Justine Manzano When I initially created this blog years ago, it was called Pieces of the Puzzle, and it discussed all of the different aspects of who I am. That puzzle is still a work in progress, and every now and then I get a different piece to set in place, and with it, a new understanding of who I am. This time, I didn’t just place a piece, I placed an entire corner of the full picture and gave myself a better understanding of the challenges I’ve faced, and what may come down the road.
I’ve always felt like a complainer. I have back pains due to scoliosis, migraines, pelvic and stomach issues, and I’m always feeling just a little icky. That’s not even to mention my ADHD, my depression, my anxiety…so when a person comes up to me and asks how I’m doing, I have a tendency to smile and say “fine” no matter who they are. Rarely do I admit to all this stuff going on with me, because if you’re in pain every day, and you tell someone every day, it feels like you’re whining. This has been true for nearly fifteen years, but over the last five years, this feeling has intensified. Now, not only did I have these problems, but I had random muscle cramps and spasms in places other than my back, muscle weakness, burning on the bottom of my feet.
Where I used to bop around the office, I started begging off projects that required me to run between floors because I seemed to always have a strained muscle. Where a three mile walk from the office to my doctor’s appointment was never a big deal, the half-mile walk to my son’s school had me limping to the office.
More than anything, I was just exhausted–a person who was always hyper-alert and jumping from project to project, and suddenly, I was falling asleep at the slightest lull in activity. Then my fingers started tingling, like my hand had fallen asleep. Suddenly, I felt crushed by all of the many different things that were bothering me on a day to day basis. If it wasn’t one thing, it was always, invariably, five others.
I still didn’t do anything substantive about it. Wear a wrist brace until the tingling stopped. Put some BenGay on a back muscle, keep my feet warm so they don’t cramp. But these were easy fixes. Nobody needed a doctor for this.
Then a friend of mine was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.
I didn’t know what that was, and I’m never content to have holes in my knowledge base, so I googled and learned. Fibromyalgia is a pain syndrome, and it effects the way pain sensors in your body process pain, amplifying pain signals. It also causes many neurological and muscular issues. The list of symptoms was like a punch to the face. Nearly all of them were things I experienced on a regular basis. I called the doctor and set up an appointment.
I went to my general doctor, and then to a specialist. And now I know.
The pieces of the pain puzzle I’ve been dealing with for years has finally come together, and the image I’ve been building is one of a fibromyalgia sufferer. Surprise!
I have to be honest. When I first got this diagnosis, I wrapped up some things I was handling, then laid down and cried for hours. I completely melted down. Because the questionnaires I had to fill out on the way to diagnosis listed symptoms I hadn’t had yet. LOTS of symptoms I hadn’t had yet. And the anxiety-ridden side of me (see my short story, One Percent, about a girl who genuinely believes she will fall into the 1% of people whose spinal surgery paralyzes them–that may have been based on a true tale), went straight to the worst. I cried, imagining myself unable to play with my son, unable to work, unable to write. I completely tanked out in an image of continual level-10 pain.
Because I had to go there. My brain had to let it out. And the next morning, I woke up ready to fight. Because fibromyalgia doesn’t mean these things for everybody. Because I was already living with this, and giving it a name wasn’t going to change that for the worse. Because I would find a way. Even if every one of the things I worried about the night before came true, I’d still be okay, because I would find a way to cope. Because this is my life, and I’m gonna make the best of it.
Because I’m a badass.
Just now, I’m a badass who knows she has fibromyalgia.
Which, let’s face it, really just makes everything I do that much more badass, right?