I Guess It's Not Just in My Head...

Last week I got a text from my dad as I was walking into my office:
"Check the Weather Channel for an article on fibro"

My curiosity was definitely peaked and it was the first thing I looked at when I turned on my computer. (see article here)  The article confirmed that rain (or changes in the weather and barometric pressure) can cause great pain and discomfort for Fibromyalgia sufferers...
I thought to myself, "Hmm...I could have told you that...finally someone acknowledges this as real..." and then as I chuckled to myself, "I guess this isn't in my head after all!"

I am a healthy 30 year old today, but when I was 12 that wasn't the case.

I was in seventh grade, an active pre-teen, I loved running cross country, I was your typical oldest child over achiever :)  Suddenly I was tired all the time and we didn't know why... my body hurt, all over and for what seemed like no reason.  I could be sitting in my classroom with my winter jacket on, freezing and unable to shake that chill, while my classmates worked around me in tshirts.  I would have periodic "spells" in class where in an instant I went from totally alert to ready to drop into a deep sleep.  My parents were getting more and more concerned, my teacher watched me in class and knew something was definitely not right.

I was a regular in the doctors office, thinking back, I should have known the nurses by name!  Finally after months of tests and searching for a diagnosis, a specialist I had seen several times called my parents in and explained to them that even though I defied everything he knew about Fibromyalgia, that is what I had.  He said that because of my age I would most likely grow out of it - and 3 years later life finally went back to "normal" for me.

This week the temperature swung from -19 degrees (felt like -29 degrees) to +9 in the space of about 48 hours.  Don't get me wrong, I will never complain about warmer temperatures, especially at the end of November lol, but a wild swing of 30-40 degrees can sometimes leave me knocked off my feet.  I'm VERY grateful that it doesn't happen as bad as it did when I was 12 and 13, but yesterday and today I'm feeling the effects of the upswing in our weather.

Yesterday that article came to mind, and I thought, "It's nice to know that what I'm feeling today is finally 'acknowledged' in the medical realm..."  and I'm VERY thankful that the specialist was right, and that I did grow out of it and that life did resume it's normal pace for me... I'm thankful that I am blessed to live with fibro as part of my past and rarely as part of my present...and so today, even though I don't feel 100%, I choose to be thankful that this too shall pass :)