Winter is Here... Not Happy.

Greetings,

For the first time, I think, I am actually going to write one of these blog posts while in the middle (I hope) of a fibromyalgia flare. Hopefully there will be some useful information in amongst the ranting and raving.

So this one started yesterday with some leg cramps and neck pain. I was decidedly uncomfortable so I spent the day in front of the laptop writing in order to get my mind of things. Had to miss fencing practice because I could not get there and be useful due to the issues. Actually had to go and have a lay down at one stage due to the pain and pure tiredness getting to me.

Second day... Did not sleep well last night, in fact probably would not have at all if it was not for the medications that I am on. The neck woke up all messed up, neck pain from muscle and bone, not to mention radiating down into the shoulders. The temperature was also not helping at all as it has been quite cold the past couple of days. Got a little bit of writing done and then managed to summon the energy and motivation to leave the house, had to "pay day" and all. Off to town with my lovely wife.

In town, got the money, cramped ride on the bus did not help the already irritated knee. All pretty good until I decided to go down a set of stairs, at which point in time I was reminded why I do not have a license. First flight to landing all good. At the landing there was a stumble and an attempted fall down the rest of the stairs. Luckily my wife noticed the stumble and grabbed me resulting in a fall backward instead of forward. Resulting damage: Minimal, bruised ego, knees a little sorer than before. Had a lovely lunch at my favourite sushi restaurant in Brisbane, minus the opinionated little cow who was sitting next to us.

The nerves are simply just not playing ball. Looks like I am going to have to be extra careful at fencing training tonight. I am determined to go and FM be damned if it is going to stop me from going it is what keeps me going and even if I have to grunt and grumble my way through, I am going. The wife is a little concerned about my fall, so I will take things a little easy tonight. Mostly teaching anyway. Hopefully things will improve tomorrow and I will not be back on here adding another post with the continuing saga.

Cheers,

Henry

Clumsiness

Greetings,

People with fibromyalgia will relate to this one instantly... "You reach over to take something, grab it successfully and then, in the process knock something over on the way back." Next think you know someone is accusing you of being clumsy, and admittedly the failure here could be related to this. One thing I have noticed however is that this is not improved by FM.

The post which follows is a little personal as it relates to something which plagued me while I was a child and has only gotten worse thanks to the fibromyalgia. I am talking about being clumsy, about attempting something and then for some inexplicable reason your hands or whatever do not do what they are supposed to do and a mess is made. Sure everyone has their days where things are not going right, but for some of us it is systemic.

As a child my hand-eye coordination was horrible, so much so that I was sent to a physical therapist in order to improve this situation. It helped, but I can tell you that it had only been through lots and lots of work repeating actions and being very careful about things that it has improved. This is one of those times where playing console and other games really has helped me. Well, just as things were looking up FM, arrived to haunt my days.

Now I have days where I feel like I am back in the body of that clumsy little child. Things go wrong, I knock things over, I make a mess at times where something seems simple. Sometimes for me it is an achievement to get through a day without me knocking something over or spilling something or something similar. On these days I have to be especially careful. I suspect that this has something to do with neurons not firing or something or other all I know is that it is bloody annoying and really frustrating.

So, some of my regular readers are going to ask me, "But you fence, how can you achieve this with such an issue?" Practice, practice, practice. Oh, yeah, and some days where stuff just goes wrong and I get hit lots. Learning new skills for me takes a long time, and a lot of going over the same thing again, and again, and again. Needless to say with the time that I have had fencing, I have had a lot of time to do this.

So, I have two points to make with regard to this:

1) If you have FM you may not actually be as clumsy as you think you are, you may just be having one of those days where the "brain fog" travels in to a more physical situation. We have issues with nerves and so forth don't be too surprised if it is this rather than you just being clumsy.

2) For those who do not have FM. Stop. Think. Is this person just having a bad day? Is there an issue which you cannot see which may be going on? Please try not to point out the clumsy bits and incidences and make too much of a deal about them, they are probably having a hard enough time on their own, and are probably more frustrated than you are.

In my own case, I know that things are going to take work. I know that I will have days where things are going to be annoying as hell. So I figure that I will do as I usually do, work through it. Work on it, and try not to beat up on myself too much when stuff happens.

Cheers,

Henry.