fibromyalgia

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Another Day in the Life… It’s Good to Laugh… at Yourself.

Well hello there… how have you been? I can’t believe it’s been almost two months since my last post. Well, actually I can, I just don’t really want to. Where have I been you ask? I have been traveling through the land of Myself, specifically the area of “Feeling Sorry For”. I don’t really recommend this place, but if you have to go there try not to stay as long as I have. I had been given ANOTHER f’ing diagnosis with no cause or cure and it just put me in a downward spiral that left me feeling like WTF?! Instead of taking this news and putting more emphasis on managing my health I basically went on strike. I stopped doing anything related to all these fun and fabulous no cause/ no cure conditions I have. Literally, cold turkey. No reading, writing,  journaling, looking at my blog, exercising… yeah, I showed… ummmmmm… myself? Yeah, that’s it! I showed MYSELF! Dumb, dumb ,dumb…. I went on strike and who exactly was impacted by this? Me. Oh and by the way… Essential Tremor, this is the newest addition to my list. If you have an uncontrollable shaking of your head or hands then you may want to look into this. I guess having an invisible disease, the thought was… I should have something that folks can see, yeah let’s make her head shake (it’s really more like a nod). Ahhhhhh, someone up there has a sense of humor, I’m just trying to find my way to see the lighter side of this.

On the more sunny side of this place I have been in for the past month, I have been watching my diet. I was also diagnosed with gall stones a couple of weeks after my Essential Tremor diagnosis so I had my gall bladder removed last week. Finally a problem that has a solution! Yes, it meant having a body part removed, but I am really hoping that this resolves a lot of my GI issues I have been dealing with for a long while. In watching my diet, the last few weeks I have been drinking protein shakes as a meal replacement for two meals a day. Incredibly, this has helped a lot. It seems like the only time I feel somewhat okay is when I drink the shakes. Food and I are still having a love/hate relationship. I love to eat, but the food and my body hate each other. This is really uncool, can’t we all just get along?

I have rambled a bit, but what really prompted this post is this funny (well, funny to me) thing that happened yesterday. My first instinct was to tell my husband, but he’s on a short trip away and I didn’t want to intrude on his time away. I would have texted him, but I don’t have the patience to type this into my phone (another device I have shied away from lately). Anyway! Back to my story (I am so easily distracted!). I have been trying to lose weight, the real reason for the shakes… yesterday I am in the bathroom weighing myself and I saw the number on the scale and I was like “What the hell?? WOW! No way I lost that much weight!!” Seriously, I’m standing there and my weight has dropped like 5 pounds overnight. At this point I’m trying to figure out how this could have happened… could it be real? Then I look up (since I’ve been looking down at the scale this whole time) and realize I AM HOLDING ON TO THE TOWEL BAR. Yes, as I’m quite sure you can all relate, standing up sometimes is challenging without some help. Well, don’t weigh yourself while doing this or you’ll go through this same fun experience. It’s like winning the lottery (okay, granted a small one – not the Mega Bucks one) and then waking up and realizing “Nope, still not a millionaire”. At this point I gently let go of the towel bar and the little scale thing moves, moves, moves to that point of reality. I have just woken up. I started laughing and thinking, oh man, I gotta tell my husband this one! I can see him shaking his head at me as I write this. I’d like to say lesson learned, but I’m afraid I’ll probably do that again, so I’ll just say it’s good to laugh at yourself everyone once in a while.

After enjoying some time with my folks, my incisions were screaming in pain (it’s hard to relax or move with all that screaming), I gave in and took some pain medication. I told my daughter this so she was aware and then did a few chores and went to sleep. I was KNOCKED OUT when all of a sudden I hear my door open, not open quietly mind you it was opened with purpose and my daughter comes rushing in and says to me, “Did you hear that? Did you hear that?”. Let me just restate… my husband is not here. My heart starts racing and I’m trying to wake up and this damn fog from the pain meds is holding me back… fear just grabs a hold of me as I try to be the grown up in the room. She continues on, “It sounded like a werewolf…”. Not what I was expecting. I am pretty sure I responded with something like… “Am I awake or is this a dream?”. Did she really say… werewolf? I think maybe she should not be allowed to watch that new Teen Wolf show. I mean, this can’t be a normal thing to rush in and ask in the middle of the night, right? Okay, so I’m pretty sure she didn’t hear a werewolf, but if there had been one, I would not have heard it (another reason why I don’t like to take meds that make me drowsy). So I’m like, “Why don’t you just sleep in here?”. Instead she takes the dog out of my room, goes back to her room and leaves me wide open for attack. I thought my solution was better. I’m completely freaked out, yet I’m so tired I just fell back asleep. Interesting experience, that’s what drugs do for you, put you to sleep so you don’t have to face the world… on that note, maybe I should ask her when she wakes up if that really did happen… but it had to because the dog was clearly NOT in my room when I got up this morning.

I bet when you decided to read this you weren’t expecting this! I hope I’ve given you a reason to smile today.

Stay super cool and remember… one day at time, one hour, one minute. I wish you all an awesome day of wellness and hope!

