A cause of fibromyalgia

FIBROMYALGIA, HOW COME?

My fibromyalgia has returned with the vengeance that only those who have known this beast can appreciate. For about a year I had about forgotten that I had been under the control of this fiend for three decades; the Cymbalta was working like a charm, I assumed that there is a silver bullet, I had found it. I wrote several posts about how peace had finally come to my universe, I stopped writing because it was repetitive, there was nothing new to say.

Recently the nasty one has slunk out of the woods and sank his fangs into all the parts of my body; the wounds seemed slight, reaction to a new exercise program, a hamstring that I must have overstretched or somehow damaged. As the pain grew worse I checked with the people at the Chronic Pain Clinic who couldn’t think of anything different to do other than perhaps increasing the amount of Cymbalta. The pain led to fatigue that led to excessive worry about my recent heart situation; and so I began a series of tests which showed almost nothing except for apnea, which is now being managed pretty well thank you. The future was to either crawl into my hole and feel sorry for myself, a procedure that is not unfamiliar; or make a different noise about what is going on with this attack. Messages were sent to various people in white coats over at the Great Hospital by The Lake, allusions to the Baron Münchhausen were included, dramatic appeals to look at this differently than before were made.

There will be a gap here because testing, hearing results, passing to the next specialist, retelling the old story—that part doesn’t need repeating to those of you who have learned it well.

I finally braced my internist to examine what is going on right now with an eye to a million dollars worth of testing or to go home and live with it. Out of the conversation was his observation that there can be a cyclical nature to bouts of FM, had I noticed that, had anything big happened just about the time of this latest flare? There didn’t seem to be anything until I threw out my last comment about a family situation that had made the holidays the most painful of my life, but that it wasn’t a new situation and certainly had no physical aspect. When did the latest bout of FM begin? When did it become severe? The answer to both coincided with another family anniversary that also connected to the Christmas situation.

That was a day ago, in the time since I have been able to remember other instances and other flaring of the FM. The instances where I never had the courage to admit the pain caused by the rejection of almost everything I hold important, these things were too big to be expressed and just had to be endured, my cross to bear.

Needless to say I think we are on to something here, I can feel that release of tension and return of the easiness of understanding that comes at times like this. It certainly isn’t over yet but the beast has a vulnerable area and my knife is pushing deeply.

The internist suggested that on this blog I ask others if they had circumstances that might be coincidental, trauma of various kinds, patterns of recurrences such as anniversaries or reaction to events; any difficult situations that were too painful to express fully.

If you respond to this know that I don’t want to know personal details that might embarrass or identify you, you can send me private responses if you wish. I will merely pass the information along to the white coated guy who sparked this, to see if we can find some way to help others. If I have missed any comments about confidential matters or professional guides please let me know; I ain’t in the medical profession, I am not interested in passing along or even knowing your private events, just if you had them and could they have preceded a flaring of fibromyalgia?

POSSIBILITIES

POSSIBILITIES

It is possible to cherish something so much that I destroy it.

It is possible to desire someone so much that I frighten.

It is possible to proclaim so loudly that they cover their ears.

It is possible to do and be all of those efforts; but it is necessary that I try again today and then tomorrow.

The possibility is the prize.

