The malaise fairy paid me a visit today, as did the pain troll. My feet and my toes feel like someone ran them over with a big monster truck. Needless to say, I have not been pleasant company. It took me four hours to clean my living room and kitchen today due to a lack of energy. It took my toddler and tween twenty minutes to tear apart both rooms. For someone who hates stopping and can’t sit still, today was a simply a waste of a day. Now, at 11:30 p.m., it is hard to fall asleep because the pain and the extreme exhaustion aren’t allowing me to sleep.
RA and FMS definitely make for an uncomfortable day and life. I find that my bad days are my most vulnerable days. There are the days when I break down in tears easily and turn into a raging mad woman. Expect for telling my boys repeatedly to “calm down” and to “sit still,” I think I did pretty good. Oh yes, and I yelled at my husband for being so lazy. Otherwise, I think I kept my cool. I even managed to get out of the house briefly and get some things from the store, in slow motion of course. It was like watching a movie in slow motion. I needed to get some fresh air and being coped up in the house wasn’t pleasant for me or the boys.
Well, hopefully tomorrow is better. One thing I have learned about my conditions is that patience is a virtue. Stress turns into flare-ups so I don’t plan on making myself worse on a day like today. I think taking it easy is best solution on a day like today.
Now, if I could keep the malaise fairy and the pain troll away. You think a Brinks home security system might help?
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About Lana
I will start by saying that my blog is about who I am and how I have grown, preserved, and endured since being diagnosed.
I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and fibromyalgia (FM) nearly five years ago after many years of dealing with symptoms that no doctor could explain. All I wanted was closure and, to me, that meant finding an answer to why I didn’t feel normal. Several days after having my now almost five year old, I awoke to the inability to walk or use my hands and within a week, I finally had a diagnosis and this time, it sank in that it was real thing.
Steroids, a lack of energy, and physical pain take a toll on you. What the illness does to us, we cannot control. How we respond, how we choose to fight back, and how we go on is our defense against the war waging inside of us. Imagine being in a dark room and trying to make your way around. Then, imagine that you find a light switch and the room becomes dim, not bright, but enough for you to navigate your way. For years, I was in the dark about what was happening to me, and then one day, the room became dimly lit. What I wanted was closure but instead I found that there were more questions than there were answers. I learned that I had to change my perceptions on what closure meant to me and in this case it meant accepting that chronic illness was now a part of my life.
One of the things that I do know is that I am not alone and that there were so many exceptional people who, like me, are looking for closure, answers and normalcy. I share my experiences because I want to live a “normal” life and I want others to see that it is okay to have a normal life and to keep dreaming, trying, believing and looking towards the future. I write about my life with RA and FMS, my diagnosis, and my quest to find answers and I continue to do so because when it gives others hope it gives me hope too.
I have found through my experience and the experiences of others dealing with the same conditions that living with arthritis and/or an autoimmune disease gets easier even though the disease gets harder. RA and FM may control how I physically feel but they do not control who I am or how I choose to respond. It is never going to be easy and some days, the emotional part is worse than the physical but we all struggle with something and for me, it is RA and FM.
My daughter is officially about to surrender her teen years when she turns 20 next month. I'm no expert on teens but have noticed a direct correlation between the fewer teens she has over, the larger the path of destruction they leave in their wake.Hope you get to feeling better soon.
I hate that stupid Malaise Fairy! (I never knew her name until now) She affects me almost daily. I just need to learn to deal with the stress in my life better and hopefully I will someday be able to fight her off a little every once in a while.Hope you feel better!
Ugh. Sorry to hear it. I was down yesterday. Hugs. Feel better soon.