enjoying life

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What’s Your “In Your Head” Morning CheckList? From One Fibromite to Another…

… i am running about to go up some stairs … anndddd I’m awake! well, my brain is slowly adjusting to the morning fogginess attempting to determine dream vs. reality. ummmm running? definitely dream! as i slowly go through my morning checklist in my head…

  • can i move my legs? let’s see… i can already feel that numbing-tingling-i’m-gonna-go-limp-on-you feeling in my knees and i haven’t even gotten out of bed… great. it would be one thing if i had maybe been on a 2-hour bike ride first, but this is ridiculous… oh yeah, it was all that running i just did. the top of my legs, right on that bone area… as long as you don’t… well let’s just say touch it… we are all good! maybe i should just invest in shin guards… soccer fever is in the air, right? hey, my thighs? alllll goood!!
  • how about my feet? toes are good – check! bottom of my feet are good, yes! i hate that pins and needles or i should say spikes and knives that go on for about 1-3 minutes that feels like 15 minutes that make me want to scream in pain! AHHHHHHHH!!! but i can’t complain about that at this moment… woohoo!! tops of my feet were feeling a bit of “the jolly green giant stepped on me” pain, but i can deal with that.
  • i’d love to skip that middle of the body – ’cause … well … it’s just a bit massive so in my mind it’s just best sometimes to forget about it. (“body image mom!” i can hear my daughter saying because i don’t like to say negative things around her… i don’t want her growing up constantly obsessing about her body image. shit. i hate when stuff comes back on me like this.) okay.  anyway, my tummy is upset as it always is these days when i wake up… when i am awake… pretty much all the time… and i don’t end up with a beautiful bouncing baby 9 months later either!! let’s be very clear — i don’t want a beautiful bouncing baby at this time in my life, but for feeling sick like this? you’d think it would be the end result! i keep thinking i should break out my maternity clothes because my stomach is all bloaty and upset all the time, then i remember, nope just another side effect. damn. (and i thought i had an excuse to go clothes shopping!)
  • arms…. oh my arms. yup! let’s just say they definitely are not going to be doing any heavy lifting today. light lifting is out as well. driving? not today either. wrists? high on the pain level scale… and shoulders? high, very high.
  • neck? well… unfortunately that is not a good place for me. neck and shoulders is where i carry my stress. i have to constantly remind myself… r-e-l-a-x! i do a lot of the deep breathing exercises and relax my neck and shoulders during that time because i constantly forget to relax there… pain is high. i will get up and do my exercises and hopefully that will help.
  • head? i have a headache this morning…

guess what day today is. just guess. no really. because i am in bed saying to myself it’s definitely a “cane” day and i’m not talking sugar cane… it’s definitely a day to take a long nap and rest. although i will try to convince my husband to take me to the dog park, my favorite place to just get away and relax. it is, of course, saturday. because that would be my free day and it has become my “down” day. literally. after working 5 days and wanting to have a fun day, i always end up with this “down” day. which actually isn’t the worst thing that could happen… i just don’t like things forced on me.

this week has actually been great, we’ve had friends from out-of-town visiting to make for better days and last night we had a great night out. tomorrow we will go to the beach. it’s not the usual week. no complaining from this girl!!

what’s your usual “in your head” morning checklist?

wishing you all a pain-free week-end! thanks for stopping by… stay cool!

tamiko

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Expect the Unexpected… The Life of a Fibromite

Expect the unexpected… that should be the motto of our lives. Each day we wake up we never know which part of our body will function, or not. This is always an interesting part of my morning routine… I wake up and lay in bed for a few minutes and sort of have a chat with my body:

“okay feet, what’s going on… crazy nerves or are you going to be cool today?”

“legs and knees, numb this morning? can we stand up? walk?”

“back… oh back, let’s just rest a bit and then stretch out and … we really can do this… right?”

“shoulders… breathe…  breathe… release (I always have to remember to let my muscles relax in my shoulders!)”

“neck.. relax.. relax! .. oh I mean …. breaaaathhhheeeee… relaxxxx”

I have had one flare free week and what a blessing that was. I haven’t had a relatively pain free week like that in a very long time. Today is a new day. I will take it for what it is. I have new challenges to face today and I will face them and I will use my tools to manage through the pain and I will fight the flare monster away!

Today is a new day.

Expect the unexpected… and accept, sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s not so good. Everyday is a new day, which means every day you have a new opportunity to make it a GREAT DAY!

