Chronic

I wrote this post at the end of November, during a period when I felt REALLY bad. Since then, I continue working on my mindfulness, I've had my knee operated on, it's getting better, and I have good and bad days in the rest of my body. Today is a bad day, but maybe not as bad as this post depicts. My current theme of MOVE is my main focus of how to feel better. I continue the mindfulness and brain training practices as well, and I'm convinced I can get strong and better without any more overt medical interventions.

I've been feeling persistently bad, every day for a long streak. This has been a way of life, but it's more acute and long-lasting right now than my memory would indicate.  This post will be venting about how very lousy I feel. I want to just get it out there, no sugar-coating. Know that I am analyzing causes and working on solutions, but right now, I feel bad and just want to complain. Contrast this with my post from August, when the bad feelings seemed to be in remission for a while. I felt pretty good this morning, a glimpse of what I felt like then.

Here is my life for the past few weeks:

I fall asleep the minute my head hits the pillow, usually around 10 pm. Sometimes, I set up a meditation to play, but usually I'll fall asleep before its done. I carefully position myself in bed, generally on my back with pillows under my knees, to get my lower spine in neutral position. I'll wake up after midnight, and roll on one side or the other, moving a pillow to support a knee so it doesn't twist my torso. I'll toss and turn several times during the night, always struggling with positioning the pillows. Thoughts are racing, rumination is rampant, and 2-3 times a week I'll tee up another guided meditation, which often but not always calms me down and I fall back asleep. (The facts: according to Fitbit, I get an hour of deep sleep a night, an hour-and-a-half of REM sleep, am awake an hour cumulatively, and the rest is light sleep. This makes me a champion sleeper compared to their database of women my age, who are generally awake for 2+ hours during the night and get much less deep sleep than me.)

I've come to dread getting out of bed, because I am so stiff I'm crooked, and in such pain it is hard to move. Do you remember the scene with the Red Woman at the Wall, when she took off her necklace and showed her real age? That's what I feel like when I get up. I've discovered that I literally cannot stand up straight - not that it hurts too much (though the pain increases the more I straighten) but there is a hard stop. The body just won't do it. I stagger to the bathroom, to the kitchen for coffee (hopefully set up the night before and ready for me) and to my reclining chair - my "morning chair" - with my ipad. The more I move during this setup, the better I start to feel, but it all hurts and I can't make myself just jump into exercise. I sit in my chair and check email, blogs, facebook, and the New York Times and Washington Post (both of which I pay for full access to). After 45 minutes or so I get up, and I can actually straighten up and move, though I'm still stiff.  I do some gentle exercises, which help, take a shower, which feels wonderful, and get dressed.

I go about my day, to work or other activities on weekends, checking in with my body. Headache? Check. Painful knee? Check. Aching in all muscles? Check. Lower back stiff? Check. Burning down my sciatic nerve from my butt to my ankle? Check. Lately, right rotator cuff twinging? Check. Feeling feverish but the thermometer says "no"? Check.

I get absorbed in things, and motionless, and mostly forget about the pain. Start to move, and I hurt and remember. If a meeting at work goes on too long, I have to move or I'm afraid I'll show how much it hurts when I get up. Often, I'll feel much better in the afternoon, and take advantage of that do more physical things. If I do too much, evenings are spent as a zombie.

I decided decades ago, when I first read about it, that I have fibromyalgia. Since there was nothing to do for it other than improve diet and exercise, I didn't tell any doctors or pursue a diagnosis but just tried to pull myself through it, with some fairly substantial success though some very bad days along the way. I was screened for lupus, cleared definitively, but the doctor told me I have some auto-immune issues which could lead to a rabbit hole of diagnosis and medication, or I could just go about my life with what was then a minor inconvenience, cleaning up my diet and exercise. (I chose door #2.) I have been diagnosed with osteo-arthritis and migraines, sciatica, and right now with a torn meniscus in my knee. Don't be alarmed for me. I am certain I do not have any life-threatening diagnosis. I'll deal with the knee via surgery (let's go in and fix the mechanics) but I'm also convinced all my other ailments are both real physical issues and a manifestation of my mind at the same time. I hurt, and that is real. But there is no definitive physical reason I should hurt the way I do, and I can stop the suffering part of the pain. That involves therapy, and exercise, and meditation, and getting myself out of my rumination on how bad I feel.

Simply cataloging these ills right now has made me feel much worse. It's time to get up and move, taking me out of myself. Dwelling on this does not help, though I do specific exercises (both mental and physical) to also move me along.

I'm nervous about posting this. Does telling more people make it more real? Or less? Perhaps I'll save this as a draft, and only post it when I have something more positive to add.