On Friday August 28th I received the answers I was looking for, but not necessarily the answer I wanted. Since then I have been trying to decide if I should chronicle this journey, this new life, in someway. Maybe start a YouTube? Or create a blog specifically dedicated to this? But then I thought - how fucking depressing! Pardon my language, but is that really what I want to spend my spare time doing? Not in the least. So I've settled on just sharing the odd post here, and otherwise keeping my thoughts and feelings to my support groups and friends and family.
So what is my diagnosis? After over a year of suffering, and actually more like 2.5 years if I look back on my symptoms now, I have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis. The exact same diagnosis that my Mum received some years ago. So what does this mean for me? Thankfully, at this point, my fibromyalgia is somewhat mild from day to day. Besides some mild annoyances, the only time I really suffer with it is when I have a flare-up, or a "fibro day" or "FM day". Likewise, the osteoarthritis only bothers me when I've been really active and not taking precautions like wearing my knee brace or wrapping my ankle. So on a scale of 1-SUCK, my life isn't so bad right now.
My rheumatologist prescribed me a medication for the fibromyalgia, and an anti-inflammatory for the arthritis. I decided to start one at a time, and boy am I glad I did, because the drug for the fibro made me horrifically "high" and violently ill at the same time. Because my day to day isn't too bad right now, I'm just going to stay off the meds until I see him again in October. They won't do anything to prevent a flare-up anyways, which is my main issue.
I guess that's about the extent of my update for now. At the moment I'm just coming to terms with the fact that I am now "chronically ill" and the weight of knowing that any morning I could wake up miserable, but also the blessing of knowing that right now I am still mostly having "good days". So for now I will revel in that, and live every day to the fullest. Thanks for your continued support and caring during this tough adjustment period.
Until next time...
Labels: arthritis, chronic illness, chronic pain, chronically sick, diagnosis, fibro, fibromyalgia, fm, invisible illness, osteoarthritis
