Living with Chronic Pain

Since January 2010, my life has been altered forever, due to Fibromyalgia. For those not familiar with Fibromyalgia it's an abnormality, that confuses the brain and sends messages of crisis constantly and never stops sending these wrong messages. The result is widespread joint and muscle pain after rest and effort, depression, brain fog, exhaustion and whole body inflammation. Every patient has different degrees of mostly the above listed symptoms.  For me, pain is my most prevalent symptom, I experience a very high degree of pain each morning upon rising. It's widespread and severe, I take about eight different types of medicine in the morning to help reduce the pain but its very typical for the pain to last most of the day.
At first, it is difficult to accept that your life has changed involuntarily forever .  I was always hoping that one morning I would wake up painless again like before and my old self would return. It's been four long years with this condition, although my pain management skills has improved greatly by going to some free Pain Management workshops and the medicine combinations.  Now,  I am just grateful I am still alive and my pain therapy continues to improve. It's very likely this will never go away but I know now not to focus on what I no longer can do but rather on what I still can do.
I launched Euphonious Radio in 2012 in hope this could be my new career, an internet radio broadcaster. This is something I can do from home which is actually my highest priority at the moment.
To be continued…

It Can Always Be Worse

These days are combined with many volatile feelings, changing quicker than I change my boxers.  Since, I've never been good at managing my feelings, I feel as uncomfortable as sitting in a steaming sauna next to  a 94 year old naked, wrinkled great grandmother. Good one! So, I am unsure of how to navigate through this land mine of feelings.
To say in the past three months, I am feeling overwhelmed, angry, frustrated and cheated would be an accurate assessment. The culprit of this mosh pit of feelings is the end of an extremely difficult marriage filled with artificial love, deceit, chronic pain and chronic lying.
This is part of the healing process, however positive it may be in the end, feeling these emotions continuously for the past three months,  SUCKS!
If I have learned anything from past experiences, I must allow myself to feel the feelings that are overwhelming me, otherwise they continue to rise up and burden me endlessly.
I have always had a lot of success healing from difficult circumstances using music, writing, comedy and family as avenues to heal.
However, this time is different I need medical help navigating through the endless pain and now severe depression. The two are typical partners when dealing with chronic pain and there is no instruction manual when battling any chronic condition. I greet each situation of adversity with a deep breath and then I proceed to do the best I can, regardless of the outcome. Sometimes it's good enough but most of the time it is not, then I must accept the realty, regardless of what I like. Otherwise, I will become mental from trying to change something which I am not in control.
Well, I have one last component of surviving any bad situation. Once, I truly allow myself to feel the emotions evoked from the bad situation and I have allowed myself to cry over it then it is time to laugh. The old saying "it can always be worse" is one way I find closure on these situations. I love to make people laugh and I always have way before my Chronic Pain syndrome. I like to make jokes about everything, I use comedy as a way to work through the situations I cannot control. This strategy has worked well for me over the years. After feeling the emotions and then laughing at the adversity, there is only one thing left for me to do, and that is to spit in the eye of adversity. Then pick myself up, dust off then continue with doing the best I am able.

The End Or A New Beginning

Is today the day? I end my life journey and check out, finish, the end or do I find another reason to live? This question and many others have been churning through my mind now for the past three months. Things have been mounting up and I'm feeling a lot of pressure, finding a new place to live and a way to make Euphonious Radio a commercial success. There has been too many depressing phone calls and meetings, that I am now clinically depressed. This is all in addition to my chronic pain syndrome which plagues me daily in one variation or another. Each day I experience a high degree of pain upon waking which takes all day to manage (with a hand full of pills, hot baths, a strict diet, napping and of course maintaining a balance of physical and mental exercise). This alone is a full time affair and now I have enough extra tasks to keep busy for months, it's becoming overwhelming. Help!