Flaring Depression

Am I depressed or in a flare? Am I flaring or suffering from depression? How, after all these years, damn near two decades of living with these conditions, can I not know the difference? A flare comes with insomnia and pain. Depression comes with a situational helplessness it doesn't seem will ever alleviate. A pressing down of my person into a flatness the three dimensions of life cannot reside in. A flare feels chemical, internal, an entity inside my body that has taken over control. So am I saying depression is a choice? Because anyone whose ever been there knows it sure as hell is not.

I'm on that hamster wheel running to nowhere. I'm trudging through quicksand, the struggle of placing one foot in front of the other sucking up the hours in my days. Life is backing up on me. Too much to do, too little time. And even less of a desire to get up and fix my reality. Just that panicky feeling, anxiety producing and overwhelming, every time I contemplate what's required to get back on top of my game. The amount of work required to right this ship isn't unfamiliar to me. I've stood at the bottom of this threshold many times in my life. Sometimes I've had the fortitude to take a shaky step out from the trenches, other times I've collapsed back down and rolled around in the mud a while longer before that strength finally knocks on my subconscious and yells at me to get it together, damn it! We aren't getting any younger over here, and the longer you put it off the more work there is to do!

Depression doesn't care. So I guess that's my answer. My melancholy is a symptom of my illness. But which one? Will this lift in a few days or will it continue to progress until the next few years are swallowed whole? The only thing I do know is the only way out is through. God I hate that saying, probably because it is so incredibly true. No magic pills, no quick fix. Just a slow and steady mastication of obligation. Taking one small bite out of what's required to make my life run until the day arrives when I wake up well-rested and enthusiastic, ready to slay the dragon again.

Thanks for joining,

Leah

And Then I Got Covid

It was a Sunday evening in early November. I was lying on the sofa watching TV and my body was aching far more than it usually does. Shooting pains pinging against my flesh, my clothes hurt my skin and eyeballs ached. I had a gross taste in my mouth. And I was really cold. Probably a bad flare, I thought, while reluctantly pushing myself off the couch. I went into the bathroom to rummage around for the thermometer. I'd been relying heavily on that thermometer since March. Ever since covid happened, each time I felt crummy I'd take my temperature to decipher if my symptoms were a flare or if I had indeed contracted covid. Fever is not a fibro symptom for me so I figured as long as I didn't experience a temperature spike, I was dealing with fibro. For seven months my logic held steady. Flopping back down onto the sofa, I pushed the button and stuck the stick under my tongue. 99.4. Shit. I'm usually around 97.5 so this reading, given my other symptoms, registered as a low-grade fever.

Still unconvinced, I writhed around for the rest of the evening as I continued to feel worse. Advil would've helped but given the serious nature of covid, I needed to let the symptoms bloom to see if they went away (fibro) or increased (a flu but hopefully not covid). At midnight I went to bed and took my temp again. 99.9. Not going in the right direction. Seeking peace of mind that it was just the common flu, I went onto the CDC website and made an appointment for a covid test the next day. I froze in a feverish half-sleep all night and woke up feeling awful. In the morning my temp was 100.4. So I relented and took some Advil. My money was still on the old-fashioned flu because nothing had hit my lungs, which is what covid did, right? Yet I had no coughing, no congestion, no shortness of breath.

On Monday night I tested positive for covid-19. I immediately slid into a hyper-paranoid state, obsessing over every physical symptom being the beginning of the end as I waited for it to kill me. But it's a strange virus. I had a fever for like three days that easily abated with Tylenol. My doctor told me to get a pulse oximeter and my blood oxygen levels remained in the high 90s. I had a sore throat, some days but not others. And my taste and smell abated for a week but never fully went away. Mainly I slept like 18 hours a day for around three weeks. I would wake up, eat and get dressed, and fall back asleep. Toothpicks couldn't have propped open my eyelids but I was too tired to care. Everyone who depended on me for anything got ignored. Yet it was not the worst flu I've ever had. I'll admit, I was having flashbacks to when I had CFS/ME. Was this going to last forever and destroy my life too? But honestly I was too tired to care. Being awake for six hours a day doesn't leave much time for freaking out.

I would say it took over two months before I felt like covid was gone for good. Not that I was sick the whole time, but I would frequently wake up feeling crummy and figured this was it. The "deadly" part of this virus had finally gripped me. Yet it never did. I don't know if increasing my vitamin D and zinc supplements made a difference, or if the daily aspirin my doctor recommended helped, or if doubling up on my antiviral med (not remdesivir but in the same family. Also, not something my doctor told me to do) stopped it from becoming an extreme case. I'll never know. I'll never know why I didn't give it to my husband. I'll never know why it kills some people and for me was a moderate flu. And I'll never know why a mysterious virus invaded my body sixteen years ago, gave me CFS/ME and fibro, and never left. But covid was a flash in the pan for me.

If you're so inclined, drop me a comment to let me know how covid or the side effects of living in lockdown have impacted you.

Thanks for joining,

Leah

Chronicles of F.I.B.R.O.

Well hello there. It's been nearly a year since I last posted a blog. Is it too dramatic to say that between February 7, 2020 (my last post) and today, the world has pretty much flipped on its head? I don't think it is.

The break did me good. It's not like I haven't wanted to write in all this time. I just haven't known how to keep writing a blog centered solely around having fibromyalgia. Back in the day when I started blogging I was a very sick girl. Sick was the only way I knew how to relate to the world. My days were spent in a defensive huddle trying to fend off everything life hurled at me, a perpetual victim too burdened to take charge. I still have those days but thankfully that is not every day, anymore. Once I gained a semblance of control and found some stability, I was able to branch out and start moving forward. My worldview expanded and for a while there I was even hurling toward the stars. I believed I had conquered fibro and "that phase of my life" was behind me. Then it became very hard to write this blog.

Can I pick myself up off the ground and stop laughing, please? Because it wasn't long before I tumbled back down to hell and all that progress I thought was mine forever vanished in an instant. I relapsed. And with the physical relapse came an immense depression. They both took me years to recover from. Somewhere along the line I realized talking about my feelings was helping to keep me sick. So I stopped. It was easier to shift my focus to doing something else than feed the immense negativity threatening to swallow me whole. So what on Earth was I supposed to blog about then?

What a decade it has been. Throughout all of these ups and downs, I've grown tremendously as a person. Be it age or experience, my swings aren't as wide and lows don't dip nearly as deep. This has allowed me to pile the plate of my life high with a variety of different interests. They keep me marching forward regardless of the fluctuating state of my health. So how, given the many changes I've experienced over the last ten years, do I keep writing a blog solely about being sick? My answer is I don't. I write a blog about experiencing the world as a person who is sick.

Welcome to Chronicles of F.I.B.R.O.: a chronicle of my journey to find inspiration, balance, resilience, and optimism. I'm an aspiring novelist, rapacious reader, devoted dog mom, dedicated wife, avid health seeker, wine enthusiast, and commentator on life. All fit into a package who lives with chronic illness.

If so inclined, please drop me a comment and let me know how you are doing!

Thanks for joining,

Leah