Tamiko

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Happy 4th of July from My Foggy Brain

4th of July… it’s so different now than it used to be. When I was growing up we used to all gather in the street with the neighbors and set off our packs of fireworks. Remember the snakes? I don’t remember all the names of all the stuff in the pack, I just remember how fun it was and how much I looked forward to it as the 4th came closer and closer. We’d go to Spartan stadium and watch this amazing firework show. As I grew older, we’d go to Great America and watch fireworks after spending the day hanging out at the park. After having my son, we’d go park in the parking lot of Great America and watch the firework display while sitting on the cement. The whole family would go with snacks and we’d wait until it got dark and then watch the sky light up. The past few years we have had a great time going to our neighbor’s house and watching the kids shoot off bottle rockets and some big fireworks. It’s been super fun.

We are all at different stages in our lives now. The neighbor’s kids are all grown up, our kids are growing up and my husband and I are… well… all grown up. I still love fireworks, but if I start my day early in the morning to get ready to go to a bbq during the day… making it to the end of the night to fireworks doesn’t always work out.

I appreciate spending the day with family and friends, although the thought of socializing with a lot of people generally terrifies me. It still doesn’t matter how well I know folks, my social anxiety rises to an all time high around this holiday. I have to push myself every step of the way until I get settled at the bbq. Ultimately I am always glad I have gone, but getting there is a very stressful few hours.

I hope you are all enjoying your 4th of July. Remember to take care of you and don’t overdo it so you can remember this day with fond memories instead of pain.

I hope wherever you are, you are able to relax, eat good food and be thankful for the folks around you. I am looking forward to my day and you never know… there may be some fireworks in my future!

Stay cool and relax!

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Your Feedback Please… My Latest Wellness Journal for Chronic Pain

I only have so much brain power. I mean, as much as I’d like to multi-task, learn something new every day, solve problems of all sorts… I only have so much brain power. So how am I using it these days? I’ve been spending a lot of time creating a Wellness journal of sorts. It all started when I was participating in the Pain Program at Kaiser. I needed something to help me transition from this program to the real world where there was only me. Only me to hold myself accountable, not a support group every day or the doctors I don’t want to let down… just me. I have to continue on this path to a quality life by doing daily exercises, working on my diet, managing my stress with meditation and relaxation exercises… practicing everything I have learned! Just thinking about it doesn’t work for me. Writing down what I have done enables me to hold myself accountable AND celebrate my successes.

So… I created this document to hold myself accountable. It’s similar to the pain journals I have created and posted in my Tools and Resources page. There are many differences though, for one it’s not just a daily journal, it’s also a tool to help me figure out what areas of my health/ life I need to address that are out of balance. I created worksheets to identify my short and long-term health goals, my plan for what to do when I’m in a flare… I included a Quick Reference sheet with exercises that I use on a daily basis. It’s a work in progress. Here’s the break down of what I have included in the set so far:

  1. Wellness Wheel: tool used to help you discover opportunities for an improved quality of life and create goals based on those areas.
  2. Wellness Plan: worksheet for documenting your short and long-­‐term health goals and listing up to four key goals in the areas that you want to work on that will help you achieve your overall short and long-­‐term goals.
  3. Flare Plan: worksheet for documenting the tools that help you, both physically and mentally, when you are in a flare. It helps to document these so you can just flip to this page and use the tools that you know will help you.
  4. Exercise Quick Reference Sheet: there are countless exercises you can do to help with your pain, these are just some of the stretches and strengthening exercises I use on a daily basis.
  5. Daily Wellness Journal: worksheet for you to document each day; your exercise, food, pain level and how you addressed your pain, what you are grateful for that day and memorable moments/ accomplishments.
  6. My Priorities for Today…: worksheet to document your personal and work priorities on a daily basis.
  7. Automatic Thoughts Worksheet: template to help you manage your stress and negative thoughts.

So far, with a much older draft, the Kaiser folks have been encouraging me to publish this Wellness Journal. It’s a little intimidating. But it got me thinking. I want to keep working on this. I want to create something that anyone with chronic pain or any type of health issue can use to improve the quality of their life.

I’m excited about this. I’d love to get feedback on what I have created so far. If you are interested in helping me by reviewing, testing and giving me your honest feedback – I’d love it!

Shoot me an email or leave a comment here and I’ll get in touch with you right away.

Thank you!

Tamiko

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This is AMAZING! 21 Best Fibromyalgia Blogs of 2012…

I am sitting here having a pretty down day… not feeling great. I decided to check out the stats for my blog and the most amazing thing happened. I looked at one of the referring sites and followed the link and yelled out “HOLY SHIT!”. My husband thought something really bad happened, turns around and asks me what’s wrong (with that concerned look on his face)…

I am smiling as wide as ever… a bit speechless. I said to him “I can’t believe this!” Then I held up my laptop and showed him this screen:

Completely unexpected, this made my day… wait! What am I saying, it made my week!!

Thank you Healthline for the recognition. I may just have this smile on my face for the rest of the day…

You all have a GREAT week-end!

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As I sit here trying to figure out how to Prioritize, Pace and Plan – I find this posting I wrote in 2010 very appropriate! Enjoy your day.