My Old Pal Ben

FEBRUARY 10, 2009 Just as I was about to sit and start my five minute daily writing exercise I received a phone call from the social worker of St. John’s hospital. After introducing herself she asked a few questions to make sure that she had the right person on the phone, then she asked about my old pal Ben. Ben had been hospitalized a couple of days previously with pneumonia; he doesn’t exercise much if at all so I wasn’t surprised that what might have been a chest cold became something else; but that wasn’t her concern. Does Ben have any relatives that I know of, any friends whom she might contact, was there anyone else? The answer to all of these is no Ben has no one in his file except my name and number because I have been visiting him for a couple of years; not as a hospice patient, just as an elder who received the occasional visit. Ben has had dementia from the beginning although recently it has become severe, he no longer recognizes my face, never mind my name. Ben lives in the here and the now, can’t look backward and is frightened to look forward, although he sometimes does talk about that. It has become difficult to visit Ben and the others since I had the heart experience, not that I am near being a candidate for either a home or hospice, just that I sailed a little closer to that shoal than was comfortable. If I go over and see Ben tonight I will have to introduce myself, expect that nothing we have said previously is remembered, and that as soon as I leave all is forgotten. Why go?—- To give a guy the few minutes of conversation and maybe a joke or two that will be all he gets in the course of a day; and immediately forgotten. The reason that it is more difficult to make visits is that it forces me to face the meaningless of all of this, that nothing one accomplishes means anything other than at the time and place; that whether we are or whether we vanish is irrelevant, except that we need to do whatever it is that we are about in order to be complete. This is the fucking paradox that has been giving people headaches and into arguments for thousands of years; and in the end it is about visiting Ben for a few minutes.

Cymbalta, Lyrica and fibromyalgia update

As I refilled my Rx for Cymbalta this morning I realized that I am in my third month with this stuff—-and no fibromyalgia yet.

Add to that: that my mood is good, anxiety is at the lowest level and there are no side effects so far. This stuff is doing a good job and I hope that it continues.

In full disclosure I will say that the days I don’t do my exercises I will begin to feel creaky which may be the precursor to fibromyalgia, or not. The mixed exercise program from the pain clinic has made me stronger, I’ve lost about a dozen pounds, and the severe pains from old injuries are gone.

One strange thing that has happened is the loss of my need to write about what is going on; perhaps the Lyrica was some kind of muse, perhaps the pain offered opportunity to scream and yell about my life, perhaps I am just going through a phase where the need to write is lessened—the causes of writer’s block are many and mysterious.

Cook a piece of trout

I met a guy I know in the supermarket the other day, he asked me what I was cooking, I showed him the fillet of trout; he told me that he was going to make some kind of soup with a standard soup recipe; then he told me that he liked fish but was afraid of cooking it. His fear keeps him from what he really likes; fish is just a little bit of flesh, to be cooked as any other kind of flesh, and if he screws it up the worst that could happen is that it is thrown away and he has to make a peanut butter sandwich. I suggested that if he is afraid to cook fish that that is what he ought to be making.

There is this really bright and effective guy who has done something that caused him to lose his big job and strain his family.

There was a time when I often used sex as an antidote to anxiety. I don’t know if I have ever written that before, admitted it before:– it really doesn’t matter in the scheme of things what I did, what anyone did, and so we might as well admit to them.

There are people who feel the need to put down their children’s aspirations, who can offer only conditional love and acceptance; there are people who are so afraid of human interactions that they must have everything on a competitive or unemotional level; there are people who do all sorts of things because of anxiety and the other demons. These demons are in the nature of all people, always have been, always will be. Perhaps we could admit that, and go on from there?

Now that nature has relieved me of the sex option, or toned it down somewhat, I need to live with and face my anxiety without the sex option, which I have been doing for about a decade now.

I write this with the understanding that it is not guy talk, not something to be discussed, and that is the problem. All of us have something or other, the more we sit on that something or other the more it hurts both ourself and others.

I am fortunate that I am in a position now that I don’t give a shit who knows what is going on, I have more important matters of concern; I now spend my energy examining what has been called the ultimate concern.So maybe I can do a bit of service by just putting down here what I feel, I experienced, I did, without the worry of concealment.

I don’t know if the guy who lost his big job yesterday has anxiety problems, don’t really care because it is none of my business; but he does have something that he tried to conceal, concealing causes a lot of damage. A decade ago there was this guy who nearly lost a very big job, because of concealment of something that affected him unduly. His wife may not get that same very big job because it is perceived that she conceals herself.

