If you have it then you should have put a name on it!

My back hurts, my feet hurt, my heart beats too fast and my vision is troubled. I feel bad, I feel sick, tired and disoriented, moody and sad, I feel like gravity is crushing me and my whole body is sagging. I am twenty-six years old and I feel like every year that passes equals to ten. I am scared of what is to come, scared about the future, not to say the present, that is if I’m not drowning in my modest past. I can’t stay up,  my shoulders and legs just feel too heavy and the dizziness I constantly feel just makes me nauseous.

THAT my friends, is how I feel everyday. For years I have been complaining of all of the above plus many other symptoms that earned me a nice reputation, that of always having something somewhere. What is this thing? Do I have a condition? Is it all related to that depressed state I am constantly in or should I add it to the long list of symptoms I can’t even explain? Every time I thought I felt better or I thought I found an explanation to how bad I felt (back pain= discal hernia, headaches= sinusitis, mood changes= hormones, teeth problems= hereditary….), things just get worst and I feel like free falling from a skyscraper straight to the ground, then I talk to people about how I feel and the ground just collapses under my feet.

I totally forgot how it was to feel good. In your body, in your mind, around people. Simply feel good! and for years I kept wondering what was wrong with me? I do have my own list of health issues but nothing seemed to explain my constant state of tiredness and illness. No clinical reason that would make me stop people from asking me to just « shake it (laziness) off ». What I feel is beyond laziness, it is my body not able to hold itself. It’s my head feeling to heavy on my neck. It’s my hope and dreams buried under the need to stop thinking and moving and planning cause it sometimes hurts too.

My doctor (Dr M),might be the best person I ever known. For four years, he listened to me, tested me for every possible thing that could explain my symptoms while always trying to reassure me. He helped me take care of most of these health issues I stated earlier and what he mostly did is never judge me. Never doubted any of my complaints or tried to dismiss it cause some do. That reminds me of a so-called doctor who after hearing complain about bad stomachaches and occulting me as badly, he looks me in the eye and tell me: »young girl, you’re not in pain, nothing is wrong I wouldn’t see a reason for your pain, you must be stressed » and he whispers « teens » right before I get out of his office. THAT ladies and gentleman is a practicing doctor with nice diplomas over his desk and a trophy wife whose voice makes me want to die instantly…Grrr. Sorry about this. I couldn’t get over it. That is something I feel very often too; do I mean anger? losing control? overwhelmed? allergic to stupidity? All of the above and the final diagnosis I am about to tell you about is most certainly related to those « mood swings ». But let’s be honest, that is who I am, fibromyalgia or not, that is who I am.

Oh right! I put a name on it: Fibromyalgia.

That is what my doctor thinks might be the answer. (He says that we shouldn’t rest on this and stop checking out for other « health issues », and if you knew me, you would totally approve his approach. He knows me well enough to know that if he gives me one response, only One reason to why I don’t feel good, he wouldn’t see me again until somethings goes really wrong). I have to say that I always believed in an adage I used to hear as a child: « understanding the problem is having half of the solution »(something like that). I might even have adapted to me a bit and it became : »once you understand the problem, there is no problem anymore ». Well that is the best way to either:

Make sure to never get things done or get yourself killed.

At first I was relieved and happy to be able to put a name on what I have. To know that I am not an imaginary sick person but a person who has a real condition that causes chronic fatigue and pain. Then I realized that even though I might feel relieved to know what I have, I still have to face up  my world and learn to deal with it, and this, this takes away every little piece of relief you ever felt.

Kooki.