance and climbed until I could reach the freezer door.
I can't remember if I got caught, or if I actually got the ice cream or anything. I just remember that I. Wanted. ICE CREAM.
Oh. I also remember I was only wearing my underwear. Mom and Dad had a hellacious time keeping clothes on me as a kid. They finally got me to at least keep my underpants on as a compromise.
So, apparently Mom and Dad owned the short brown fridge before we moved to the farm. Since we moved the day after my second birthday, and since I potty trained at a little over a year, it was sometime in that period.
(I know people say you can't have memories before like, five or six, but it's an incredibly common phenomenon in our family, so I think those "people" are mistaken.)
So how sick is that? My earliest memory was wanting, working my hardest, thinking creatively, to get to CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM AAAAAHHHH!!! GIMME GIMME!!!!!
Ah, sometimes nothing changes, eh?
I'm having a really hard time sticking to Weight Watchers. I want to do it, but I swear, I am having a helluva big problem with it. I'm getting plenty to eat. I'm spacing my meals and snacks out well.
But I don't get to stuff myself. I'm having carrots instead of popcorn, apples instead of chocolate bars.
Well, let me rephrase that – I shouldn't be stuffing myself. But occasionally I'll reach a time where I just can't stand it and something luscious and fattening will disappear.
I am my own worst enemy.
And know what I want now? CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM!!! Aaaahhhhhh!!!!!!!!
True story.
I told Mom years ago about this memory I had. I wanted chocolate ice cream, and I wanted it bad. It was in the freezer of a short brown refrigerator, and I couldn't reach it. So I opened the fridge part of the appliance and climbed until I could reach the freezer door.
I can't remember if I got caught, or if I actually got the ice cream or anything. I just remember that I. Wanted. ICE CREAM.
Oh. I also remember I was only wearing my underwear. Mom and Dad had a hellacious time keeping clothes on me as a kid. They finally got me to at least keep my underpants on as a compromise.
So, apparently Mom and Dad owned the short brown fridge before we moved to the farm. Since we moved the day after my second birthday, and since I potty trained at a little over a year, it was sometime in that period.
(I know people say you can't have memories before like, five or six, but it's an incredibly common phenomenon in our family, so I think those "people" are mistaken.)
So how sick is that? My earliest memory was wanting, working my hardest, thinking creatively, to get to CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM AAAAAHHHH!!! GIMME GIMME!!!!!
Ah, sometimes nothing changes, eh?
I'm having a really hard time sticking to Weight Watchers. I want to do it, but I swear, I am having a helluva big problem with it. I'm getting plenty to eat. I'm spacing my meals and snacks out well.
But I don't get to stuff myself. I'm having carrots instead of popcorn, apples instead of chocolate bars.
Well, let me rephrase that – I shouldn't be stuffing myself. But occasionally I'll reach a time where I just can't stand it and something luscious and fattening will disappear.
I am my own worst enemy.
And know what I want now? CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM!!! Aaaahhhhhh!!!!!!!!
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Entry 19 – A half pound is worth more than 75 cents
Dumb title, I know. It's a play on words, ya see, since I'm married to my lovely Brit boy. Half a pound? UK-US conversion rate? Yeah, screw it. Let's move on.
Anyway, I lost another half pound this week. Sounds like a pittance, but considering it was Halloween and candy abounded at our house, that half pound is worth a helluva lot to me.
I remember growing up, I hated summers. Why, you ask? Because I gained more weight in a summer than I gained during the school year. At least when I went to school, I couldn't have constant access to food. So while I'd maybe gain 12 – 20 pounds during the school year, I gained 20 – 30 over a summer.
Now I'm an adult. Except for hearings, I have that same constant access to food. And given it was just Halloween and the kids came back with a good haul (half of which is milk-laden and little dude can't eat), It's a wonder I don't weigh 900 pounds.
So the fact I lost half a pound. That actually means a lot to me.
