When The Patient Is The Caretaker

Yesterday my dear mother had surgery. She spent the night before with us which made Yorkie the happiest dog on the planet. He kept switching from her bed to ours every hour. Porkie did not know what to think of all this, for there was NO WAY she was gonna go sleep with that strange woman in the other room. We are up at 5:30, checked into the hospital at 7, surgery by 9 and I am in post-op talking to the surgeon by 10. Everything went well, thank God, and I am in to greet her back to consciousness in recovery, with us on our way home by noon. Sounds nice and efficient, eh? Except the poor dear was in no state to be rushed out of the hospital a mere hour from waking up from general anesthesia! She was in pain and struggling and raw and emotional. I felt so bad for her! And it brought up all the layers upon layers upon layers of feelings about my myriad of hospitalizations and illnesses and health problems I have struggled with. A fair amount of us Fibromyalgia patients have other conditions, mine happen to be pancreatitis and strokes. Being that sickie lying on that gurney, feeling a horrible combination of heavy duty narcotics and pain, impending doom and a background of hope buried somewhere...well it is no good!

She is currently on the mend and doing quite well. Her friend that is taking care of her is having to stop my mother from doing things constantly (wonder where I get it from) and she is already back to her determined and feisty self. Yours truly, on the other hand, had the worst Fibro-flare today that I have had in years! You name it, it hurt. I was LMA in mood, there was a bag of cotton balls stuffed between my brain and conscious thought. My vision was blurry. I was like a walking zombie even after 10 hours of sleep and was just too darn uncomfortable to be awake. It was not just one symptom or another popping up, IT WAS ALL OF THEM AT ONCE. That is what Fibromyalgia was to me a few years ago, each day a game of "surprise" as to who I was, where I was and what I was doing, filtered through a pain and medication haze of confusion. It reminded me with acute accuracy how far I have come and how miserable my Fibro was before I moved to Arizona. So I did what any good patient does when remaining conscious does not seem to be a viable answer and drugged myself back to sleep! I feel a bit better now, especially since my husband stopped by the Mexican market and brought me home Pan and Tres Leches!

I myself am now on the mend as well (I think, I hope). My mother had a similar surgery this past summer and it was a lot less hard on me, looking after her then. My Fibro is just not as well managed as it was before the strokes. It sucks, but deep below all that Prednisone energy I was already wondering if I was as managed as before. I had worked my butt off to get to where I was a very functional person. I was learning Spanish at the community college, working more than ever, had lost the majority of the Lyrica weight and was enjoying life again after a long and dark hiatus of years of misery and pain. The strokes are turning into a bit more than a minor set-back. Anything medical is a major setback when one has Fibro, and doctors just don't seem to get it! Unless they have had it, that is. So one foot in front of the other, I will find my way back to that path of progress and minimize Fibro's impact on my life. Until then I think I am going back to sleep...

Thanks for joining,

Leah