Finally a Diagnosis!

After ...

  • three visits (and counting) to various dentists,
  • running around like a mad woman preparing for a monastic weekend,
  • having said weekend be filled with magick and mystery plus unfortunately ... also pain and exhaustion,
  • and countless other sources of stress and urgency,
  • followed by today's pain-filled, exhausting trip to the Rheumatologist,

... today's revelation caps off a week of stress, frenzy, pain, and exhaustion.

So of course I burst into tears when the doctor confirmed my long-held suspicions, that yes I indeed have Fibromyalgia.

To be truthful, I had starting crying this morning long before I even headed back upstairs to step into the shower. I was reminiscing about all the things I had to let go of in order to live with the reality of constant pain. All the years where doctor after doctor scratched their collective heads staring at my lab results ... till finally I gave up asking.

I developed countless strategies and methods to survive with chronic pain, paralyzing fatigue and diminished capacity. I was so good at it, that even I forgot how debilitating it really was to live my life.

I looked around my house this morning, thinking to myself,

  • "I wonder if anybody really knows what I had intended for this place to look like."
  • Or, "I bet folks actually believe I like my house this junky, or my upstairs so cluttered."
  • And, "I bet no one remembers how I use to have art on the walls or rugs on the floors."

The state of my house, for me, is a constant reminder of all I can not do ... of all I had to surrender to the gravity of pain.

But today, a white coated authority figure said the magick words, and all I could do was cry. (To his credit, he reassured me that it was a common reaction. I wonder if it was also partially caused by my emotional state -- y'know, seeing as how I was feeling like my entire body was on fire!)

So, I have Fibromyalgia. And although I am extremely tired and sore, I feel as if I can finally let go of another heavy burden I had no idea I was carrying. I finally felt heard ... I finally felt vindicated.

Now begins the next stage, finding out what will help me in terms of drugs and treatments.

But right now, I am going to celebrate ... by laying down for much needed nap.

Hurray! Zzzzzzzzz.

Posted in

Submitted by katrina on Mon, 07/20/2009 - 7:06pm.

NorthLight (not verified) | Thu, 08/06/2009 - 7:39pm

Just now catching up on the whole of July ...

and WOW.

This must be a confusing combination: the sweet relief of being heard, and of having the other shoe drop, already, but then the specific diagnosis brings feelings all its own.

Much, Much love to you, Dear One.

Sending healing and easeful thoughts. Plenty of long-distance Reiki available too, if you want it. Do you?

»

Patricia (not verified) | Tue, 07/21/2009 - 6:12pm

I know how stressful that can be and I am glad you finally got one.

I will try to remember to bring the book [okay one of them books] I am currently reading Dancing at the River's Edge: A Patient and Her Doctor Negotiate Life with Chronic Illness by Alida Brill and Dr. Michael Lockshin, ISBN 0980139406 with me sometime when we meet, so you can see if you would be interested in it. So far it has been good.

I hope you are getting some rest.

love and blessings,
Patricia

»

Deborah Bella (not verified) | Mon, 07/20/2009 - 10:54pm

Although the diagnosis itself sucks, at least (like you said) this gives you a starting point. Hugs to you, m'lady!

»

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Recent comments

  • Claire-Marie Le Normond (not verified)

    Wish I could be there. Very well spoken.

    16 weeks 1 day ago
  • David Salisbury (not verified)

    Katrina,
    I wish you all the blessings and power you need on your journey. Thank you for these words. It is good to remember that returning to work (and thus returning to grace) bring a chance for us all to rest and have joy.
    Wishing you joy in the Work.

    David

    18 weeks 3 days ago
  • Sigre (not verified)

    Dear Katrina- Thorn reposted your blog and happy am I. Your passion, always so immense, comes blowing out in these words. So akin to my own heart and soul that it makes me have a bittersweet smile.

    The Storm is only now coming to the edges of our universe and yet it will sweep and consume all that is. In the end, our beautiful universe will be so much...more? Different? Complete? Who knows?

    All I do know is my soul came here to witness and be part in this period. I cannot shrink from the work. I am here with you, fae sister!

    18 weeks 4 days ago
  • Macha NightMare (not verified)

    Thought-provoking piece, Katrina. Thanks.

    I don't know what to call myself either. In Pagandom, I've taken to referring to myself as a Witch at Large. In the interfaith world where I'm active, I call myself a Pagan. Sometimes I call myself an uppity woman or a Second Wave Feminist. I've never really thought to publicly identify myself by my sexuality, het woman, which is very "white bread" and old-fashioned. Not only het, but serially monogamous for the most part. It seems almost a liability these days to say you're het, but I am proudly and happily so. I tend towards intellectualism but only have a BA, which doesn't carry much weight, at least in public and professional worlds, no matter how much you've studied, trained, and can articulate, even teach.

    My biological heritage is Irish, Dutch, French Huguenot, Euro-mongrel. My social heritage is Roman Catholic on one side and conservative Methodist, temperance-crusading, women's rights and education on the other, with distinct East Coast sensibilities, now mellowed by more than half a century living on the Left Coast. My maternal political heritage is conservative Republican (altho what my relatives might think of current trends in the GOP I cannot imagine, since they did have brains and they did think and they did have a social conscience), yet I am much farther left in my outlook than any elected official I know. My paternal political heritage is blue collar Democratic, except that my dad broke with his family on politics and allied with my mother's family's conservatism.

    I'm a former hippie, a home-birth advocate, a home death and green burial advocate, an opponent of capital punishment and resorting to warfare to resolve humankind's differences. I support the right to conscious self-deliverance. I rejoice in any and all consensual expressions of love and eros. I'm a lover and a mom.

    I have never missed voting in an election and I disrespect those who don't avail themselves of this hard-won right. (I have ancestors who fought the Brits in the American Revolution.) I support workers' rights. I recognize our interdependence on this planet, so could be called a greenie. I'm a committed environmentalist in my day-to-day life (in terms of eating locally grown food, expanding public transit, recycling, preserving open space and wildlife, opposing exploitation of natural resources [strip mining, oil-drilling, nuclear facilities, agribusiness, monocultures, clear-cutting timber, overuse of pesticides, genetic modification, etc.]) I want to make the city streets "safe for dancing," as my old friend Tony Serra said when he ran for mayor of SF on the Platypus Party ticket.

    Well, you got me going there, my friend. Thought-provoking read, as I said. ;-)

    xo,
    Macha

    35 weeks 1 day ago
  • Eridanus (not verified)

    Lovely azaleas!

    [cough][gag][snort][sneeze]

    Just lovely...

    I know what you mean.

    37 weeks 4 days ago
  • Anonymous (not verified)

    I feel you. There is too much bs- particularly when people decide that their temperament is tantamount to truthful and ignore everyone else.
    I get irked by immature extroverts or closet introverts who ignore you REPEATEDLY and then pretend you're out of line for being upset by the time they can't pretend you didn't say anything anymore. I find that the same people will ignore you if you blow up right away, too, and that it's because they just don't think that honoring what you value is important to maintaining a relationship, or even worse: that you don't know what you value at all and that it's all a mind game for their pleasure or annoyance. Then they call you passive-aggressive, aggressive, moody, touchy and temperamental. I call them "not listening".

    37 weeks 5 days ago