That said, the fibro still sucks. After walking the kids around Halloween night, and carrying Alan for a block before the back and leg spasms were too bad to continue lugging that 40 pounds of childmeat around anymore, I was toast. Total toast. (Which is ironic, you see, because I can't eat toast cause o' the gluten.) It was by sheer force of will that I got up the next morning to do my exercise bike. Well, force of will and the knowledge that if I didn't, I'd be largely unable to move that day.
I still feel it. There's an aching in my knees, constant gnarling pain in my lower back, some shooting paints down my right leg. (There usually is in my left leg, so now at least they're on equal footing – HAHAHA footing. It's a pun).
Unrelated to Halloween, but probably related to fibro, I started a migraine last night, took a migraine pill, which helped for a while until the migraine exploded in the wee hours of the night. At 5 am I took another migraine pill, slept in a bit (skipping my exercise bike – paying for that already), and hauled my butt in with a migraine hangover.
This week has royally sucked.
Except for my half pound. That half pound really is worth a lot.
Anyway, I lost another half pound this week. Sounds like a pittance, but considering it was Halloween and candy abounded at our house, that half pound is worth a helluva lot to me.
I remember growing up, I hated summers. Why, you ask? Because I gained more weight in a summer than I gained during the school year. At least when I went to school, I couldn't have constant access to food. So while I'd maybe gain 12 – 20 pounds during the school year, I gained 20 – 30 over a summer.
Now I'm an adult. Except for hearings, I have that same constant access to food. And given it was just Halloween and the kids came back with a good haul (half of which is milk-laden and little dude can't eat), It's a wonder I don't weigh 900 pounds.
So the fact I lost half a pound. That actually means a lot to me.
That said, the fibro still sucks. After walking the kids around Halloween night, and carrying Alan for a block before the back and leg spasms were too bad to continue lugging that 40 pounds of childmeat around anymore, I was toast. Total toast. (Which is ironic, you see, because I can't eat toast cause o' the gluten.) It was by sheer force of will that I got up the next morning to do my exercise bike. Well, force of will and the knowledge that if I didn't, I'd be largely unable to move that day.
I still feel it. There's an aching in my knees, constant gnarling pain in my lower back, some shooting paints down my right leg. (There usually is in my left leg, so now at least they're on equal footing – HAHAHA footing. It's a pun).
Unrelated to Halloween, but probably related to fibro, I started a migraine last night, took a migraine pill, which helped for a while until the migraine exploded in the wee hours of the night. At 5 am I took another migraine pill, slept in a bit (skipping my exercise bike – paying for that already), and hauled my butt in with a migraine hangover.
This week has royally sucked.
Except for my half pound. That half pound really is worth a lot.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Entry 18 - Ambivalent, but Making an Effort
I joined weight watchers. More to come.
ETA: Dropped five pounds this week. Cautious optimism.
ETA: Dropped five pounds this week. Cautious optimism.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Entry 17 - Don't worry, I do have a point. Kinda.
I didn't mean this to be a fibro blog. I meant it to be a "FAT!" blog. I'll get to the point in a minute.
What follows is not an exercise in griping, but an exercise in observation.
Last night, I realized that just sitting still on the couch having dinner, I could identify multiple points of pain all over my body, and other just odd little hobs and nobs that struck my senses.
So sitting here right now, I'm going to just do a quick inventory, head to toe:
• I feel light headed.
• I feel like a lightly-applied vice is pushing in, just above my
cheekbones, with more pressure on the left side.
• I feel sinus drainage down the back of my throat.
• My throat feels like it's clenched tight.
• My right cheek is burning.
• My jaw joints are throbbing.
• My ears are ringing.
• My mouth is dry (probably the medication)
• My neck is stiff.
• A pain actually just shot up the back right side of my neck to the
base of my skull, and now feels tight.
• The right side of my neck has a baseball-sized ball of hot tight
pain right where it meets the shoulder.
• The tips of my shoulders hurt.
• My collarbones hurt.
• The bottom of my left shoulder blade is throbbing.
