coffeebarconfessions

I moved to Arizona in 2008 a broken, battered shell of a woman. Although I was only 32 years-old, life was hardly done walloping the beat-down of a lifetime into the very essence of my humanity. Returning to work part-time meant I wasn't technically disabled, anymore. Leaving the cold of San Francisco took my daily pain level from a constant and pervasive Amethyst to a moody Mulberry. Relocating from practically the most expensive city in the country ensured everything wasn't going to be so damn hard anymore. Didn't it? Is this the part where I clutch my side and roll on the floor laughing? With the good came bad, as is life. Phoenix was warm and affordable, and I was in less pain. But then all these other problems rose to the surface. Being sick for four years had sure done a number on my interpersonal relationships! I was on so many medications I felt like a Stepford Wife.  The financial chaos my husband and I were sitting in was nothing short of its own tragedy. Slowly b...

I'm a bona fide health-nut conspiracy-theorist. Getting sick with something science doesn't understand, and medicine hardly believes in, forced me to look past my medical doctor and his prescription pad. It's been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad journey I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. But what I can say is once I stopped looking for a way to get "better" from Fibro, and instead focused on being a healthy human, everything started falling into place. Juicing literally saved my life. I was so sick with immune-suppressed viral symptoms I was quickly losing my patience for this world. Then I watched a documentary called Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead,  which inspired me to give juicing a whirl. So I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond and bought myself a Breville juicer, then loaded up on fresh produce. My flu-ish symptoms responded to a fat dose of vegetable juice almost immediately. In fact, every night when I would drink it, I would feel noticeably better. I...

Not only that, but the world is ending, my existence is purposeless, everything is awful and there is no point in trying to make anything better, because it's always going to get horrible again in the end. It's pretty amazing, how quickly I can go from the top of my game to a blithering puddle of wasted humanity. In a sick way, it would be easier if I had a mental illness to credit said breakdown with. Because for the last 12 hours I've indulged more tears, 'woe is me', and desperation than a person should in a year, or at least a month. That big leap of stupid faith I blogged about a few weeks back is taking a wrecking ball to my life. My conscious mind knows my choice to indulge my fear got me here. The self-loathing and damage inside me won't let me stop. I tell myself life will work out, because it has up to this point, so why would it stop now. I remind myself what I am facing is a walk down 5th Avenue compared to what I've already prevailed over. None ...

Today I wrote a ridiculously long blog about all the health quirks I employ to feel a whole hell of a lot better than I used to. It got so long and preachy I had to take a step back. But the experience did serve to remind me why I started The Fibromyalgia Crusade in the first place. Hallelujah! I've been in mortal agony over here about my abandoned love-child, and am overjoyed to rediscover her purpose! Before I had two strokes my Fibro was pretty well managed. After being horribly disabled for a few years, I was working part-time and taking a Spanish class. When I got an A I realized my brain wasn't some fogged out, defunct old organ. It was actually capable of learning new material! I began looking into graduate school, and  I felt like my life might have a future. After I had two strokes I was high on high-dose steroids, to treat the Vasculitis that caused the strokes. I felt fabulous. Although I had to quit my job, drop Spanish 2, regularly spun into roid-rages of epic prop...

I tried to keep up appearances when I got sick, I really did. When I was first taken out of work for a month with disabling Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME, I spent what precious little energy I had putting on makeup every day. It was a silly priority, considering my right arm was nearly paralyzed, and I was too sick to even leave the house. But the makeup artist was so deeply ingrained in me, it seemed vitally important to not look as bad as I felt. And of course I didn't want to fall out of tune with my own high standards, and the pulse of the world around me. That was how I thought things worked, eight years ago. Today I can only smile at the naive little girl propping up her right elbow with her left arm to sweep that second coat of mascara on. If only she knew what was to come! Things kept getting harder, I got sicker, developed new diseases, ballooned up from medications and inactivity, and completely and totally let myself go. Seeing as I was a hair's breadth away from losin...

Last fall I changed my life in two major ways. I started juicing vegetables and taking responsibility for the totality of my existence. Since then I've undergone a tremendous metamorphosis. The nutrition fed my body in a way that allowed my Fibro symptoms to settle down. Realizing nobody else was going to fix my exceptionally screwed-up life, nor were they going to live it with me, fueled a responsibility to the quality of that life I was previously too ill to absorb. Slowly the two shifts came together, and I've been able to move forward in ways I was too sick and stuck to accomplish for the last decade. The result is a freedom I never thought I would have again. Yes, I still have Fibro, but my symptoms are so managed I don't live every single moment of every single day caught in its evil, joy-robbing, life-destroying clutches. Thank God. My journey with chronic illness took me places I never thought I would go. Places I never even knew existed. Places so dark and fraught ...