Thanks for stopping by!

Stay cool.

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Fibromites, Do You Wake Up Refreshed? Just Smile!

It is Saturday morning, 6:30am and I am sitting here wide awake. Ask me why… c’mon, ask. Come onnnnn…. Okay fine! Because it’s Saturday and I can actually sleep in (well not really, my daughter has a soccer game and I would have to get up in a bit anyway, but that’s not the point!). The point is, it’s Saturday and I don’t have to get up at this time and it’s like flipping backwards day as usual in my life and I am awake for no reason when I should be asleep and here I am wide awake! Whew! That was a long sentence! It is not as if I got enough sleep so I woke up feeling…. and I hate this word now –> REFRESHED (Wait a minute, I honestly have tried to take that word out of my vocab… so rewind, erase and replace hate with strongly dislike). How many fibromites actually feel “refreshed” when they wake up? (could you actually feel me doing the quote/unquote really strongly with my fingers that time? because I was, well as strong as these grip-less hands would let me). I mean, that is just not something I have felt in years. I wake up feeling like …. hmmmm … not sure I have thought about this … I wake up and think about how I slept, what hurts and will I be able to walk when I get out of bed and then I try and figure out what day it is. Now as my daughter says, “sharing is caring” so when y’all read that one, laugh with me, not at me… because, for example, today I woke up and really thought it was Thursday for some reason. I was pretty happy it was Saturday once I figured it out. Still laughing at me, I mean, with me? That’s alright, that’s why you visited my blog today, some pain relief. :)

So back to my point, most days I wake up feeling tired, half of those days along with tired foggy decides to join the party and maybe 15% of those days depression decides to crash the party and bring everyone down. So refreshed never really happens. I wonder what that’s like. You know when you are watching t.v. and that commercial comes on with the chick in her all white pajamas changing the all white sheets, and the light shining through the wall of glass behind her and she just looks all clean and refreshed? She is the anti-me. I ha… oh wait, really dislike her.

It’s really not all bad, it’s my reality. I’m just saying it’s Saturday and “hellllllooooooooo”, just thought I might sleep in today, but apparently I needed to get up and greet the world. Okay… seriously, I am smiling… I really am. I just realized it. I am crackin’ myself up as I write this… I have to take my own advice, right? Don’t take life too seriously… and THAT my friends is why I am up early. I needed to wake up and get an early start so I could smile and hopefully make you smile. If I didn’t get up early enough I would not have been able to write this before getting out of the house for my daughter’s game. That’s the start of my day… smiling. Awesome!

Hope you enjoyed my post. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you start your day with a smile!

Stay cool!

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I Close My Eyes…

I notice I close my eyes a lot these days…

When I am in physical pain.

I close my eyes.

When I am hurt emotionally.

I close my eyes.

When I am mad.

I close my eyes.

When I am sad.

I close my eyes.

When I am frustrated.

I close my eyes.

When I am tired… exhausted.

I close my eyes.

When I need to think.

I close my eyes.

When my heart is feeling scratched and torn.

I close my eyes.

When I feel disrespected and I am about to lose my mind.

I close my eyes.

When I am talking and I’m not being heard.

I close my eyes.

When I need to take a mental break.

I close my eyes.

I find myself thinking what it must feel like to be blind…. memorizing my surroundings and taking mental note of what I want to remember. Visualizing in my mind the environment I want to keep in my memory if I am not able to see.

What is this about? I have no idea. I have just noticed that more and more in the last six months, it is a physical response that I have started to use. It was not something intentional, but also not something I decided I didn’t like. I like it. I like that it makes me stop and take a moment to close the world out and take a break. It tells me… “don’t lose control…. just take a moment and get it together.” This life or any life is not easy. God did not put us on earth for “easy”, we are all here for different reasons. If we accept that and stop fighting it, then life becomes easi-“er”.

I believe I know why I am here. I am put in situations and I help out where I am needed. In the end I am definitely rewarded. God is good to me. As long as I look at the big picture and don’t just think about “ME”, I do well. This life is not about me.

It’s interesting, I got up this morning, to write about something completely different. God certainly does work in mysterious ways.

I hope you enjoyed this post, please leave your comments.

Stay cool and have a happy Easter!

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You are responsible for your happiness and your health

I had a breakthrough today… I believe that’s what it’s called. It’s personal so I won’t share it with all of you, but I felt I needed to just put it out there. Why say it at all? It was a big day for me, I wanted to mark the day as a historic moment in time. March 2nd, 2010. Done.