I have written previously of the instances of family members not admitting that dad is dying, keep believing that a new medicine will keep him from dying, that the medicine he now gets is making him act the way he is; family members who are looking away from what is the most natural thing in life, who are missing the opportunity to share and befriend dad as he goes about his business of dying.

I have no illusions that admitting to anxiety, writing about avoidance will change anyone’s mind; but I feel that it needs be said, that yesterday’s example will be taken by at least one person.

Buy a piece of trout, cook it just like a hamburger; the worst that can happen is that you will have to eat a peanut butter sandwich.

The cupboard is empty

For a couple of months now I was in a great habit: I would lay in bed very early, and something would come to me that I would write about. That was it, the habit arrived, I followed it, and did it again the next morning.

I wrote because it felt good to put down things that came clear from my center, as honest as anytime in my life; I wrote about life, death, joy, sadness, disappointment, and the brown sparrows outside my window. A few people read what I was writing, that made it better, a few wrote to me about any number of things, that was even better.

Recently I found my cupboard empty; something bad has barged into my warehouse and destroyed whatever it is that lets me write about cancer and sparrows and acceptance. I suppose that a few of us have old, bad ideas and attitudes that have the ability to stop us going forward sometimes; that is what is going on with me right now, that I am confronting.

I am writing this today for two reasons: It is good to admit to the world and myself when something isn’t going right, just as it is good to put down words when they flow well. The other reason is to suggest to anyone else that if they have a problem that impedes, you ought to consider facing it.

I hope to return to writing that stuff that I did for a couple of months, it was fun to write, good to know that people read it; I don’t know if that will return, but I am doing what I can.

Watching the parade

My intention this morning was to describe how I cook a whole bird; I started doing that, but realized that it is something that will take time and care to get right; I will be describing something, that is simple when observed, but in my inadequate words.

I decided to write this short post because I have come to make doing this a good part of my day, a way of starting forward, the stretching exercises after a night’s sleep.

This has been a particularly hard week of winter, not that there has been heavy snow or very low temperatures, it is just that this hard season persists. This has been a week where I have been the subject of criticism, not more than I can handle, just hard criticism from many corners; it continued through to about midnight as I finished driving a limousine, full of one family, who seemed to question every turn that I was making, passed judgment on every turn that I had made, wondered if I knew where I was going, and in the end told me that the car was dirty on the inside. And do you know what? I did make a wrong turn, I made two of them in that five hours they were with me; and there was something spilled in an ice box, some juice that a child had dropped in there previously, that I wasn’t aware of. That was the end of that day, this is the sunny morning of this day.

There were others: landlord, potential girlfriend, and someone who had once been a friend; there was a lot of criticism of me this week.

I can’t say what today will be about, I know that right now there is bright, hazy sun, that there is a big wedding to be driven this afternoon, that the freeze will continue, other than that who can tell?

I don’t find it easy to separate the good that I might get from criticism, from the hard effect it has on my mood; the former is good, the latter not so good. It is what I can practice doing today, it is why I am writing this post, I want to put it out there that I have this problem to solve, that it is just a problem, is not anything to be kept secret, just something to work on like any other situation that I come across. Having written that I feel a bit easier about the situation, it’ll take more work, but I do see with more objectivity the difference between what was said, and the effect that I make of it.

When I am sitting with Bert, out at the home, he often becomes agitated: something he can’t remember, something he can’t do, the prospect of what is to come; at those times I suggest that we just sit and watch the parade go by: nurses, always busy and focused; aides doing the hundred, not always pleasant, tasks they do over and over again; patients, in wheel chairs, with their various disabilities, the ones who needs to be belted on to a gurney, but who are always included in any activity for as long as they can stand it. It is all a passing parade, some of it interesting, some of it humorous, some of it sad, some of it fucking pathetic—-it passes down that hallway, as we sit and watch; my old friend of four months, and I, sit and enjoy the view; we both know that sometimes we are part of the parade, and sometimes we are bystanders.

