Dolores* was a
nurse at the big hospital in town. She worked the night shift in the ER for many
years, thriving on the high-octane pace. Numerous patients claiming to have
Fibromyalgia graced her care during this time. The common attitude about the
hospital was that Fibromyalgia was a big fat joke. Bunch of fakers wanting to
lay around all day and bilk the system, high on drugs and complaining about
nothing. Dolores would humor them but never liked giving the narcotic
injections they were obviously desperately seeking.
As she aged she
started slowing down and her job eventually became overwhelming. Transferring
to the maternity ward she found new mothers and fathers with the occasional
hysterectomy a much more agreeable place to spend her evenings. It was to her
absolute horror when one day physical pain hit so bad she could not get out of
bed. Every inch of her body throbbed with her pulse, fire zipping through her
like an electric conductor. The blanket hurt her skin, her hair hurt her head.
This pain had been mounting over the last few years, but certainly never this
bad.
She went to see
her doctor who ran every test, scan and procedure available, yet there was no
explanation for her suffering. Outrageously frustrated, the pain became so bad
she started missing work. Dolores could no longer complete four 12-hour shifts
a week and was forced to switch to part-time. As her doctor continued to rule
out any and every illness which shared her symptoms her pain and fatigue grew
nearly unbearable. She made it to the assisted-living care facility where her
mother lived less and less. This brought more and more guilt laden phone calls
that only compounded her stress.
Her solid
reputation took terrible hits as she failed to complete her work duties.
Holding patients up and changing their beds became damn near impossible. Some
days even the newborns were just too heavy to hold. Dolores refused to accept
this Fibromyalgia diagnosis that was the best thing her doctor would come up
with, and sought out second and third opinions. She knew everyone was
snickering behind her back. But this is
not Fibromyalgia! she wanted to scream. Panicking, she refused to believe
anything so horrible, a pain this grand, was caused by that wastebasket
diagnosis. There was no way all those patients she scoffed at behind their
backs for all those years were feeling this. This was living hell.
Slowly but
surely her world crumbled all around her. She lost her job, then her health
insurance. Her daughter got pissed at her when she refused to watch her
grandson. Dolores could hardly keep her eyes open and knew she was not capable
of looking after an energetic two year-old safely. Work friends ceased to be
friends. Her boyfriend decided he was not up for this, eight years her junior
and unimpressed with her rapidly shrinking capacity. Her condo was paid off but
she was sucking her retirement dry, having long since exhausted her savings
account.
She hit her own
personal bottom the third time she was denied for permanent disability from
Social Security. Seeing no hope, no possibility for the future, she swallowed
half a bottle of Vicodin. But she was lucky. Her nosy
neighbor walked past her kitchen window and spotted Dolores passed out on the
dinette table, the empty bottle of pills resting upright on the floor. Dolores woke up in the ER, lying on her left side
with that thick tube down her throat, gasping for breath as her stomach fluids
pumped out her mouth. Her former colleagues stood around and clucked their
tongues. She wanted to die from embarrassment.
It has been
eight years since that horrible afternoon. Dolores was offered a hand up by a
lady she barely knew. A woman she saw a few times a day and nodded a terse head
in greeting towards, her next door neighbor. Gloria* was a hippie, earth mother incarnate. She had wild carrot orange hair and smelled of lavender.
And was young to walk with a walker. Gloria sat by Dolores’ bedside and they
just talked and talked for hours.
Gloria had
Lupus. She gave Dolores a crash course in the world of chronic illness. Gloria
taught her that accepting her diagnosis, deconstructing her life, and building
it up again in a way that supported her limitations was possible. Her new
friend showed her there was life after Fibromyalgia. Gloria introduced Dolores
to the world of alternative medicine. Holistic philosophies became Dolores’s
saving grace. She hired a disability attorney and with better documentation was approved on a new
claim. Medicaid was a few years to follow. She found a doctor, not affiliated with the hospital, who has
helped her find a specific mix of medications to keep her depression, pain and
insomnia at bay.
The shame and
embarrassment of having Fibromyalgia fades as the years pass. Most of the
people in her former life are not included in her current one. Her mother has
made friends at the facility she lives in and is not nearly as much of a nag.
But her daughter has not accepted Dolores’ new lifestyle and resents her mother
for making such a big deal out of nothing. One of the hardest parts of this
whole process has been learning how to allow her daughter to not believe her,
and be okay with it. Some days are bad and some days are better. Yoga keeps her
muscles from coursing with too much pain. She carefully budgets as much
acupuncture and massage as she can afford. It was quite a journey to get to
this place and Dolores is still trying to forgive herself for all those poor
patients suffering with unbearable pain she snickered at and treated like drug
addicts.
Thanks for joining,
Leah
*All character names are
fictional to protect the anonymity of the contributor.