This life is a trip. No matter what happens good or bad, the sun still comes up in the morning and goes down at night… and let’s be honest NOONE wants that to change, right? Drama happens in everyone’s “world”, but do you ever stop and look around? Do you ever really stop and just take a good look around? I, personally, can’t take my life too seriously. I would be a real basket case if I did. I used to take my life too seriously and trust me… ALL I THOUGHT ABOUT WAS TRAGEDY.  (I bet you wish you were my friend in those days!) I was Ms. Negative about everything. I try really hard to think positive about things. I may not get it right all the time, but I do try.

Look around these days… earthquake in Haiti, earthquake in Chile, homeless people everywhere you look, you must know countless people looking for jobs, friends who have lost their spouses/children/parents… these are rough times people!! Why do you think we have chronic pain?? It is not a coincidence!!

You need to look at your life and figure out if there is a link between how you live your life and your pain.

  • Do you hang out with positive or negative people?
  • Do you have a positive or negative outlook on life?
  • Do you believe you will get better?
  • Do you believe you can be happy?

You are responsible for your happiness and your health. You have to make life choices toward happiness and good health. I have to do the same. Trust me, it’s not easy. There are days I prefer to stick my head in the sand and stay in the dark… but those are the days I need my husband to push me to get up and come outside and play.

What I’m trying to say is… your attitude about life plays a big role on how you feel and your pain level. We have so much pain already, anything that will reduce our pain … well … it helps, right?

Thanks for reading! Look forward to your comments… stay cool!

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Don’t let chronic pain steal your joy… My challenge to you: Enjoy life in 2010

I have started and stopped this blog at least fifteen times now. I have deleted four or five blogs completely, for this blog you are reading now I have erased sentences, paragraphs and entire pages before getting to the point of actually posting this one. I’m not sure what my problem is, I just have not been feeling the writing mojo in 2010… until now.

I cannot believe it is 2010… two-thousand-ten or twenty-ten or two-thousand AND ten or however the heck you want to say it! First, let’s get the awkwardness out of the way… YES I changed my look on my blog! Whew! I am one of those people that has to change things. I move the furniture (in the middle of the night I might add), I want to change the paint colors on the walls, I change my desk around, I always want something different! here again, easily distracted… now you know why! I love the feel of “brand new”. I thought, “new year” => “new look” to my blog. now that that is out of the way! Oh and before I forget… I also think I better start using my capital letters the right way. I am going to work for a “new” company soon, so I better think of it as a “new” job. I should start getting used to typing better in case I really really have to get a “NEW” job if you get my drift!!

So! There is a lot of newness going on in 2010. To be honest with you, and I feel I can be honest since you are all my virtual friends and family, I don’t like change. I like tradition. I like “brand new” added to tradition. I. don’t. like. change. Funny, I always thought I liked change, but now I realize I like “brand new” which is not the same thing as “change”. I will say this. I adapt well and I can be pretty darn flexible. I just fear the unknown. I said it. I don’t like change. I can move on now. It will take awhile to accept that, but at least I know.

I am still working on what I want my goals to be for 2010. The last couple years, in fact, the last three to five years have been tough ones for me. I have lost many loved ones and my health has not been great (understatement). I know one of the areas I really want to work on is just living above all the sadness and really getting into life and making 2010 all about living life at the fullest! I haven’t gardened in years, I haven’t done things just to have fun in a long time. I want to laugh and have fun and remember those people that have passed on in a fun/ loving way and be done being sad. I want to enjoy scrapbooking again. I want to enjoy working and enjoy living. I want to learn how to “LIVE” again. I don’t want fibromyalgia to take over my life. I don’t want chronic depression or any other medical condition to rule how I live. I understand this will not be easy, but I will take one day at a time and know that there will be days when things won’t go so good and on those days… doing something fun will be the most important part of my day!!

It’s interesting, in my Level II Chronic Pain program this past week, one of the homework assignments we received was to do something we enjoy every day… one of the people in the class said “everyday?” as she read the list that was provided as an example… we just seem to forget what it’s like to enjoy life when we are in pain.

Can you do something everyday that you enjoy? It can be something as simple as having coffee in the morning while you read the morning paper or playing games on facebook or something that requires more energy like going for a walk or seeing a movie… whatever you want! This is all about Y-O-U!

I have my homework that I’d like to make a habit instead of just homework… that’s my challenge to you!

Thanks for reading. Stay cool!