April 16, 2011 by MyFoggyBrain

To those who are family and friends of Fibromites

To those who are family and friends of Fibromites –

I am a Fibromite. You don’t know me, I hope you allow me this moment to share with you how it feels to be me. I am not here to complain. I am not here to vent. I am here to help you understand.

I have Fibromyalgia.

It is a diagnosis. It is not a life sentence. It does not define me.

When you ask, “How are you?”

My honest answer is, “I am in pain.” but I will no doubt say, “I am fine.”

Invisible Disease.

Look at me. I appear fine on the outside.

Come closer, I walk with a cane. I am in extreme pain. If you talk to me, I have a hard time finding the words to form a sentence at times. My memory, well I don’t rely on it. Look at me.

I struggled for 5 years before I was diagnosed.

5 years. Back doctors, foot doctors, Internal medicine, Scans, X-Rays, doctor visit after doctor visit… and feeling frustrated, alone, helpless, desperate.

What does it Feel Like?

It is different for everyone. My arms and legs are heavy and when I try to move them it’s like they have been beaten to a pulp. They shake at will. My feet at times feel like they are asleep, but multiply that nerve pain x 100. My shoulders and neck are sore, just really super sore – like they are saying “please whatever you do…. don’t move” and the side affects from my meds are making my vision go awry. My jaw is sore. It feels like I went through a cycle in the dryer… got hit by a car… did a flip on a trampoline and landed on cement… I’m thinking you get my drift.

What’s that? You ask if I am available for dinner? When?

I hesitate. Planning is never easy for me. How do I know if that damn flare will appear or not? How many time times have I had to cancel? Too many to count.

Where Am I?

I am home. I like to pretend I am “relaxing”. I sleep and I rest. I am safe at home. I don’t have to pretend I am not in pain or have energy. I don’t have to hold my head up. Sometimes it’s lonely.

“I worry about you”

I hear you. I do not want you to worry about me. I do not want you to feel sorry for me. I want you to support me. Exercise with me. Push me to do the right thing for my health and when I’m down, laugh with me.

All Good Things Come in 3’s

I haven’t met a Fibromite who only has Fibromyalgia. I also have Major Depression and ADD. I have my down days and I feel like someone stole my palm tree away from my beach. I can get distracted while, wait a minute did you see that? I hate taking my meds twice a day… every single flippin’ day. Don’t ask me to do the same thing over and …. oh what a pretty butterfly! I am tellin’ you, what a trio of conditions God has gifted me with!

Although life is not always easy, this is the life I was gifted. I accept it and so must those in my life. I have a great support system and those around me are wonderful.

I hope you have learned something from my thoughts today. Please leave your comments and thank you for stopping by!

Stay Cool!

Tamiko

March 30, 2011 by MyFoggyBrain

What Would It Take To Make A Change In Your Life?

“I can’t WAIT for this week to get over!”… I hear myself saying that during the work week a lot. The week-end comes and I spend a lot of it in laying down trying to relax and get re-energized for Monday. I sleep, I sleep a lot over the week-end so I can be ready for Monday. What happens on Monday? I work and spend that time wishing for the week-end. Does this make sense to anyone? It’s crazy. I spend Monday thru Friday waking up at 5:30 or 6, sometimes 7 if I’m lucky, roll out of bed, quietly creep down the stairs, make some coffee and start working. I don’t usually stop working until 6 or 7 at night. I may take a few minutes to eat lunch during the day and a few minutes at night for dinner with the family. I will then work until 8 or 9 some days and then watch t.v. and go to sleep around 10 or 11 depending on my pain and just doze for hours off and on until the morning when I do it all over again. During the days Monday thru Friday I am in a lot of pain. By Friday I am in a lot lot of pain, but that’s what I do I, I work.

Yesterday I started thinking, if I had a year to live, what would I do differently? I mean, seriously… what would I do differently? What about 6 months? A month? What would it take to really make a change in my life? ? I always say tomorrow is not promised, so why do we always live like it is promised?

