Pain

Is there a reason to blog about pain?  Does acknowledging it make it better or worse?  Or does sharing simply relieve the isolation that pain brings?

The weather system moving in bodes ill for my body.  The knuckle ache has already fanned out to include my arms and shoulders, my hips and knees, my ankles and toes.   A profound fatigues settles like fog on my brain.  My skin is increasingly sensitive to touch.  It really hurt when I accidentally bumped my hand earlier while laboring to unscrew a lid.

At least I know that this familiar pain has not yet lasted forever.  Give me a couple hours or a couple days and it will fade out.  Then I will once again gradually take for granted the respite from pain and fatigue until the next time it creeps up on me.

But I refuse to take for granted the blessings I have. 

Because I don’t have to work a “real” job, I have the time and energy to do the things I love.  I can spend my energy as I wish.  I can pace my activities to avoid so many crashes.  Sometimes I get the pace so perfect that I can forget the limitations of fibromyalgia.  In fact, that is most of the time now. 

On days like these, I do wish I could oil my joints like the Tin Man or have my joints and muscles as loose as the Scarecrow.  I think of Whidbey Island as my technicolor land of Oz, but there will be no skipping down the yellow brick road tonight.  I feel more like lying down in the poppies and taking a nice long nap.