Bert can no longer drink liquids, every time he wants a drink of water it has to be prepared by adding a thickener to the liquid, something that keeps it from sliding down his throat and gagging him; that is the way that Bert drinks nowadays, perhaps that is the way I will drink someday; but not this day. The worst that I know is I will have, is my own remembering of the criticisms of this week, their residual pain; Bert has a more difficult day ahead of him.

Overcast skies

Before I went to bed last night I looked up the N. W. S. forecast, it predicted overcast skies, temperatures a few degrees below then a few degrees above freezing, nothing much else. My reaction was that I was in for a dull, gray day; nothing much going on in my life, Edita is scheduled to come in for a few hours to make me and this place civilized, I’ll clear out ahead of time, no sense interfering with her cleaning; it is time to visit Bert, who might be agitated or not, might recognize me or not; I would check my email to see if hoped for messages came in or they didn’t; I had a new bag of juice oranges- a treat for first thing in the day.

I awoke this morning with that bundle of expectations, my day to be defined and judged by those things, and a dozen more that hadn’t yet come to mind. As I lay awake I realized that that would not be the start or the definition of today; I want a different day. For the last year I have been doing mindfulness exercises that I have found handy, and yet here I was about to define my day with these things that may or may not be pleasant or interesting; it was time to remember the core of what this day will be, what I am.

For many years, throughout my decades of depression I found that being alone, focusing on just being, without sound and movement would make me anxious. It can be anxiety provoking to see and accept that existence is all that there is, everything else as an auxiliary, an accessory. And that out of that notion, that feeling, that place, can could come everything else; I pursued that idea with profit.

I was walking back from the Dominick’s store yesterday, coming up Damen Ave., where I was stopped by a couple of young men from the Church of Latter Day Saints, they were identified by badges pinned to their coats. One fellow asked if they could speak to me for a couple of minutes, I agreed. To his first question, which was whether I knew anything about their church, I suppressed a comment about having spent much of the previous week watching the latest disc release of Big Love, I answered that I knew little. He began to tell me that they believed this, they believed that, they believed the other thing; I won’t try to retell it all, but their beliefs covered just about everything one could list in life, then they asked if I would like to learn more of their church. It was now my turn.

I told them that my relationship with God was in pretty good shape. I said that I really didn’t need to read the narrative of others who had experienced the divine, that no one had ever come to transcendence by reading and memorizing what others had experienced, not one person, ever. That whatever I might need, I already have, its just a matter of looking inside again.

After this pompousness on my part I walked home, self-righteousness striding up Damen Avenue.

But how else could I respond to proselytizing, what to say to someone who intrudes like that?

I have read that there was a time when belief was a word used about notions that were tried and found to be true: Believe in the Pythagorean theorem; believe that the longer the lever I have the greater the force I can apply; believe that when I push against something, I will feel pressure back at me; believe that if I forgot my wife’s birthday I would sleep on the couch; and on and on. The use has changed to be that realm of notions where belief becomes the unbelievable, where one’s innate intelligence is to be switched off, where wishful thinking becomes reality. That Joseph Smith found gold plates from God, inscribed with rules and regulations that were new and exciting? Please, please, please let us bring back critical thinking. I will refrain from going further into the problems that believing has caused us recently. The phrase I respect your beliefs has caused more harm and misdirection that almost any other I know.

And no I am not currently married, no more sleeping on the couch.

The sun has come up brightly from behind the garage across the alley, part of the weather forecast wasn’t correct, not that it matters. I will be in the day, or I will try. I will meet more interesting people on Damen Avenue, or I won’t. I’ll have a semblance of a conversation with Bert in the convalescent home, or I won’t. I will rent a video that is interesting, or one like Once that I am returning today, a study in beige, color, music, story, whining, resembling nothing as much as sipping beige, lukewarm, water.

There are days when I am satisfied with what I put down here, and then there are days when I am not sure.