This pain will be

The death

Of me:

Yet.

Its vibrato

Thrumming

Through my bones,

Muscles, and sinews;

Crushing bones

And

Sprit, Soul.

Till no longer

Have I

The Courage,

The Faith,

The Hope,

The Will,

To persist.

Yet,

I must.

For she calls

To me,

Her siren song

So clear.

She Calls,

Summons,

Promises,

Teases,

Tantalizes,

Provokes,

My need.

She Calls

And

I must follow.

She Calls

And

I must obey.

She Calls:

For in me

Is She

And

If I quit,

Die;

Then

So shall She.

For She

Is me

And I am

Her;

And She

Is but

The best in me,

Hidden,

Calling,

Needing me

To Champion

Her.

For She

Is my Muse;

My Erato.

And

She must speak,

And Write,

And Sing,

And

All Her glory

Claim.

So,

I persist

Despite the fears,

The pain

That sickens me,

And

Wait eagerly

To hear

Her siren voice,

Her Call;

For therein lies

Mine own

True Destiny.

- – -

Erato is the Muse of Lyric poetry.

Copyright 2009 Lyle T. Lachmuth, All Rights Reserved

What's the worst thing about Fibromyalgia?

Can you say P A I N?

Here's a way for you to get a glimmer of the pain experienced by Fibromites. With your dominant hand reach over to your opposite arm. Grasp your arm about a hand's width above your wrist's flex point. Now squeeze as hard as you can. Come on you can squeeze harder. Hurts doesn't it.

The pain you are experiencing is probably about a tenth the severity experienced by me on a bad day. Trust me, every time I have pain it IS a bad day … the pain is rarely less than top scale severe.

Now imagine having pain of that degree from the tips of your tops to the top of your butt. And, from the tips of your fingers to the tops of your shoulders. 

Got that picture in mind. Okay, now imagine having that all over pain, every waking hour of every day for weeks on end.

Not pretty is it?

In fact it sucks. It sucks because the pain keeps you from sleeping. And, sleep is what you need to repair your body and mind. It sucks, because the pain exhausts you. So, that one those rare days or hours when you have no pain, you also have little energy: mental or physical.

Here's another way to understand the degree of pain.

A few months ago I wound up in the Emergency department of the hospital because of pain in my lower right quandrant and an elevated white cell count. The doctor in the walk in clinic thought I might have appendicitis. Many hours later a CT scan showed that my problem was a kidney stone. Now I was told by a woman in emergency, who was also suffering from a kidney stone, that having a kidney stone was comparable to labour (neither one of us were able to give birth to our stones because they were too big). As severe as the pain from the kidney stone was, it was so much less than the pain from my Fibro. It was like a mild sunburn compared to a third degree burn.

A friend of mine who suffered from Fibro committed suicide because she couldn't stand the pain. I don't blame her one bit.

Chronic pain is a bitch!

The notion of having a ‘whole’ life, as in complete, healed, appealed to me then… and still does.

When I blew my life apart 22 years ago, I knew I would have to rebuild it.

It was my intention to ‘reinvent myself’, except that wasn’t the phrase I used.

I thought of it more as creating a different life, a life more suited to me  — if  I could just figure out who that was.

One of my goals in attending that workshop 18 years ago was part of that ongoing figuring. And, figuring is indeed an ongoing thing.

Learned a few things in the last 18 years about creating/living a whole life.

One of the things I learned is that I have to heal more than my mind.

18 years ago I was focused on learning to "live without manic depressive illness" — to borrow the title of the great book by Maryellen Copeland.

Healing that illness took 10 years — then I got Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which 5 years ago morphed into being about the pain of FIbromyalgia.

And, I have focused on healing that.

As I’ve pondered the ways and means to do that I’ve realized that healing needs to occur in 5 aspects of our being:

1. Physical – my body and it’s muscles, tendons, bones hurts like fucking hell much of the time

2. Mental – my brain is fubared. I experience Fibro Fog. I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. My moods shift faster than the Hurst Shifter in Caroll Shelby’s Mustang.

3. Emotional – did I mention labile moods? I’ve been accused of being sensitive. And, I AM.

4. Spiritual – I have long had a need for a spiritual part to my life. And, longed for a personal relationship with God. Not one filtered through some priest or minister.

And, to this ’standard’ collection I now add.

5. Sexual – As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse my sexuality has been fucked up for years. It needs fixing.

So, now Creating a Whole life is about healing all 5 of my aspects: Physical, Mental, Emotional, Spiritual, and Sexual.

What about you?