A Change Coming and My Last Pack of Cigarettes

Watch for a change coming to my blog this month.  May 12th is Fibromyalgia Awareness Day, and I'm going to update my blog accordingly. On that note, check out the following blog.  It is invaluable, inspirational, and informative.  The author is the survivor of multiple chronic illnesses, and people like her make the world go 'round for people like me:

The ICI Experience


And now, onto the blog....

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I posted this over on the Men With Fibro forums, but thought it'd be nice to post it here, too.


My Last Pack of Cigarettes


I've always been a bit of a sensualist.  Not to say I'm a hedonist -- far from it.  I was raised on the straight and narrow, and didn't even have my first drink or cigarette until after I was 21.


But I do enjoy the five senses, and all the pleasure they can bring.  It can be enjoy and viewed as a sacred thing if properly restrained and balanced.  Ah, I must always strive for balance...

Sorry, I'm foggy today, so I'm rambling.

Whether it be cigarettes, beer, wine, liquor -- whatever -- I enjoy it.  I like seeing what kind of tobacco it is, where it was grown, how it was packed, etc.  With beer, what are the ingredients?  Where were they grown, etc etc.  You get the idea.  I never enjoyed the idea of drinking to get drunk -- I've only gotten shit-faced a couple times in my life, and even then it was more of a social experiment than anything (My friends call me Egon) -- but rather, I enjoy eating, smoking, drinking, etc, for the art of it.  For the pleasure of it.  

FMS, CFS, CMP, IBS... OMG, FML!

After corresponding with my rheumy (rheumatologist) for a couple days, he added two more diagnoses that often occur in conjunction with Fibromyalgia.  Here's a quick list, which for some reason (given the title of this post), I find hilarious.

FMS: FibroMyalgia Syndrome
CFS: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
CMP: Chronic Myofascial Pain Syndrom

Hah!  It actually makes sense, and reinforces the fact that I'm not crazy.  I'm just glad I have a team of doctors on my side that believe in these diseases. It's both disheartening and sickening to me that there are docs out there that don't believe in these disease.  To them I say, LIMP A MILE IN MY SHOES, YOU MORONS.

I digress.  Everybody has a cross to bear, and if this is mine, I shall bear it with pride and dignity, and hopefully do some good along the way.

Naked hope

"I've seen you without clothes. Reckon I never thought I'd see you naked."
Mal, "Trash", Firefly

I find myself wanting to apologize for the ranty nature of the last couple posts.  But that's what this is.

Naked, bare-faced honesty.  My chronicle of my journey with a debilitating disease.

But I won't let it beat me!

-less and -ful

Author's edit:  I added a comment below.  In typical foggy fashion, I sorta forgot to mention what spurred this post on in the first place.  Please read and commiserate.

The past 24 hours for me have contained many words with both -less and -ful as their suffix.  A random smattering, as pulled from my fibrofog-addled brain may go something like:

Worth-less
Use-less
Pain-ful
Hope-less
Hope-ful
End-less

....other things start to creep in like, "I can't move," to, "Am I going to have to start the fight for disability at 28 years old?"

Jason's Random Thoughts of the Hour

I had the idea to place some of my random thoughts under the header of this blog, on occasion, hopefully to inspire laughter or some other response.  As time passes and the thoughts change, I'll compile them in this post for your viewing horror.

1. If you know the difference between TAS and TOS in relation to Star Trek lore, you might be a Trekkie.

2. On second thought, let's not go to Camelot.  Silly place...

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step -- or in my case, a limp.

Perhaps it's fitting that my first blog post here should be on a day when I had to leave work early because of a massive pain flare, accompanied by a massive, painful IBS flare.  One of the goals of this blog will be to share anecdotal knowledge of what it's like to live with fibromyalgia, as well as factual knowledge of what we know about the disease.