• My fingers are numb and tingly.
• I swear, my boobs hurt.
• My sternum feels tight.
• My elbows don't want to move.
• I have weird patches of pain in my forearms.
• My palms are alternating between tingly and hot.
• My fingers hare a dull ache, except the knuckles, which throb.
• My fingertips are burning.
• The spine at my center back just feels like a blister or
something – it only feels fiery when I move it against the back
of my chair.
• I think my ribs themselves are hurting. I'm regretting wearing
pants, I should have worn a dress with no waistband.
• My stomach feels pukey.
• My lower abdomen has little balls of crampy pain in various places.
• My left hip is throbbing and tender to the touch.
• Oh who am I kidding? Lots of weird places on me are tender to the touch.
• The pain from my hip seems to leech down to my left knee, where it
rests like a railroad spike at the knee cap.
• The inside of my right knee feels like a black of wood.
• I can't cross my legs, or I end up with massive inner thigh cramps.
• There's a soft-ball sized knot, just the feeling of a hot hard ball,
in my right calf.
• My feet are tingly, and the balls are throbbing.
• My arches are just kind of … tightened? Like they don't want to be left out?
• Oh, and above my right ankle, it's started to cramp. Lovely.
And I'm really not trying to complain because, well, it pretty much feels like this all the time. So you just kind of get used to it, ya know? I mean, I'm not happy, I'm not comfortable, I certainly want to treat it, but this has just become a daily thing since I've been off the NSAIDs, so I am still adjusting, but meh.
Anyway, on to the weight loss portion of the show.
I've been doing 20 minutes on the exercise bike every morning to try to help keep things managed. It sucks. I get up at 5 am to do it, before the rest of the family's awake, and to try to get my blood moving for the day. The only thing that keeps me doing it is I feel way better throughout the day if I can keep it up. I've been slacking off on weekends, which means I've been feeling shittier on weekends than weekdays. I need to suck it up and continue on the weekends, because right now, all I'm doing is sleeping and whining through my time with my family.
So at work, they're doing a health challenge – put in 400 minutes of exercise in the month of October. I got that nailed as long as I report my exercise bike time, so why not?
Then, they're bringing weight watchers in house because there was enough interest. So I'm signing up. I'm sure there's a gluten-free program I can follow.
So we'll see what happens. Pain control plus some weight loss? If I'm going to be doing the exercise anyway, maybe I can finally make it worth more.
Plus, if I lose 30 pounds, I intend to wear this awesome, amazing, alluring dress to my best friend's wedding. Her dress is very Grecian goddess. I can be her high-ranking slave girl in this rockin' piece o' material!
What follows is not an exercise in griping, but an exercise in observation.
Last night, I realized that just sitting still on the couch having dinner, I could identify multiple points of pain all over my body, and other just odd little hobs and nobs that struck my senses.
So sitting here right now, I'm going to just do a quick inventory, head to toe:
• I feel light headed.
• I feel like a lightly-applied vice is pushing in, just above my
cheekbones, with more pressure on the left side.
• I feel sinus drainage down the back of my throat.
• My throat feels like it's clenched tight.
• My right cheek is burning.
• My jaw joints are throbbing.
• My ears are ringing.
• My mouth is dry (probably the medication)
• My neck is stiff.
• A pain actually just shot up the back right side of my neck to the
base of my skull, and now feels tight.
• The right side of my neck has a baseball-sized ball of hot tight
pain right where it meets the shoulder.
• The tips of my shoulders hurt.
• My collarbones hurt.
• The bottom of my left shoulder blade is throbbing.
• My fingers are numb and tingly.
• I swear, my boobs hurt.
• My sternum feels tight.
• My elbows don't want to move.
• I have weird patches of pain in my forearms.
• My palms are alternating between tingly and hot.
• My fingers hare a dull ache, except the knuckles, which throb.
• My fingertips are burning.
• The spine at my center back just feels like a blister or
something – it only feels fiery when I move it against the back
of my chair.