Right now my life is all consumed with working to pay the bills and I work, work, work. I work all the time. I work so much that nothing else happens in my life. I have fibromyalgia. Wait, let me say that again. I have Fibromyalgia with a big “F”. I don’t let this condition rule my life, but let’s not take this lightly. It does make a statement and it does affect my life and that of my family, so I should make sure I give it some respect here. Back to what I was saying. I have Fibromyalgia and with that, at the end of the day between work and being a Fibromite, there’s not a lot of me left to go around. The energy has been spent and there is definitely nothing left.

Is it possible to work and still have a life, while living with chronic pain? It is not easy. I have it easier than a lot of people. I work from home on most days. I go in the office 15% of the time, maybe 20% in a busy month. I work a lot of hours, which is challenging, 12-14 hour days. So let’s talk about this… Balance is the key to a content life, right? Getting there and staying there probably means being organized – not so easy when you are a fibromite or me (“I’ll take some foggy brain whipped up with a little bit of ADHD to go please“). I love [read hate] those people who are so TOGETHER with their “checklists” and their “tote bags” always on time. Let me stop, I’m not hatin’ on anyone. I keep trying to be together, it just never works out that way. It does, however, give me a reason to buy a new tote bag! But, seriously, I do believe that in order to get through the day, you need to have a serious amount of focus and stop working at a reasonable time and focus on your family life or your health or your personal life. Whatever it is that is important to you. Focus, is not easy when you have foggy brain, it is something that is a constant challenge – I do create my check list and it does help keep me focused (for awhile anyway!).

Live your life as if you only have 6 months to live or whatever amount of time it takes to create a change. I need to really spend some time thinking about this. I think we get complacent and just live. There is so much going on that I just go from one crazy day to another and I need to carve out some time to be still and have time to myself. I have been in a flare for weeks, I need to get on my flare plan and exercise and eat better. Take one thing at a time, not overwhelm myself. What about you? What can you do to manage your pain better?

If today was your last day and you look back on your life, are you happy with all the decisions you have made? What changes would you make? Now’s your chance!

Stay cool! Hope you enjoyed your visit to my blog and come back again. Leave a comment and tell me what you think.

Tamiko

March 21, 2011 by MyFoggyBrain

What Would You Do? Stand Up For Your Pain!

The cameras are rolling…. All eyes on you…. You have probably seen the TV show, “What Would You Do?” I was going to blog about a situation I was in a couple of weeks ago. A truly, stupid situation that I needed some time to get through, mellow out and say to myself, GET THE HELL OVER IT! I wanted to vent and get that shit out of my system, but it would not have helped and it would not have helped any of you! I have to keep reminding myself every hour, every minute of the day to stay positive these days. It’s a challenge, but sometimes that’s what one has to do. Right now, that’s what it is. Prayer and giving my cares and worries over to God is what I’m doing.

My life has been seriously out of balance. Work has been crazy busy – way too many hours. Family and friends close to me are in need of God’s healing hands. The weather has been crazy, mostly rainy and cold. I’ve been in a constant flare for what seems like forever – it’s only been a few weeks. For the first time in a long time I have increased my dose on one of my meds. It sucks, I don’t know if any of you feel this way, but increasing meds makes me feel like a failure, like I’m not managing my pain like I’m supposed to. I agree to a certain extent that I shouldn’t feel that way, but at the same time, I also feel I should be in control of my body. FMS is a crazy place to live. Depression has stolen a lot of my mind the past few weeks and I really want it back. I have fought and fought and fought, I FINALLY feel like I may be starting to come back, it’s so damn hard. It’s like climbing up hill through quicksand (because I have done that before, right?). Trust me, my family really, REALLY prefer the not deeply depressed mother/ wife over the scary/ ugly mean lady that’s been living in the house lately. She scares me too.

Speaking of my family, well specifically my husband… I am not CO-dependent, I am SOUL-dependent (and yes I meant to spell it that way) on (on? of? to?) my husband. I have been blessed with a husband who takes wonderful care of me. He does everything for my children and me. He literally does all the cooking, cleaning, driving, care-taking… this man does my hair, when my daughter isn’t doing it! He also deals with all that comes with chronic pain and depression, oh yeah and let’s not forget – throw in a little bit of ADD. What an effed-up combination! After almost 25 years together he has to be wondering what the hell he signed up for!! There is no return policy here. He had 30 days, but those days have passed and he’s now stuck with me. Thank God!

