coffeebarconfessions

After nine years with this illness I'm well aware of what it does to me. It never became clearer than after I got "healthy." Exercise and nutrition got me to a really good place. I was no longer in pain every day, could sleep at night, and didn't feel like I was constantly on the verge of getting a terrible flu. Miraculously, once I didn't feel so awful all the time, living didn't seem like such a bad prospect after all. It took an exceptional amount of work to get there, and even more to stay, but my life started to stabilize. That's when I truly began to understand what Fibromyalgia does to my body. The symptoms of a flare began to stand out with blaring consistency. Suddenly all those random, strange problems I whined and complained about to doctor after doctor when I first got sick happened in a predictable cycle. At every point before there were so many things wrong with me at any given time I couldn't tell east from west, down from up or white fr...

A couple of my husband's young, hip co-workers informed him of a crucial shift in the "coolness" of social media. Basically, Facebook is dead and Instagram is where it's at. I filed this information in the way back recesses of my brain, and went about my life. The love/hate relationship I hold with Facebook hardly inspired me to invest my time and energy in a whole new facet of internet networking. Then I got bored one night a few weeks back, and decided I wanted to be young, hip and cool. So I started an Instagram account. After a few days of trolling through random pictures and catchy slogans I got it. For a girl who can hardly stand Facebook, and is utterly done with being bitched out for every innocuous comment I had the audacity to post, Instagram is an inherently more positive and rewarding experience. Within a matter of days I was hooked. I decided not to use this new forum as a way to promote Fibromyalgia awareness or keep up with friends and family, although ...

A month has passed since I decided to re-vamp my dedication to my health in an effort to boost my immune system. I know this because I'm out of my anti-viral. The pharmacy contacted my doctor in Arizona for a refill, but my MD hasn't responded. Of course I should follow up with an email or call, but I'm not quite sure I want to stay on it. Plus I avoid doctors like the plague and don't want her to know I've moved until I find a new one. I've been better, not perfect, about juicing, and am taking more L-Lysine and immune boosters. I keep waiting for the wonderfully managed Fibro I had in Arizona to find me, but even doing all the aforementioned, it hasn't. Of course it took months to get there in Arizona, and I had no idea I would wind up in such a great place. In this case hindsight is only making me impatient, uptight, and altogether bitchy. Sometime around 6 AM, three hours after I went to sleep, the switch flipped on inside my head. Oh yea, THIS is why I ...

Last week kicked my ass. It didn't just kick my ass, it drug it through the mucky sludge of some of my worst PTSD triggers. If getting the flu weren't awful enough, I also started back to work after a four year hiatus. So while I'm lying on the sofa writhing with feverish aches, my inner adult is screaming at me to get myself together. The last thing I wanted was to go back to work on the same note I left. SICK. Like all my other ailments, this flu didn't give a rats woo-ha about my obligations or expectations. It invaded my body to do a job and damn it, it was gonna accomplish that task. My health-nut self knows sending my husband out for fresh vegeatable juice instead of Theraflu is the only reason my misery didn't linger more than a few days.  By the time Tuesday rolled around I was able to eat, stand without passing out and even leave the house for a little while. I still felt like crap but really, what's new? Except I felt like I was re-living the scariest ...

Last night I laid here sicker than sick. So sick all I could do was moan in agony as every single nerve fiber in my body ached. Throbbed. Shot with jolts of an electrical firestorm. The other signs of flu were present, too. I couldn't stand up for more than a minute without passing out. Eating food seemed like the most disguising thing in the entire world, after existing, that is. I was nauseous and bloated and even vomited a little, but not profusely. These symptoms hit me so hard and fast I couldn't tell if I had the good old-fashioned flu, or was it just Fibromyalgia being mean? Or was I dying? I mean I sure felt like it, and every time I turn on the television the news tells me Ebola is on its way to a friendly neighborhood market near me...  My dear medically traumatized husband, who has been to hell and back with my many maladies, wanted to take me to the ER. I barely had the strength to protest, but informed him if I wasn't already dying of Ebola, a trip to the ER wo...

Four months after a cataclysmic relocation my life is finally stabilizing. Unfortunately, my immune system is still stuck. When I was dodging calamity like hail-balls I understood it, even if I got tantrum-angry over my rekindled suffering for the better part of a few months. But despite my dedicated efforts to maintain the progress I made in managing my Fibro in Phoenix, something's different. A friend with Fibro reminded me this is just how the disease works. Sometimes it takes over. Miss Make My Own Reality over here balked at my friend's perspective, then pondered her experienced words.  After bucking against her wisdom I remembered why Werner Erhard's est  philosophy helped me so much last year. Accepting reality for sanity's sake began my soaring ascent into the most wonderfully managed Fibromyalgia I've experienced in nine years. When I was stuck in the mire these last few months I kept putting a time limit on how long I would allow it to take to get my healt...

Last weekend I ran into a former coworker at the mall. She relocated from San Francisco to the L.A. area and is working for our previous employer again. It was so wonderful to see a friendly face from my past! Memories of a time when I had a paycheck, friends, and somewhere to be haunted me for the next few days. I realized a large part of me missed my life as a department store makeup girl. I didn't miss working weekends and holidays, standing on my feet for eight hours, or dealing with an often difficult general public. But I do miss having a professional identity and a way to make friends. After not getting a paycheck, of course.  In the four years since I've worked I've become a recluse. For a long time after my two strokes my brain was fried. Darn near every public encounter left me either confused or in tears. I took a couple classes at the community college. That really helped pull me out of my shell. Engaging with the world, working on a deadline and cultivating rel...