This morning, I toddled off to the hospital for my follow-up appointment with rheumatology. I’d been waiting so long for this, I was desperate to know if my blood tests and mri results showed anything that could explain away my symptoms. Pain, fatigue, headaches every single day. Aching eyes, so sensitive that it’s too bright for me on a dull day. Muscle pains and spasms; eventually my muscles slowly get fatigued too. 1 by 1 I feel them stop trying. That’s when I need to go and lie down. I know if I don’t lie down then, I’ll start feeling sick and eventually start vomiting if I let my body get that exhausted. 

Anyhow, so there I was, I’d toddled off to my appointment and wasn’t waiting too long before I was called through. And every result came back normal.

Now you would imagine, that this is great news. They’re saying there’s no indications of rheumatism, psoriatic arthritis and a few other inflammatory illnesses. That’s great news really. But instead my eyes started burning and I could feel as they slowly filled with tears. Even the chin wobbled – that’s when you know you’re really upset. So with head in hands I sat and wailed as I tried to explain why I was so upset with the good news. Lucky for me, the practitioner understood my upset and disappointment and her understanding and kindness made me worse (always worse when somebody is nice to me haha).

She quite rightly pointed out the disappointment I was met with, because there are no answers. Not much is known about Fibromyalgia, compared to other illnesses, which makes it more difficult to treat. Plus symptoms vary so much between individuals that cases can range from mild to severe. So whilst it is good to know I’ve not got certain inflammatory problems, I am once again left to face the facts. There is still nothing more that can be done, and it’s up to me to accept the pain & fatigue and live my life around them both. Some days, I actually feel ok about it. I sometimes think “fibro and cfs will not rule my life” and I feel a strong determination to fight the bastards. But eventually it catches up with me, pushes me to the ground and traps me there for a while. 

Rather than feel like it’s chasing me all the time, I need to be able to stop running from it, and stop letting it control everything. Even simpler; I need to accept that this is all part of my life. That I’ll hurt and feel tired and I need to adapt and get on with it.

When you know what you need to do, but you don’t know how to do it, what happens then? Does anybody know how to accept something you don’t want to accept? I need to speed up the process ‘cos I can’t cope with this vicious cycle of emotions regarding my health. I’m exhausted!

Anyway. I managed to get home through my tears, and yelled even more when I was greeted by my 3 beautiful babies with love and affection. I collapsed in a heap on the floor and sobbed for a bit. One thing I felt that sticks out; defeated!

The day’s almost over with now. I’m exhausted and my poor eyes are puffy, tired, red and sore. I can’t wait until sleep time. Hopefully tomorrow will feel slightly easier. One can hope!