So! I started out talking about a TV show that puts folks in really awkward situations. A show that ultimately pushes those same to people make uncomfortable decisions. Now I ask you, when you are in a situation where you need to stand up for your pain, do you? Do you stand up for your pain or do you end up suffering? I made a decision to stand up for my pain and I also ended up suffering because I stood up. I am happy I made that decision because I was able to really see some true colors come out.

At the end of the day, most of us can barely stand up for long periods of a time, so why suffer any more than you have to, right? I mean, c’mon! Please do yourself righteous and STAND UP FOR YOUR PAIN!

Thanks for reading! Please tell me what you think, leave your comments and, as always, stay cool!

Tamiko

Top Causes of Chronic Pain (webmd.com)
Your Chronic Pain Tool Box: Personalized Pain Management (somebodyhealme.dianalee.net)
Fibromyalgia, Chronic Pain, Depression, ADHD…. None of this Defines You (myfoggybrain.wordpress.com)

December 16, 2010 by MyFoggyBrain

This Too Shall Pass… I Am Blessed.

Wow… Where have I been? It’s been over two months since I have written something… and to be totally honest, it’s been over almost that long since I have even visited my blog page. Six months ago, if someone would have said I would let that let that much time pass without viewing my page, I would have just ignored them because I would have thought to myself “NO Flippin WAY!”. Well, it’s true. Now that I’m here, that old familiar feeling is back. It’s the middle of the night, I’m sitting in the dark, on the couch with just the dim light from my laptop…. except this time… same couch – different house.

Where do I start? My life, my life, my life… Lord, I know You do not shoulder more than one can bear… I. Just. Am. So. Very. Tired. I really do try not to complain, I know there are people so downtrodden and their lives really suck, I know I have no right to complain…

Here’s the deal… let me bottom line it for you… I feel like I am starring in a country song where you play it backwards to figure out everything that has been lost (I should win an award for this one!)… I am just not mending… I don’t even know how to mourn anymore. I know hospital emergency rooms and intensive care units up and down the west coast and unfortunately so do my children. What started out as a good learning situation for my children when they were young, has turned out to be a continuous cycle of “Whose Funeral Are We Going to This Month?” … Scarred for life.

Where the hell was I going with this? Oh yeah… I was bottom lining it… let me get back to it…

So! Important in a Chronic Pain Patient’s life… Truth. Honesty. Well in anyone’s life, but more so in a chronic pain person’s life because you spend your entire life explaining your pain to people who do not believe you!

Shortly after the passing of my very close friend Steve’s passing, I lost my Godfather which seemed “suddenly” to me (way too soon as I just really wanted more time!)… Very close after that… we had a traumatic experience with a dog that we were really hoping to adopt (all of my 4-legged blogger friends would totally relate to my experience but Lumpy is in a happy home now!) Well, my son entered college and turned 18 and then my husband and I found out we needed to move out of our house we had lived in for over 10 years. We had less than 2 weeks to vacate. So! I found us a house to rent and we packed up our memories and our furniture and moved to our new “home”. That was the 1st week of November… and did I tell you I was on disability and went back to work the second week of September?

For those of you that were around my blog last year… I was blessed to get out and help pick the tree this year and my husband and I trimmed it this year!

I have this horrible feeling there is a big ass dam inside my body somewhere secret stored up and it’s just going to open up one day… God help the folks that are around on that day. Poor souls… I have a huge smile on my face right now… because Lord knows, all you can do is smile when you think about the poor souls who will have to deal with my ass when I unload on them!

So, now that you are caught up with where I have been and what I have been up to since the last time I blogged….

After all I have been through…

my family still makes me laugh at least once or five or ten times a day.

My parents are still with me and I thank God every single day for this.

I am blessed.

I still have my brothers, sisters and their families and my friends and their families around me.

I am blessed.

