Turn Of The Coin

Poop & Tuna
So, for a couple of weeks I've been a good girl and taken all of my meds including the pain meds. The problem with pain meds is when you take them regularly, you get constipated. I mean, you can't poop to save your life. I'm eating bran, raisins (hate prunes), trying to be active, I'm doing everything that usually works and BAM!, the plumbing backs up. So, I'm telling my husband about it, looking for ideas, looking for help because I'm going to have to cut back on my pain meds for a couple of days and I know I'm gonna hurt like a mother and my almost four year old says, "Poop is a bad word!" I'm thinking, good thing I didn't say, "I can't take a shit to save my life!" Anyways, for some reason, being constipated, cramping up, and experiencing severe fibro pain did not stop the laugh that came from the bottom of my belly. I can just picture our family using the word tuna in place of every other word you can think of for poop. Husband "What 'cha doing in the bathroom for so long? Are you okay?" Me, "Yeah, I'm just trying to push out a huge tuna."

Do Not Pass Go
You can't win when you have severe fibromyalgia. You can't plan anything because you could wake up tomorrow hurting so bad that holding the urine in your bladder all day would be more acceptable than having to roll over (Oh God, that hurts), have to move your legs to a position that they could touch the floor (There are no words to describe this pain), then actually put your feet on the floor (Holy tuna), and then stand up (Are you f***ing kidding me). By the time you've actually reached a standing position, you might as well motor because laying back down will hurt just as much. So, you head directly to the bathroom. Do not pass go (say hello to your family), do not collect $2000 (your meds) because once you're moving forward, stopping before you reach your goal is not an option.

Miracle?
So, as I've stated before, I've been taking my medications regularly so in my mind, I should be done with experiencing the above paragraph on a regular basis. I figure, hell I'm following the doctor's instructions, so it's gonna get better. Honestly, that's what I was hoping for, but I had some doubts that it would actually work. So, I did it. I upped my Vicodin to two pills per day, in pain or not. I decreased my fentanyl from 37 mcg/72 hours to 25 mcg because it was causing me tummy trouble we (me and doc) thought. I went back on Klonopin and Flexeril everyday and continued to take my Lyrica. I was so surprised. I felt better. I did have the "tuna" problem, but I could work that out...no pun intended. For five days straight, I felt almost good. I still hurt when anyone touched me, but I could function enough to leave the house. It was a mini miracle.

WTF
Then, Saturday morning came in with a crash. I woke up aching at around 4am and went back to sleep. Should have taken my Vicodin then, but figured I'd be okay until my regular schedule. I wasn't. It was hellish! To go back to aching, burning, hurting everywhere without even having to move was going to be my ruination. To realize that something that I don't even know that I did put me right back in the hole that I've been fighting so hard to get out of was so disheartening. It might as well have been the turn of a coin because I have no clue what I did wrong. That's the thing with fibromyalgia. You don't know. All the best laid plans and such don't seem to matter. You see they do and they don't. You can push yourself to the point of exhaustion and cause a flare. That makes sense, so don't do that. On the other side of the coin, you could relax watching movies and baking cookies with the family all day, enjoying every moment and cause a flare. Now, that doesn't make sense.

Dragons
I kind of look at my fibromyalgia like I would a dragon. It is an almost inpenetrable, gigantic fire-breathing animal with long, sharp talons. On close inspection, it seems impossible that anyone could ever slay it. But, this summer, I saw this cute, funny, touching children's movie called How To Train Your Dragon. Reflecting on that movie got me thinking. Maybe my dragon, fibromyalgia, can't be slayed, but could be trained. It doesn't mean that it would always follow my lead (hell, my dogs don't) and, sometimes it would get out of control, breath it's fire and weild its talons, in which case I would have a flare, but in the end at least I'd have some control. The reality is that my fibromyalgia isn't going away anytime soon. So, I'm going to have to learn to handle it. Us fibromights, so named because we are mighty, need to take our meds, be as active as works for us, plan to rest whenever we need it, throw guilt out the window, and enjoy every good moment we get. This is not an easy thing to do, but neither is training a dragon. All dragoning aside, there are going to be ups and bottom of the barrel downs, but as long as you can remember that there will be a good day again, sometime, then each one of us can get through this.