Fibromyalgia Awareness Day!

For the last two nights I have not taken my Amitriptyline! The dreams they gave me were upsetting me and making me feel really morose during the day! Some of them were so vivid I was waking in a pool of sweat, having dreamt that I was either drowning or being buried alive, two of my biggest fears! The dreams have subsided, but I have not slept that well for the two nights, and I am now feeling worn out! I also have the most horrific pain in my back, going down into my left leg, I am extremely irritable and I just want to go to sleep and wake up and be better! I have also got the worst Fibrofog I have ever had - yesterday I forgot that the dog was due to have her bath and sent her off to work with hubby, only for the groomer to turn up here at 10.30 a.m. ready to bath her! I felt like such a fool! I was so angry with myself, and even though I had written the bath on two calendars and in my diary, I still forgot! Gemma was so nice about it, but I know that time is money, and she had used fuel to get here in her big wagon, and I felt awful about it! She has rearranged for next week, so I must get her a bottle of wine to say sorry!

On the other side of things, I went onto Facebook this morning and one of the ladies who I have made friends with through my wonderful friend Sara Diana Williams, Joni, had posted on my wall that today was Fibromyalgia Awareness Day, and had mentioned my name on it! I have since then been chatting with another lady who suffers with this awful illness, and it has made me feel so much better! This illness is so debilitating, but the worst thing with it, is the sense of loneliness and rejection you feel, because I think that a lot of people who see me think that there is nothing wrong with me, and after a while they get sick of me moaning! I try so hard to keep my spirits up, but some days that is just not possible! Today is one of those days, it started badly (I got out of bed and by the time I had walked to the bathroom I was in tears with pain) and continued to get worse (the pain in my back is now shooting down my left leg and every movement is agony)! The other thing that is annoying me is the fact that I am expected to just carry on regardless (make a good film title that would - ha ha!!) and often get no help or support from other half! Shame the same can't be said when the boot is on the other foot - he had tootache last weekend, started on Friday, wouldn't go to the dentist, moaned and groaned about it all over the bank holiday, then went to the dentist on Tuesday and is now on antibiotics! I could quite happily have knocked the bloody tooth out of his head at one point! In fact, one of the dreams I had was that exact scenario!!!!

The main irritation for me is the Fibrofog, the constant feeling that you have forgotten something, or to do something, the frustration when you are talking to someone and the word you want to say will not come into your head and out of your mouth, and the more angry and stressed I get the less chance I have of ever remembering that word! Stress is known to make Fibro worse, and right now I am stressed, mainly because I am in pain, because I have stopped my Amitriptyline, but the thing that has made my illness worse of late is the fact that I am still waiting to hear from the Benefits people about my examination almost three weeks ago! This is an absolute violation of my basic human rights, for years I worked in a job where I was in charge of a ward of 26 patients who were acutely ill, I paid into society, and now that I am ill and can no longer do that job, some person, who has never even met me, will sit in their little ivory tower and decide whether or not I can continue to have the benefits I was given when I was retired as medically unfit by a consultant in the field of my illness! This person has no medical background, they are just a puppet for a government trying to make cutbacks in all the wrong places, so if they decide from the information they have that I should actually be back at work, I will have my benefits stopped and will have to seek employment! Let's hope that if I get an interview for a job I remember to turn up for it, and if any employer in their right minds takes on someone my age with my illness, that I remember to turn up for work on the right days! The chances of me forgetting to go are pretty high, and the odds of me coping with a job are not!