Today I Choose

Life is full of choices. Everything we do, every single day, is a choice. As choices are made options diminish and explode with equal velocity. It took getting Fibromyalgia and and having a complete emotional breakdown, followed very shortly by a total physical breakdown, to teach me this truth in life. See I had "chosen" to push my way through this illness, and those breakdowns were my inevitably. Because Fibromyalgia is simply not an illness one can ignore and hope it will go away with any success. At least that I have seen. When the ability to even walk to the bathroom upon rising from bed in the morning is challenged, the thousands of needles jabbing into your feet, turning into swords shooting up your legs simply too much, we figure out pretty quickly what having all choices stripped away feels like. And how awful it is. The loss of control. It is alarming! It is confusing. It is devastating. Heartbroken I sat, unsure of how to go on. What room did this world have for a sick me? And sometimes when the question is that basic, the biggest, most important choice of all is made. Do I fight to survive, or do I accept defeat and give up the fight?

Each day, each action, we choose. From the second I open my eyes in the morning my mind is a shuffle of choices. When that alarm goes off, do I exercise discipline and get up and run, my ultimate goal? Or do I succumb to the familiarity of my cozy, pain free slumber and abandon what my more-than-half-asleep self thinks is really important? I choose if I respond to my husband's short temper by laughing him into a better mood or poking sticks in his burning embers and feeling the wrath of the burn. Now I may try the laughing and he still does the burning, and yet again, I am given a choice. Do I yell back, and get frustrated, throw my hands up in defeat and walk away? Or do I give him grace, knowing I have some to spare at that moment and he will return the gift tenfold when I am in need of some forgiving myself. The choice is mine. But how do I respond to the pain of Fibromyalgia? Once again the choice is mine. What do I do to get through a flare? Do I take my most important personal relationships down into the gutter with me, or do I depart from the presence of those near and dear and learn how to deal with the grim effects of this illness on my own? Do I lash out, or get up and go out? When I was at my sickest I was a raging bitch to my husband, for about 2 solid years. I would pile on a pound of makeup and plaster a smile on my face, peddling lipstick and face cream as if my life depended on it, ignoring the physical symptoms that were blaring at me. Working took all I had and I would come home and fall apart on him. Scared, oh so scared. Angry, confused and really really pissed off, too.

For those familiar with addiction recovery, each day is each day, and the choice is for that day. Would this philosophy help us Fibromyalgia patients? Our illness does indeed flex each day, ebbing and flowing like the tide, without any of the regularity. Would the choice to flex with it help us in dealing with it, managing it, fitting it into our lives, not our lives around it? Am I angry, bitter, sorrowful, for all of my days? Or do I pick that speck of cheer-up when it randomly lands on my doorstep and grow that little bit of hope into a day, that one amazingly miraculous day where you wake up and feel good, even if it is just for a little while, and use it to build up health. The choice is yours friends. For today you do choose, we all do.

Thanks for joining,
Leah