Rethinking Life

I've got a lot on my mind right now, and most of it involves rethinking a lot of things in my life.

This week I was submitted to a hospital for 5 days, going through an intense investigation to figure out what's going on with my body and why I'm in so much pain all the time. We had suspected Fibromyalgia for a while now, and I finally got my doctor to send a request to the hospital to get this investigated. However, when I got called in, it was to investigate on the suspicion of me having ME (chronic fatigue syndrome).

Well, the week is over, and I've now been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, as we suspected, but with the chances of developing ME if I don't take it easy, cause my body is really burned out and is already pretty fatigued.
It's a kind of bittersweet feeling, getting this diagnose. I finally know what's wrong now, and can start working my way around it, but it's not a good diagnose to have. In fact, it's really bad. I'm still trying to let it sink in, so I'm not sure how to respond to this myself. This bittersweet feeling is so far the only thing I can feel. I think a part of me don't want to believe it. I don't know.

I've gotten a lot of kind words from people after I made it public. Those that know a thing or two about Fibromyalgia have all expressed their symapthies, and some are even giving me some advices on how to deal with it, while those who know nothing about it are wishing me to get well.
Heh, get well...

If you're a woman, have you ever had really horrible period cramps? You know, the kind of pain that makes you want to rip out your own uterus because it's so bad, or that you curse whatever it was that made you a woman cause right there and then being a man would be a far better option than dealing with this pain.
Or, if you're a man, have you ever had a really bad toothache? Like, where you wish you could just remove your entire jaw and all your teets, just to get away from the pain, cause nothing you do makes it better. It just hurts, and it drives you insane.
Now imagine if you feel that exact kind of pain in your entire foot, and nothing helps to make that pain go away. It doesn't matter if you keep the foot still, or if you move it around, cause the pain stays the same no matter what.
Now imagine that pain in both your feet, and both your arms, and you wake up to that pain. And on top of it all, whenever you wake up, it feels like you've been up most of the night, partying and running a marathon, cause you're just dead tired and completely exhausted. After a whole night of sleeping, you wake up in pain, completely exhausted, and have to get out of bed and face an entire day like that. If you can imagine that, you can imagine the days I usually have.
This past year, those days have grown more and more common for me, and now I don't have a couple of bad days between all the good ones. I have a couple of good days between all the bad ones. This is my life right now.

That is Fibromyalgia. And you know what? There's no cure. Once you get it, you have to live with it for the rest of your life. You can find a good treatment that works for you, often combining medicine with a kind of excersize that might help, which varies from person to person, and it can keep the pain somewhat at bay and give you a semi-normal life. But you're at the mercy of that treatment and dependant on it to keep up that life, cause if you ever stop then you'll go back to all those bad days again.
It's not like when you've got an injury, that you can treat for a while and it all gets better and you can stop the treatment. Fibromyalgia doesn't work that way. It doesn't go away after a while. You just find a way to chain it down, and then you spend the rest of your life maintaining those chains so it doesn't break free and attack you again.

Sounds dramatic, yeah? Well, it's not as dramatic as I'm making it out to be. I'm just trying to paint a very rough picture for you to understand. While my life ain't over in any way just because I've got a diagnose like this, my life will have to change quite drastically. And I am now working with myself to come to terms with this. Things'll get better, but I'll never be completely well again. Right now, that thought is kind of heavy, but I am going to learn to accept that, and work my way around it. I'll find a way for me to make my life a good one, despite everything.

I've got a lot on my mind now. Everything inside me is telling me that I need to rethink my life, and how I want to live it. So I'm gonna do that. Rethink my life. Don't know how long that'll take me, but I'll take the time I need. I'll figure something out.
This diagnose is a bit of a blow to the stomach. And now I'm gonna rethink everything and find a way to take advantage of that blow and twist and turn my life around and make it something different. Something better. If changes needs to be made, then I'll make sure that I'm the one in charge of those changes.

I believe in fate. I believe that there's a reason for everything.
And I'm gonna find the reason for this. Somehow.