I still have my five senses.

I am blessed.

(Ummm I did not say I HAVE sense, don’t get crazy here).

My husband still wakes up every morning and goes to sleep to me.

I am truly truly blessed.

I have fibromyalgia, ADHD and chronic depression and yes…

I am blessed.

For me, it is important to remind myself to remember what I have and to do my best to stay positive. Please be positive with me. There’s enough negativity out there…

Thanks for reading! Stay cool…. and God bless all of you and Happy Holidays!

September 3, 2010 by MyFoggyBrain

Integral Tai Chi is My New Depression/ Fibromyalgia Pain Drug of Choice!

“My body is healthy… My body is healthy… My body is healthy… My body is healthy…” I am chanting this in my head while next to me a lady is not so quietly snoring… interestingly it does not bother me, although there are moments when I want to laugh (but cross my heart…. I don’t). While I chant this over and over in my head, I scan my body for pain and if I find any, I mentally push it out of my body. You are wondering what I am talking about… I get it, I would be wondering too.

This is the relaxation segment of my Integral Tai Chi class. It is the last 30 minutes of the 2-hour class I have been taking… my new favorite depression/ pain drug of choice. As I am laying in the dark on my mat in the “corpse” position and the instructor has directed us to relax every part of our body and told us when we awaken our bodies will be healthy. It becomes my chant while I lie there for the next ten minutes. I feel like this class has changed my life. Sounds pretty crazy, right? Well, take me seriously and find a class and give it a try. Here’s the class description:

Integral Tai Chi is a self-healing system that integrates tai chi, yoga, relaxation and meditation to heal the mind, body and spirit. This comprehensive approach involves a series of 10 body movement postures each designed to increase balance, awareness, endurance, flexibility, flow, concentration, energy and spiritual transformation. Integral Tai Chi can be easily learned and practiced by all ages and body types.

I have been able to do things that have caught me completely by surprise… okay, for example… remember in Karate Kid that crane move that all your friends growing up have done and said “I’m the Karate Kid!!”…. I CAN DO THAT!!! SHUT UP!! I CAN!!! Unbelievable… I can actually balance on one foot!! I almost fainted with surprise the first time I did it… I started to giggle. I really did. No one can even understand the gravity of the situation. balancing on one foot, WHILE lifting my arms UP IN THE AIR like that is just CRAZY!! LOL!! For all you modern folk that do not remember Karate Kid (the original… God forbid…) it’s the Crane pose in Kung Fu Panda!

I can’t explain it, I don’t get it myself, but the stretches that are done… although they definitely are challenging for me, feel soooooo good! I feel really good both mentally and physically when I finish this class. I have felt like a totally different person the last three weeks. My husband tells me he is afraid to break the spell… he wishes I could take this class every day. I think that might be a bit much. :) I mean, what is the message he is sending to me?? LOL!

For me personally, I think I said it in a prior posting, the mental effect that this has had on me is so significant… the healing of the mind and spirit and the pure focus on positivity and exiting frustration, stress, negativity from the body/ mind… this is just what I need. I sleep better on the nights that I go… although this time, my beautiful dog decided to wake me up at 4:00 in the morning to go outside and I decided to write this blog posting instead of going back to bed. I also have been able to relax enough to read an actual book… this is amazing. I haven’t read a book from beginning to end in so long I can’t remember when. I have finished three books in the last two weeks. I usually start a book and then after the first couple pages or chapters, put it down and never pick it up again.

I know a lot of you are in pain. If you are in the bay area (San Francisco to San Jose on both sides of the bay), these classes are FREE, take advantage and give it a try… “listen to you body” and do what you can, but stay for the last 30 minutes. If you are not in the bay area, find a local class and it is very possible that you may have free classes as well. I understand this ITC organization is in Southern California offering free classes (this is a non-profit organization). This particular group is AWESOME! I think you can tell, I am pretty jazzed about this… just a little bit… :) I’ve been in pain a very long time… This is the first time I have found something that is FREE and works and not a drug! nice… it’s a blessing.

http://www.css-sanjose.org/eng/itc.html