Fibromyalgia Update

Fact for today:  fibromyalgia is one of a hundred forms of arthritis.

So let me tell you about some of the positives of having fibromyalgia.  You get to eat, sleep and be exhausted all day.  That's pretty much where my condition is right now.

The time you are awake you feel so fatigued you cannot accomplish much.  Doing things in sections like chores is the only way I can manage.  Loading the dishwasher: prepare dirty dishes, sit down, load half of the dirty dishes, sit down, finish loading, sit down. 

Forget about doing laundry for your family - you might be able to do one load with everyone's underwear and/or socks.  That still leaves piles of clothes doesn't it?  Yah and it takes forever to get to the rest of it.  Small jobs like: sort laundry, sit down, load washer, sit down, put in dryer, sit down, unload clothes and sort, sit down.  They don't always get put away though - may take a week sometimes.

The great thing about my teenage daughter - she's at the stage now where she wants to smell/look good so she'll throw in laundry as well.  She may only do a load of her own clothes, but heh, that saves me the energy to do a load.  My daughter has been doing most of the laundry (towels definitely every few days) while I worked.  Now that I'm off I try and do what I can but she's so terrific - I couldn't have worked this long without her help doing chores.  I haven't washed a floor in years - she's done them.  It kills me to know I can't do these things and then if I feel guilty it causes more stress - aggravating the fibromyalgia even more.

Are you wondering about the pain? Well that was in remission prior to this flare up, however, it is now back. Major pain in different areas of the body - piercing, aching, stabbing, radiating, intense burning, throbbing, shooting and deep muscular aching.


As I try and get myself back to where I am able to work full time, I am working on our family history.  Went to geneology.com on the Net - I'd started a page years ago and have hardly had the time to go work on finding relatives of my father Johann.

This is what I do know:

My father, Johann Schmalz, was born in 1919 in Russia near the Kuban River near a city called Krasnador(before 1920 was named - Ekaterinodar after Katherine the Great. Dad was born in Semenovka south of the Kuban River. He had 10 brothers and sisters and his father, Georg Schmalz (born 1883-1919) died 2 weeks prior to my dad's birth on January 13th. My grandfather Georg Schmalz, lost both his parents by the time he was 18.

At one point my dad's mother, Klara Schmalz (nee Zwenger DOB: 1884), was sent to Siberia for hiding food in the family farm's well...around 1930. Her father, my grandfather, was once thrown in jail for praying for rain during a drought.

So if you can help me find some ancestors, that'd be great!

Now it's nap time....

Fibromyalgia and the Hen House

Fibromyalgia - what is it exactly?

According to the Mayo Clinic's website it "is a chronic condition characterized by widespread pain in your muscles, ligaments and tendons, as well as fatigue and multiple tender points - places on your body where slight pressure causes pain.".

It's much more than that though. Stress seriously aggravates it and will make it "flare up". Other symptoms include: sleep disturbance (so your body doesn't heal itself at night like normal), mental fog (your mind works slower) and many other irritating little things (harsh light/noise bothers you for example).

By the time I was diagnosed with it in 1992 I'd already done research on it for many years. It used to be thought that this condition was "all in your head". Finally science caught up to the old wives' tale and figured it out. It was probably an old wife (female doctor) that informed the male dominated medical society that it really, really does exist!

Anyway, enough with that. I knew I had it before they diagnosed me with it. My doctor at the time said "no point diagnosing it because there's no cure, etc." Well luckily, and in a totally karmic way I went to see her one day and she's not there but a locum just out of university with the same maiden name as mine, was - thank God. It's a strange surname (Schmalz)so it was bizarre that this young female and I had something in common. She referred me to the best rheumatologist in our city because this locum had listened to lectures given by this specialist.

So....moving forward, I began understanding why my body was fighting me on an hourly basis. I kept exploring all the various theories and remedies related to this mysterious condition. Numerous times over the years it went into recession but about 2 months ago it really flared up and I've been forced to quit work for the time being to heal.

You can imagine what kind of stress working with a group of women causes. These women were 99% negative and 150% vindictive. Ok, so I'm talking about the average "hen house" mentality!

As I sit at home pondering the fact that my cobwebs have cobwebs (it incapacitates you to the extent that you're bedridden and can't do simple things without total agony), and look around at all the unfinished work to do in my house, I start to begin to heal myself again.

The ladies I had worked with and for, were skeptical about my condition I'm sure. They never ceased to stop bitching about everything and everyone else - including their "best" friend at work. Oh yeah, I never heard as many complaints about what incompetent co-workers we worked with, in my life. I'd previously worked with a majority of men - they don't f*&k around - you screw up at your job - it's out in the open not behind someone's back.

So as I worked with these "hens" there was always the feeling they were sharpening their knives to inflict pain on another to make themselves feel better. Usually the victim wasn't even in the room because of course it's easier to attack someone who isn't there in the flesh. LOL.

The butchering went on non-stop fueled by the managers who should have put a stop to it before it got out of hand. The mentality seemed to be: if I project my own inadequacies onto Jane then I look more competent. Yup they acted more like kids in play school pointing their finger at a weaker child when they in fact, had broken the toy.

Now don't get me wrong - in this group there were a few mature woman as well but most of them got sucked into the vortex of bitch hell. I am also guilty of the same. With all the negativity compounding on a continual basis, it created an invisible being that hovered around us all. Soon as we walked through the doors at work we went into bitch from hell mode lacking sympathy and compassion.

As much as I've talked about this with my closest friend, my husband, the anger is still causing me to be stressed out which in turn causes more pain. I will be updating this blog more regularly now just to work out the frustration.

OLDER - NO WISER

Well here it is a year later and no wiser...lol.

Haven't been out on the Harley yet this year - damn winter lasted forever this year - worst in over 12 years in this region.

Blah to the winter and RAH to the riding season!