• I think my ribs themselves are hurting. I'm regretting wearing
pants, I should have worn a dress with no waistband.
• My stomach feels pukey.
• My lower abdomen has little balls of crampy pain in various places.
• My left hip is throbbing and tender to the touch.
• Oh who am I kidding? Lots of weird places on me are tender to the touch.
• The pain from my hip seems to leech down to my left knee, where it
rests like a railroad spike at the knee cap.
• The inside of my right knee feels like a black of wood.
• I can't cross my legs, or I end up with massive inner thigh cramps.
• There's a soft-ball sized knot, just the feeling of a hot hard ball,
in my right calf.
• My feet are tingly, and the balls are throbbing.
• My arches are just kind of … tightened? Like they don't want to be left out?
• Oh, and above my right ankle, it's started to cramp. Lovely.
And I'm really not trying to complain because, well, it pretty much feels like this all the time. So you just kind of get used to it, ya know? I mean, I'm not happy, I'm not comfortable, I certainly want to treat it, but this has just become a daily thing since I've been off the NSAIDs, so I am still adjusting, but meh.
Anyway, on to the weight loss portion of the show.
I've been doing 20 minutes on the exercise bike every morning to try to help keep things managed. It sucks. I get up at 5 am to do it, before the rest of the family's awake, and to try to get my blood moving for the day. The only thing that keeps me doing it is I feel way better throughout the day if I can keep it up. I've been slacking off on weekends, which means I've been feeling shittier on weekends than weekdays. I need to suck it up and continue on the weekends, because right now, all I'm doing is sleeping and whining through my time with my family.
So at work, they're doing a health challenge – put in 400 minutes of exercise in the month of October. I got that nailed as long as I report my exercise bike time, so why not?
Then, they're bringing weight watchers in house because there was enough interest. So I'm signing up. I'm sure there's a gluten-free program I can follow.
So we'll see what happens. Pain control plus some weight loss? If I'm going to be doing the exercise anyway, maybe I can finally make it worth more.
Plus, if I lose 30 pounds, I intend to wear this awesome, amazing, alluring dress to my best friend's wedding. Her dress is very Grecian goddess. I can be her high-ranking slave girl in this rockin' piece o' material!
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Entry 16 - How do you get past denial?
I used to be married to an alcoholic. I know all about denial. I'm quite good at it, I spent years swimming happily in it. Or, rather unhappily, but pretending to be happy.
And it occurred to me today as I was mowing through a bag of peanut butter M&M's (the food of the gods, this was the mana that fell on the Israelites) that I'm in denial once again. About my health.
Oh, I talk a good game. I'm overweight, I need to deal with it for my health and to set a good example for my children, I need to cut out caffeine, chocolate, asparatame, etc., to help get my fibromyalgia under control, blah blah blah. But do I live it? No. Because at the end of the day I still don't feel like anything bad is going to happen to me over this rather than having to continually cycle out my wardrobe to larger sizes as I get fatter and fatter.
So what is it with me? How come I can intellectually know something but I can't let it past the Chocolate Chex and into my heart? Is it not that I can't physically give up the food; is it more that I'm eating myself silly because then I can avoid really facing what my brain already knows? Because sometimes the reality of my situation sinks in, and I get sullen and depressed. I'm so pained and so tired, that when I face it, I just curl into a cranky little ball. If I keep eating and deny it, I'm literally "fat and happy."
And I think I must be onto something, because just typing that out, admitting it, is making my heart feel heavy. And not because of all the fat that's probably hanging all over it like Kevin Smith on Stan Lee. (No disrepect at all intended to Mr. Smith or Mr. Lee, I admire them both, it's just the first analogy that popped into my head, which just proves I'm way too pop-culture enamored.)
