This last weekend I did something I have not done in many years, attended my annual family reunion in Las Vegas. I really can't even remember the last one I went to. Perhaps over the past eight years of chronic illness I maybe mustered up enough strength once. Maybe. The only real memory of Vegas I have is the last trip I went on with my husband a good four or five years ago. It was so bright, loud and smokey I couldn't deal and vowed not to return until I wasn't so sick. To describe Las Vegas as a sensory, neurological experience from hell for a person with Fibromyalgia is a supreme understatement.
For some reason I felt up to going this year so I packed my bags, kissed hubby goodbye, and flew off to sin city for a little family togetherness. What met me there was so unbelievably surprising I still can't believe it happened. I felt great. Not okay, good or fine, but really great. Yes I was at the total mercy of everyone else's schedule and horribly short on sleep. No I had no down time, but that was more because I didn't want down time. There was too much awesome stuff going on! I didn't feel sick, like I was dragging behind everyone else or forcing them to make concessions to accommodate me. No, I felt more like a teenager stuck on vacation with her parents who wanted nothing more than to party till the sun came up but wasn't allowed to. Ummm, excuse me, when the hell did this happen?
My mouth is still agape with shock as I sit here three days later stupefied. Logic tells me I deserve to feel good. That every yoga session and AM jog got me here. That my anti-high fructose corn syrup, aspartame-phobic, preservative-avoiding self earned this. That my heartfelt belief that I had to do this myself, for if I waited for doctors and drugs to get me better I would still be in bed, was correct. However, Fibromyalgia is hardly logical. I've been trying to fit the square peg of logic and reason into the round hole of Fibromyalgia for years now and it never worked. In fact, this illness specifically defies any expectation of normalcy to such a grand degree it's what sent me running to the funny farm oh so many moons ago. Never fear, the flare hit yesterday. When a bra I didn't notice I had on the day before started cutting into my skin like a knife I knew my run had ended. But I'll be damned if on my way back home I didn't feel like the woman who put a quarter in the slots and was lucky enough to win a car.
Thanks for joining,
Leah
