Disease & Discomfort

In the fall of 2005, after a lot of pain and never ending illnesses, my family doctor referred me to the umpteenth specialist: a pain doctor. This doctor evaluated me by making pain occur all over my body. Then he began to describe most of my symptoms, and my general condition. I was amazed by his acute observations and accurate diagnosis. He then pronounced the name of the disease that riddled through my body, and had made my life a living hell for the past decade or so: Fibromyalgia.

At first I thought he made it up because I had never heard of such a disease. Then he began to define the ambiguity of the symptoms, and how elusive the disease can be to diagnose. I thought he may be talking about a new word for 'hypochondriac'- oh great, it's all in my head. But no, Dr. Braun assured me that Fibromyalgia is a very real condition, even though it has many facets and is difficult to diagnose. He went on to say that research doesn't know what causes Fibromyalgia, nor what cures it. I suddenly felt very cheated (why me?) and pretty much went into shock as he continued to inform me about the seemingly hopelessness that circulates around this disease. It usually only gets worse, and the symptoms were endless.

I thought I had lead a fairly healthy life- I was always very active in sports; I taught swimming for nearly 15 years, I ran track and rode my bike everywhere into adulthood. I ate all my vegetables and fruits, etc. Now I hardly have any strength left, and it hurts to sit down, let alone to walk very far. If you had told me when I was 23 that I would have been crippled by my mid-forties, I would have called you crazy. I just simply did not see this coming. Then again, nobody ever does- I mean you don't sit down one day and say to yourself "you know, I think I'll develop cancer...."

I tried denial- that didn't work. It's hard to deny so many symptoms, especially when it affects every aspect of daily life- like walking, sitting, cooking, cleaning- you name it. Then I tried to self-medicate, with vodka as my choice of 'medicine'. That didn't work, either, and perhaps made it worse, if possible. And it's not just the physical pain and discomfort that gets you- it's the mental drag that knocks you to your knees, and keeps you down for years. All the symptoms, all the time make fibromyalgia nearly impossible to deal with on a daily basis. Add a severe dose of depression, insomnia and an irritable bowel and you start to get the drift of what I deal with all the time.

The thumbnail scratch of my ailments from fibromyalgia is severe muscle and joint pain, always. I have arthritis and bone spurs degenerating all my bones, including the spine. Any cold is ten times worse than regular cold symptoms would be, and this goes for all illnesses incurred with fibromyalgia. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. If it's bad, it happens with this mad disease. Then suddenly, I may have one or two fairly good days, for absolutely no rhyme nor reason. But the total pain never goes completely away- even on good days. So I have had to learn to deal with levels of pain, like how much pain can I endure before taking the serious pain meds, and then dealing with those gastronomical side affects, which are unpleasant. What a choice.

The depression is a different animal altogether- a monster, really. The demon of depression delves so deeply to the very depths of my humanity, and then immediately debilitates me to almost a coma state. I can't write or think or do anything, but fight the total grip that monster depression takes hold of me. It is like living in a black hole; even on a bright, sunny day the light cannot penetrate the darkness that is depression for me. I hate not being able to shake it off, and it hangs heavily like an albatross made of tons of brick around my neck, trying to smother the very life out of me. The tears of despair tear at my heart muscle so that it barely beats. Day turns to night, and then weeks and months pass with no end in sight. The spiral continues into the swirling abyss of mental illness that medication only slightly helps. I have been on dozens of anti-depressants, some several at a time- with only marginal relief. If anything, the anti-depressants make me realize how many astronomical fathoms I have sunk to, and they do bring me a little closer to the surface of mental health. Enough about depression for now- it's too depressing. Cymbalta does help, though.

Getting old and decrepit is really getting old and stale. I have many similar health problems of a woman twice my age, and I am not quite 50 yet. I had to have my knees injected yesterday, as I was long over due from the 6 month time period. My poor knees have little or no cartilage, and there are lots of bone spurs beneath the knee cap on both knees, as the arthritis spreads. It is an extremely painful condition that makes simple walking a daily task filled with pain and discomfort. I am not quite old enough for a knee replacement, although I have tried to talk the docs into an early surgery so I can spend more time with my kids. The pain in my knees is so great that it keeps me awake at night, along with all the other maladies.

I have to tell someone the whole procedure just to let someone else know how difficult and complicated my life can be most times- maybe for a comparison. The injection procedure starts with an anti-bacterial swab on both knee caps. Then the doctor applies a very cold liquid from an aerosol can, like liquid dry ice. She uses a 4 inch long needle so the injection can go beneath the knee cap and directly into the knee joint, between the bones. This injection hurts with some fairly intense pain, if you can imagine. First, she squirts an analgesic (like Lanacaine) into the joint, unscrews that plunger from the syringe, needle dangling from my knee, while she fills the syringe with the cocktail of anti-inflammatory and lubricants to soothe the inflamed tissue under my knee cap.

When she injects this cocktail, the pain increases to unbearable levels, and sometimes I can feel my eyes rolling back into my head. This must have occurred yesterday, because as soon as she began the secondary injection, she told me to 'stay with her' and she began asking me awareness question so I wouldn't black out. She asked me what was my youngest son's name, and I had to think about it for a minute. Then she quickly asked me what activities does Danny like- I couldn't respond because of the pain- so I just barely breathed "I-uh-I-er don't know..."

When I went into the doctor's office, my right knee hurt the most. She did that knee first, and soon after the injection, I felt some pain relief in the right knee. However, the orthopedist kept telling me that according to the x-rays, my left knee had far more arthritic damage. This became suddenly evident yesterday after the knee injection to my left knee. I could barely make it out of the office, and seriously wanted to crawl on our front sidewalk into the house- but not on my knees. It was a conundrum. I made it into the house- albeit like an 80 year old granny- but I couldn't care less at the time.

Needless to say, I didn't sleep well last night with the two knee injections- it was hard to pick a side to sleep on, especially when it feels like you have two grapefruits under your knee caps.

The morning time is always the worst with fibromyalgia, anyway. It usually takes me at least 45 minutes to about an 1 1/2 hours to stand fully erect in the morning, every morning. The bones in my feet crunch along down every step down the staircase. My neck and shoulders ache until about mid-day. And it gets a lot worse if it's cold and dank, or a cold front is coming, a snow storm, and I can even feel extremely strong hurricane depressions, and I live in Iowa! My body beats any meteorologist around!

I can barely walk today because of my left knee- and nothing seems to help. It hurts if I put it up, leave it down, stand or sit. I just hope that the injections aren't becoming less effective- or my body less tolerant, or I really won't be able to get around. The knee injection schedule is one shot in both knees per week for 3 weeks- then I'm good to go for 6 months to a year on this newest cocktail of knee injections. I have the remainder of 2 weeks and 4 injections left, so wish me luck. I hate torture.