I don't eat to live. I don't even live to eat. I eat so I don't have to face the reality of life. I eat so I don't have to think about what I am. Because as long as there's a gluten-free, fat-and-sugar-filled lemon shortbread cookie in my hand and a cuppa on my desk, I can be somewhere else in my head. I can also cling to the fact that as long as I'm fat, I can blame all of the bad stuff in my life on my weight, and think it'd all be better if I could just lose weight (I've been thin, though, so I know that's not true). I eat instead of drink because I can feel high and alive and forget everything around me while I concentrate on the pleasure of food (without the drunkenness that pained me so much during my first marriage).
So yeah. I can talk all I want, but I'm not really there yet. And when I start to get there, it's kind of crushing. Which is stupid – I know I have so much, why am I so concerned about not having my health? Or is that part of what's defeating me, that I can't admit things aren't the best they could be despite how much is good? That I can't accept the dichotomy of daily pain with daily joy? That I can be physically and emotionally miserable while still being intellectually stable and "heart" happy? I've been so adamant the last few years that gray areas are acceptable and traversable, have I not really understood that beyond my law practice and the lives of my friends I so happily contribute advice to? Is it I can see the bigger picture with the entire world, but I can't get past tidbits in my own tiny isolated existence?
I'm suddenly not so hungry. M&M's are gone now, though, so that doesn't matter. But suddenly I'm thinking I need to just crawl into my own mind for a while, and see what's actually there.
And it occurred to me today as I was mowing through a bag of peanut butter M&M's (the food of the gods, this was the mana that fell on the Israelites) that I'm in denial once again. About my health.
Oh, I talk a good game. I'm overweight, I need to deal with it for my health and to set a good example for my children, I need to cut out caffeine, chocolate, asparatame, etc., to help get my fibromyalgia under control, blah blah blah. But do I live it? No. Because at the end of the day I still don't feel like anything bad is going to happen to me over this rather than having to continually cycle out my wardrobe to larger sizes as I get fatter and fatter.
So what is it with me? How come I can intellectually know something but I can't let it past the Chocolate Chex and into my heart? Is it not that I can't physically give up the food; is it more that I'm eating myself silly because then I can avoid really facing what my brain already knows? Because sometimes the reality of my situation sinks in, and I get sullen and depressed. I'm so pained and so tired, that when I face it, I just curl into a cranky little ball. If I keep eating and deny it, I'm literally "fat and happy."
And I think I must be onto something, because just typing that out, admitting it, is making my heart feel heavy. And not because of all the fat that's probably hanging all over it like Kevin Smith on Stan Lee. (No disrepect at all intended to Mr. Smith or Mr. Lee, I admire them both, it's just the first analogy that popped into my head, which just proves I'm way too pop-culture enamored.)
I don't eat to live. I don't even live to eat. I eat so I don't have to face the reality of life. I eat so I don't have to think about what I am. Because as long as there's a gluten-free, fat-and-sugar-filled lemon shortbread cookie in my hand and a cuppa on my desk, I can be somewhere else in my head. I can also cling to the fact that as long as I'm fat, I can blame all of the bad stuff in my life on my weight, and think it'd all be better if I could just lose weight (I've been thin, though, so I know that's not true). I eat instead of drink because I can feel high and alive and forget everything around me while I concentrate on the pleasure of food (without the drunkenness that pained me so much during my first marriage).
So yeah. I can talk all I want, but I'm not really there yet. And when I start to get there, it's kind of crushing. Which is stupid – I know I have so much, why am I so concerned about not having my health? Or is that part of what's defeating me, that I can't admit things aren't the best they could be despite how much is good? That I can't accept the dichotomy of daily pain with daily joy? That I can be physically and emotionally miserable while still being intellectually stable and "heart" happy? I've been so adamant the last few years that gray areas are acceptable and traversable, have I not really understood that beyond my law practice and the lives of my friends I so happily contribute advice to? Is it I can see the bigger picture with the entire world, but I can't get past tidbits in my own tiny isolated existence?
I'm suddenly not so hungry. M&M's are gone now, though, so that doesn't matter. But suddenly I'm thinking I need to just crawl into my own mind for a while, and see what's actually there.
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