The Fibrochondriac

One of the things that fibromyalgia has taught me is the value of creating and setting priorities. I’m learning that all over again since we moved to warmer weather. Just because I feel better doesn’t necessarily mean that I can just pick up where I left off prior to getting sick.

 I am now “differently-abled” and I have to accept that. Three days after moving to San Diego, my husband had to leave for several weeks for work. I’m used to that, so not a big deal .

San Diego is beautiful and when I first got here, it was in the 70s every day. My pain receded. So I didn’t think anything of unpacking, running to the grocery store, driving an hour to go meet with a group of new friends.

 I paid for it. Wow, I hadn’t had a flare like that since last winter in Seattle! My fibro is pretty sensitive to weather and last winter I was pretty much bedridden.

I call those days “bathrobe days” and those are the longest days… just trying to be at one with the pain and just hoping it’ll let up sometime soon. Someone at Fibrohaven referred to the pain of fibro like that of childbirth…you go through hell and then don’t really remember it. Yeah, like that.

 So I got slapped down pretty hard core for a couple of days. And then I got back up and did it all over again. Ummm…I’m hard headed and stubborn? So it took the second flare for me to realize that I still have to prioritize. What is important to me? What do I have to get done and what is not that important?

 So I’m back to scheduling one “event” per day. I define this event as anything that will sap energy. Some days, it’s a shower and that’s it. And I am going back to using the methods I learned in a pacing class I took online.

 In this class I learned about my “energy envelope” and tracking what I actually could do in a day. The founder of the site, Bruce Campbell, is a huge proponent of “the 1% solution”. This solution uses incremental increases in activity to get you from incapacity to capacity. I’ve never been one to do things on a measured or even pace, but even as hard headed as I am, I realize that pacing is absolutely essential. And with that, prioritizing. I can’t do it all. Sometimes I can’t even do a little.

 But if I sit down and list out what I think has to be done, I can plan my day, prioritize what I’m going to do and create a pace that won’t cause me to flare.

That’s the broad view. I’ll talk about the finer points in another blog.