I am happily married to my husband of almost 14 years. We will be celebrating our 14th wedding anniversary in March....we will have been together 15 years on March 12th, which IS also our wedding anniversary. Luck and fate should have it that our wedding day/evening was able to take place exactly ONE year from the day we met.
We met in Phoenix through friends, and for us, it was love at first sight, although we didn't realize it until the second time we met. LOL We do not have people children but we do have our furry kids. With us now are Elly (age 12) and Jaxon (almost 4!), both Blue Heelers and the light of our lives.
We have lost 2 furry kids, Ginseng, the BEST shar-pei at age 9 and Tiggr, Texas Heeler (by far the best buddy EVER) at age 12. Those losses are already 2+ years and yet there are days when it stabs at my heart that it feels like just yesterday.
Anyhow...Brian and I moved to Denver in 2009. We had moved back and forth AZ-CO-AZ-CO and have stayed here. I am completely ready to move again, thanks to the unreal cost of living here and social isolation. Brian just finished his Bachelor's degree in Special and Elementary Education and will be looking for employment to start in the schools in the Fall 2018. He currently works Turf/Grounds Crew for the Colorado Rockies MLB team and NFL Denver Broncos. All I can say is I'm proud of him and so happy to have our evenings back without homework from his schooling!
I too work in Education, over 17 years as a School Psychologist. I basically love what I do and the meaning behind it. Its only some co-workers and parents that make me "hate" my job. I just remind myself I work for the "kids" so that they can succeed in life.
About 3 years ago I was formally diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. After 2 years of doctor's appointments related to extreme fatigue, chronic pain, lethargy and fogginess my OBGYN contacted my primary physician to make the diagnosis real. Imagine my response....great. So now I have been diagnosed with an "invisible" chronic illness and I work and am surrounded by family and people who are incredibly concrete thinking.
Its been a hard road, and continues to be so. I am now at a point where I have utilized all my sick time and my illness is beginning to impact my ability to meet job deadlines, unless I work from home. Which, as you can imagine, as a Psychologist in the schools is not an easy thing to do unless its related to paperwork (which we happen to do a lot of).
I continue to struggle with feeling like saying "I have a chronic illness" indicates a personal weakness and failure. I struggle with feeling the need to justify, to prove, to want to gain acceptance of my illness. If I wasn't concerned with others perceptions, my stress level and anxiety would probably be a WHOLE lot LOWER. I honestly feel like others perceptions is one of the largest confounding factors that impacts how severe my Fibro symptoms on any given day, are.
I say "my Fibro," because...well...it is MINE. No one can understand the severity of the pain on a good day much less a bad flare day. Fibromyalgia has some common characteristics that those of us with it suffer from. However the severity, degree and other symptoms we have are widely varied. That's why mine is MINE.
I have a hard time remembering how I felt before all the fatigue and pain. I think I've been pain free once in the last 5 years and that was recently thanks to some pain meds administered in the ER. And can you imagine how frustrating, that when I do go to the doctor, and they run the same 18000 labs (okay 8-10 labs) they all come back "normal." Then, the doctor says, "it could be an impact of your fibromyalgia."
So at this point, related to my Fibro is IBS, hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, shortness of breath, tight muscles, fatigue, lethargy, poor vision, difficulties at times with fine and gross motor skills, balance, memory (both short and long term), and speech. Yesterday Brian said, "my wife is brilliant and when she can't put thoughts and words together about what to eat for dinner, well...that's when I really worry." We live in a world where my baseline pain is about a 4 on a 1-10 scale, with 10 being severe.
I am amazed everyday at what I can still accomplish, and disappointed daily by my limitations.
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