When our world is turned upside down

When one is first diagnosed with an illness, it is quite common to be in disbelief or even denial. After all, some illnesses come as a shock and have the potential to change our life forever. This requires us to rethink how we will cope with the illness, its treatment and life in general.

Sometimes we struggle to get a grip of the ramifications that illness makes in our life, but sooner or later, we are going to have to get our head around the fact that things will change. To function, they have to.

If diagnosis of an illness has caused a depression which lingers for more than a few weeks or causes panic attacks, I suggest that a doctor is seen for antidepressants. These may be needed only short term until the illness is accepted. And it must be accepted sooner or later.

Only in coming to terms with being chronically ill, can we make plans to handle the changes that being ill will bring. We will need to plan our days as wives, mothers and homemakers. (See Lists)
We must cling to Jesus and allow Him to minimise the shock and help us regain our focus. We must also plan our treatments and care.

Scary as it is, chronic illness must be addressed as soon as we are able... our future and our family's future depend on us accepting our illness so that we can move on. Easier said than done when your world has been turned upside down.

© Glenys Robyn Hicks

"So teach [us] to number our days, that we may apply [our] hearts unto wisdom" Psalm 90:12

Resistance is futile

Fibromyalgia is a really difficult illness/syndrome to live with. It's the most painful and yet invisible of illnesses. It is difficult to diagnose and there's no specific test for it.

It's infuriating that you can go years without a diagnosis. Especially frustrating when doctors dismiss you. Even worse if they suggest it's all in your head, when everywhere hurts so much you could cry. And do.

My diagnosis after many years of suffering and tests was clinched when my skin came up in red welts after the rheumatologist pressed on my trigger points. I have since learned that it's called dermagraphica or skin writing. 

One can never leave fibromyalgia or move away from it. One is never really out of a fibromyalgia flare as the smallest over extending of energy drags you back into another one.

Fibromyalgia brings emotional pain too as one tries to avoid looking ill but fails as the pain overrides the best of our intensive acting like a "normal"

There's no cure  and one really doesn't move on but moves through it flare by flare, day in day out, year by year.  One staggers through it. Lives it 24/7.  Endures it. 

No matter how hard we try to live a normal life, fibromyalgia accompanies us like a cloak of gloom around our shoulders. We soon learn we must accept it, for resistance is futile....

Plans for today: Today I had the lady come to clean our house and tomorrow we have a house inspection. My plans today are to keep the dishes under control and put away a few clothes from the washing today. Dinner will be pea and ham soup cooked in the slow cooker. 

Flaring badly, I see a nana nap on my horizon...

Pain is a disability

Anyone who suffers from chronic pain knows that it precludes us from a lot of enjoyment of life. Pain makes the vicissitudes of life that much harder to bear. 

Everything is exaggerated both physically and mentally, and the only thing I can do is accept that this is not my usual self, for pain changes people.

Pain disables us in many ways. from physical activity. from family life. from sex. from sleep. from patience. from social life. from functioning normally. from life generally.

The effects of pain cause us to withdraw from people and become reclusive. It makes us feel isolated and unable to really feel understood or validated. We learn to be distrustful of others.

Because chronic pain, in my case fibromyalgia, causes us so much mental as well as physical angst, we decide to retreat to our home often preferring it even if we had enough spoons to leave.

Seeing as pain is such a disabling affliction, it makes no sense to me that we are often regarded by doctors with suspicion when we request heavy duty pain relief such as opiates.

Most of us cannot get enough medication to adequately help us with our pain. We often then succumb to depression and live as recluses  due to agoraphobia. 

We who suffer from chronic pain know that it is a disability. Invisible and destructive. We live in the knowledge that pain is disabling. 

We just wish doctors were as aware of the ongoing relentless disability called Pain.