Thursday, April 8, 2010

Coming Out of the Fog

Welcome to the world of FM. Ah, no, not a new radio station...this is Fibromyalgia, apparently my new life long friend, or is it "frenemy"?

Which ever, according to my wonderful doctor and the fancy folk he sent me to it is my diagnosis. FM will be sharing my nearly 36 year old body with a newly found companion named Hypothyroidism and my old buddies PTSD and Sciatica. It seems that PTSD might have been the one to invite FM to the party without consulting me. Which, I'd like to mention, is terribly rude....ahhh, but then, when has PTSD ever really listened to me? It does as it likes, really, like a spoiled rebellious child with direct access to my adrenal gland. But I digress, and regress a bit just to spice things up.

I've come to find I rather like Hypothyroidism. I had blown up like a balloon with infinite access to air in recent months, and my skin (a matter of silken pride even in the darkest of my days) had started to crinkle and flake in the most unfeminine manor. It seems that was all just Hypothyroidism trying to get attention. Now, I greet it every morning with a tiny tablet and a glass of water. In the first week of getting the little bit of attention it needed is settled down and the balloon has lost nearly 12 pounds of air so far and my silken point of pride has recaptured my husband's attentions.

FM and I are still feeling each other out. I am thrilled that it has allowed me to call it quits with PTSD's major controller, Zoloft. Honestly, after seven years it was time to recognize that it just wasn't going to work between us. PTSD has taken the break up rather personally and thrown a few notable fits, but nothing it can't be mostly coxed down from with a bit of Klonopin or the occasional inadvisable Ale or Lager. Once or twice PTSD has needed a good long cry or a bit of time to just be totally unreasonable in the safety of my husband's arms. I don't think PTSD realized it was going to cause Zoloft and I to split when it helped FM in, but so it goes, and we'll all grow and move on.

In truth I'm a bit hopeful that PTSD will skip the growing bit and just take to the moving on part. We've been together a long time, and FM is going to take a lot of my attention now. Perhaps, as I enter the last three days of Zoloft's half-life in my body, PTSD and I can reach a truce of our own without Zoloft trying to be there as the ever present intermediary. Well, one can hope.

Ah, there I said it...or, rather typed it, the magic word: Hope. I try not to think of it too often, the glimmer of light around the dark cloud or at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Hope. What a powerful word...powerful enough to elect a president, to raise the fists of the oppressed against their oppressors, and to help people of all colors creeds and nations battle their own inner demons.

If God is Love, what is Hope? Is it a promise of God in our lives? Is it the song in our hearts that brings that last bit of strength to survive...to live...to come out of darkness of the fog?

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