Fibromyalgia Awareness Day - 2014

Today is Fibromyalgia Awareness Day. I know that I have talked about it on here from time to time but today I decided to really lay it all out there. I decided that it's time I talked about what it's really like to live with this day after day after day.....

What IS Fibromyalgia????
This is the definition that pops up - 

1. a chronic disorder characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain, fatigue, and tenderness in localized areas.

But it is SO MUCH MORE than that.


It affects every single part of your body. Muscles, nerves, and joints are just the beginning. 

The way I think, called fibro fog. I can spend forever just trying to remember a simple word. It makes me crazy. I used to have a really amazing vocabulary. Well, that has mostly gone out the window. The other day I was telling my friend Eileen about my new Steelers flip-flops. I couldn't remember the word sequins!!! SEQUINS!! I had to ask Joshua! That happens so often. 

It affects my period. OH. MY. GOSH!!!! My periods were always a little rough but now they are almost unbearable!! And they last over a week!!!!!! I know, I know, TMI.....

The migraines... I have them almost all the time. At the least I will have 2 or 3 a week. 

Right this second as I am typing this, my left knee is in excruciating pain and my back, near my kidneys, is hurting so much!! And that's just what is jumping out. If I stopped and became still for a moment, there would be more....

The way I sleep has changed. I am SO TIRED ALLLLLLLLLL THE TIME!!! All the time. Until I try to go to sleep. Then I can't get comfortable and I am up and down and tossing and turning all night long. And it's a bone deep weariness. It's like I almost can't deal with how tired I am.

My body seems to be so stiff, almost like I am holding it in preparation for an attack. When I realize that's what I am doing, I try to consciously relax it. 

My hands and feet swell and go numb all the time. I get sharp, shooting pains up and down my arms and legs. 

Sometimes my skin feels like it's been rubbed raw or set on fire. 

Depression. Doctors don't seem to know if you have depression BEFORE the fibro or if having the fibro gives it to you. Either way, it's there. Always. 

Fibro gets you physically, mentally, emotionally and socially. You just don't always feel that the effort involved in getting ready to go somewhere is worth it. 

There are 3 medications that are FDA approved for treating fibro. You should hear the testimonies... They are definitely less than stellar. I was on Cymbalta for about 8 months. It helped the pain fractionally but it made the tiredness so much worse. I felt like a zombie the entire time. I was also taking a muscle relaxer to help me sleep. It helped. I definitely slept better but it never actually relaxed my muscles! LOL It just made it to where I didn't wake up a thousand times a night. 

This is what it's like living with fibromyalgia. It's not the same for everyone. There are varying degrees of severity. 

Most people go years before they finally get a diagnosis. I believe I had it for at least 2 years before I decided I needed to get checked out. I was having scary chest pains. I was so scared that it was my heart.

I was lucky. The first doctor I went to knew what it was. After running a million tests and asking me a million questions, he started me on a treatment plan. It's not his fault that it didn't work. Because of horror stories I have been a little worried about trying to find a new doctor and I have been trying to treat the symptoms naturally. That's not working either.  

I say all this not for your pity but for awareness. It is an invisible disease. You can't look at me and know that I have it. We have to speak out. We have to let it be known what it's like. It's not made up. We aren't stupid or lazy. We are sick. And there's not much we can do about it. 

Time to Catch Up a Little

Oh, my goodness!!! I have been gone almost a month!!!! Good grief!! How did that happen??? How have I not gone insane????

Well, we are all moved in but not quite settled. SIGH... I managed to fit my ginormous dining room table into our kitchen! There's not much space to walk around it but who cares??? Well, actually it seems that everyone cares except me. LOL BUT this is one time they are just going to have to lump it.

I have about 1/4 of my books and 1/4 of the kids' books on shelves. The rest are in boxes that are stacked in every available nook and cranny.

All my sewing stuff is packed away. I am going to HAVE to find a way to make that work.... There just HAS to be a way!! There has to be SOMEWHERE I can put all of it. I NEED to SEW!!! It's an addiction, I swear.



ANYWAY, my next few posts will catch you up on what all we've been doing. In this one I bring you......



THANKSGIVING! LOL







Here are Cailey and Colin in front of the our house right before we left to go to my mother-in-law's house.  And before anyone gets upset over the headdresses, The Hubby is about 1/2 Native American.  I think I'm around 1/16. LOL

Here are the crafts that they made for their grandma.







Cailey has some big ol' feet so we had to use 2 pieces of construction paper. ;) She's a petite 9 yr old but she wears 4s and 5s!!! CRAZY!!!





And here is an updated picture of ME!









I wish my hair color showed up better. It's actually BRIGHT red! LOL

Y'know, before I started taking "selfies" I never realized that one side of my face was smaller than the other! Weird!! One of my eyes is even smaller, although you can't really tell in this pic.



I have made my peace with the move and with the teeny tiny house. Probably with a lot of help from SAM-e. If you have fibro, I think you should take a look at it. It's an over the counter supplement and it has helped me TREMENDOUSLY over this whole move. Once I started taking it, I kept my cool the entire time AND my pain levels have been drastically lowered!



In my next post I'll give you some Christmas craft ideas for the kiddos!



SO SO SO SO SO SO HAPPY TO BE BACK!!! I can't tell you how much I have missed y'all!!!!!

A Yucky Couple of Days

BLAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH............... GROOOOOOOOOOOAN................. SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH.....................

Yep, I am NOT feeling very well. FMS has been kicking my rump the past couple of days. I have been having one heck of a flare up! I haven't managed to do much more to the shirt I am making for Colin BUT I did get another Bag of Hope and Love done! A friend stopped by the other day and begged for another bag. LOL She already took one to fill and wanted to do another. :) YAY! I promised I would have one for her tomorrow.

