The Flare Of My Dreams

I've been doing so well lately I was starting to wonder if I still had Fibromyalgia. Then I woke up this morning. My eyelids were heavy, head ached, and I felt like I was trudging through quicksand. My determination to overcome this horrible illness is so tunnel-visioned I managed to push myself all the way to the gym. Once I started my workout I knew this was more than just a mild fluctuation in my immune function, the main symptom I seem to be left with these days. Regardless, I made it through my workout only somewhat annoyed my diminished cardio-endurance had me huffing and puffing with nary a sweat bead rolling down my forehead. On the way home I started feeling worse. The familiar flu-like symptoms I spent years at the mercy of descended around me like a blanket, snuffing out any post-workout endorphin-glow I might have managed to achieve. Now I sit here feeling so awful I'm trying not to sink into a PTSD fit of "screw my life" despair.

Because really, as bad as I feel today, this is NOTHING compared to the disease that disabled me. A mere 2 on the 1-10 symptom-scale of impairment. What I would've severed my right arm to feel like when I was at my sickest. Back then I was in so much pain simply driving to the gym was a pipe-dream. Today I dead-lifted 70 lbs. before coming home to feel sorry for myself. In the midst of my aching face and body chills I'm outrageously grateful I don't live like this every day anymore. It's also been a harsh reminder as to why Fibromyalgia decimated, obliterated, and annihilated my entire life. This is unbelievably miserable, and I'm not even in pain! 

I somehow seem to have found my way to the other side of this disease. As I actively try to maintain my new-found health I'm also very busy trying to put my life back together. It's an exhaustive task, but one I never thought I'd have the opportunity to embark upon. Days like today make me take a pause from my determination to prevail, and recognize how awful being chronically ill truly is. It doesn't just make you feel bad. It wiggles and worms into every nook and cranny of a person's existence until there are so many damn holes, life collapses. Observing this phenomena through the rearview of my life's trajectory makes me more determined than ever to conquer this bitch and press on. As soon as I'm over this flare, of course.

Thanks for joining,
Leah

#fibromyalgia #flare #fibro #fibroflare #chronicillness #chronicpain 

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