OH!! Speaking of.... I dropped off 10 bags yesterday! YAY!!!! The ladies at the Dept. of Social Services were THRILLED!! WOOO HOOO!!! I hope to have at least 10 more in a couple of weeks. ;) And the lady I spoke with said that we could put Bibles in them! YIPPPEEE!!!

My oldest son, J1, went with me to help carry the Bags of Hope and Love and a small box of school supplies. On the way back we came upon an accident that had just happened. We jumped out the van and ran to see if we could help. It was awful. There was a young lady trapped in her vehicle. It looked as if it had flipped several times before landing on the driver's side. The young lady was unconscious at first. When she came to she started crying for her mother. It was awful. It seemed to take the ambulance FOREVER to get there. She spoke very little English so it was very difficult to get her to remain calm and still until they got there. I managed to pray by the side of the road for her and then several times throughout the day. I can't help but wonder how she is and it has been weighing heavily on my heart. Remember her in your prayers, please.

My friend is still in the hospital with a broken back. Apparently they have found a lump on or near the adrenal gland. She has been keeping her spirits up but it has been tough since that found that. She has to have another MRI to check that out. Keep her in your prayers, too, please.

I have actually been getting some reading done! I am loving "It Takes a Witch" by Heather Blake. I am about halfway through it. I love that Darcy and Harper are new to the village so you are learning about the world right along with them. I can't wait to see what happens. I have NO clue who the murderer is and I LOVE that!!! I want to be surprised! LOL I don't like it when I can figure it out from the beginning. ;)





OOOH! I just found out that Heather Blake is also Heather Webber!!! I <3 her Lucy Valentine series!

I am still no closer to being prepared for the start of school next week! YILES!!! I think what we will do is start off slowly... LOL The first week we will just do the basics, math, language, reading, Bible and possibly some science. I have NEVER been this ill prepared for the school year! Shame on me!!!

I have Pinned several sites that will be helpful with the Cs' Bible lessons! YAY! All free!! :))

For Cailey in science we will be starting off the year with the Young Scientists Club measurements kit. I have a couple of free units Pinned to help supplement.

Deanna has decided to not do lapbooks this year. She said she would rather do unit studies and notebooking. I need to check and see what I have and what I might need.

Cailey on the other hand wants MORE lapbooks! LOL And Colin doesn't want to do any school at all... That's gonna be a toughy. ;) But I think he will change his mind when he sees all the cool kindergarten packs I have Pinned. ;)

Joshua has always been more go with the flow and likes to mix it up. A unit study here, notebooking there with a lapbook thrown in every once in a while. LOL

I think the biggest thing I need to do is get started on the printing... LOTS and LOTS of printing.

Oh, and I reallllllly need to move all my files to flash drives! I have 2 I just need to get busy copying the files. I have way tooooooo many files and it would be a disaster if I lost them. Most of them were free at one point or another but aren't free anymore. Then there are the ones that I bought from Currclick and Hands of a Child.

Meanwhile my list of Want to Sew is getting bigger and bigger.... I WILL get those Packers outfits finished before Wednesday, darn it! LOL Then it's on to some gifts for friends. THEN a few more bags. THEN I will finally get to the dress that has been floating around in my head for the past couple of weeks!! ;) Stick around, I may have a tutorial for the rest of the Packers outfits and definitely one for the dress. ;)

I am still sticking with the D-I-E-T. BLECK! ;) I have managed to lose 5 whole pounds! YAY!! It would probably be more but I have hit that ummm..... hormonal... ummm.... portion of the month...... Yeah... So, all bets are off for the next few days. LOL

I Have Been a Bad, Bad Blogger!

Yes, I have been a terrible, awful, no-good blogger this week. I didn't even post yesterday! GASP!!!!  You all know that we have been having VBS all week and that has taken A LOT of my time but here are a couple of things that you don't know.....

C2 (my youngest) is extremely shy and extremely attached to The Hubby and me. This week has been a major stress packed time for him. Even though he has been enjoying VBS it has put a lot of stress on him and he has been regressing. This past week I have had to be right beside him 24/7. And most of the time just being in the same room has not been enough. He wants me to hold him constantly. That's OK. We are working through it and once VBS is over things ought to go back to normal.

I have Fibromyalgia. I wasn't sure that I was going to talk about that here but then I decided that I definitely SHOULD. Spreading awareness is a GOOD thing, especially for a condition that is so misunderstood. It is a REAL thing. It can be a debilitating thing! So, while I have had LOADS of fun this week with VBS it has caused me to have a major flair up. That means lots of pain and exhaustion. It's OK. I am dealing with it and it's definitely better now that I am on medication. I knew that this would probably happen but I also knew how important it was for me to teach this week. There's no way my little guy would have gone otherwise and I have been so incredibly blessed this week watching the little people come to understand more about God and His amazing love for us. I will definitely be volunteering again next year.

So there you go. Another little peek inside my world.

OK, enough about that. LOL

I have finished cutting out the fabric for the Retro Butterick '47 B5209!!! YAY!!! I won't be able to start sewing on it until tomorrow, though. I haven't sewed a stitch all week!! WAH!!! :( Well, unless you count patching d's jeans... And I DON'T! LOL

OH!! D has had all kinds of compliments all week on the bag/backpack that I made her!! YAY!!! Maybe I should make some up to sell?? I have no clue about pricing though. I want to start selling but I am not sure where or how to start. Anyone have any advice in that area?? I am definitely open to suggestions! LOL



I am very sorry about being a BAD BAD blogger!! I hope you stick with me!! Things will get back to normal this weekend! Well, as normal as it ever is around here. ;)

Leave me a little note and tell me what YOU have been up to!! I would love to see what everyone is working on!!!