Posts Tagged ‘pain and fatigue’

20 May

Early Morning Musings

Posted by DOGKISSES in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, health, hope, invisible illnesses. Tagged: , , , , , , .

4 AM is too early to wake up, even for the birds. I went to bed with the chickens, so I woke up eager for the night to be over. I do however enjoy the quiet of early mornings.

Water flows from a fountain rock sculpture in the corner park across the road. I’m listening to that as I write.

In 2020, after most businesses shut down, I often sat by my windows listening to the sound of the flowing water. The trains weren’t running. Trucks weren’t carrying cargo. The few cars that traveled hwy 70 passed at the same times twice daily. I had the town to myself.

Bella and I would walk the main blocks downtown several times a day. I’d stop to look in the shop windows. I met the regulars who also walked their dogs each day. We’d say hello. Bella loved hearing people say how cute she is, which is still true.

The corner park also has flowers. A young woman tended them and kept a colorful array of blooms in every season. I enjoyed talking with her. A small town west of here soon took her from us to tend their gardens. Our park’s flower beds never fully recovered her departure.

The other day, I watched the young men who are now in charge of the flower beds. One man held a large plastic bag. The pretty yellow bell-shaped blooms that I’d been enjoying for weeks, had been dug up and were falling from the bag. He’d taken them from their roots. My heart sank a little. He even took the silver-leafed plants with tiny golden blooms that were not bothering anyone or anything. I have a vase with those in water by my desk.

“We’re going to plant red and white flowers for the holiday,” the young man answered, after I’d asked why they were taking the plants. And then he said it. “For the fourth of July.”

I felt dread. Bella doesn’t like the noise of fireworks. Neither do I. This is by far my least favorite holiday. I wish I could leave. I wish we could go someplace by water, maybe in the mountains, where nobody would set off fireworks.

I broke my foot and ankle in 2020. I still walked the town. Only with crutches. My shoulders and arms still hurt. In fact, I now have a frozen shoulder.

Doctors say Frozen Shoulder, (Adhesive Capsulitis), is a self-limiting disease and will get better in two years. This is the 11th month.

For the first four or five months, I felt like an oak tree that someone had cut down. From late August to mid-December 2025, I cried every day and night. My son came and helped me.

I wasn’t only crying from the pain in my shoulder, although, it is definitely one of the most debilitating conditions I’ve endured. The pain with frozen shoulder is constant. 24/7!

My family endured two tragedies in early 2025. Everyone survived, thank goodness, but as a result, dynamics of care giving for my mom changed. I was needed and I wanted to continue helping out, but frozen shoulder got the best of me.

The orthopedic doctor said, “You didn’t have anywhere to go when you started.”

I asked her to explain.

“You started at the top,” she continued. “You were already in a lot of pain when your shoulder froze.”

As with most invisible illness or chronic pain, many people, even family, do not understand. My siblings went no contact. My heart broke into many pieces. They had their own challenges to face though. Nothing was easy for any of us in 2025.

Things are better now than they were, although, not everyone is out of the woods yet. My sisters call when they can. I got tired of explaining pain. I don’t even try to explain chronic fatigue syndrome.

A new doctor made life a bit easier for me in mid-December. I no longer felt that someone had cut my trunk like an oak tree. I felt more like a storm had pushed me over. Slowly, I started to feel that I was rising up.

I wish I could write more regularly. I may have pain later from this session. I miss blogging and writing in general. I still have hope. I still enjoy walking Bella around town. I think that’s what we’ll do now and if the bakery is open, I’ll get a muffin or something not too sweet that will comfort my belly. From the tone of this post, I could use a bit of comfort.

Thank you for visiting my blog.

Michelle, from DOGKISSES.

16 Aug

Time out…

Posted by DOGKISSES in camping, health, Nature. Tagged: , , , , , .

Mystical Mountains

Sacred Oats fall Crows came to call

A magical view of those rolling green hills

those hills sure do call my name

My beloved 4-legged guardian and I walk barefoot

green grassy meadows where the ground is soft, white-tail deer roam and crows come calling

Where the Sacred Oats fall…  Crows come to call

Suddenly we danced in the night around the fire

We danced at night.

Below are some of my journal entries during my camping trip.  They speak mostly to pain and challenges.  I’m a little surprised.  I did actually enjoy myself, at times, but apparently there was more pain and hard times than I realized.  I do love those hills.  I loved some parts of the trip.  Still, these entries mostly reflect how hard the trip was for me.

–Today we are in the mountains.  Many things occurred over the past few days as I was getting ready to go camping that I didn’t like.  But I’m here.  A moment alone now as my son, a man now, and our two young friends are with me.  Of course our four-legged are here too.  Well, my moment is over.  Son is back.

–Preparing for this trip was extremely hard.  Bending over a lot while packing caused severe lower back pain for me.  I had to walk through the fatigue.  I had to dig deep inside for the will or whatever it was that I had to have, determination I guess, to keep on packing despite severe pain and fatigue.

–I fell.  Slid down a moss covered set of stone steps.  No bruises.

–Sacred oats gone bad.  I am not eating from that bowl.

–I’ve been terribly sick and pretty much having to go at things as usual without much help.  It’s been hard.  I had to do most of the work preparing this trip.  My son isn’t doing well.

–I’m exhausted.  Completely.  My pain levels are off the scale.

–It’s nice writing out here.  My dogs are lying next to me.  The young people went on bicycle rides.  It’s very quiet.

–I love being here.

–Butterflies are everywhere.

–I think the sacred oats that went bad have left us now.  I hope.

–They’re back.

–Well, maybe those bad oats didn’t leave us.

–My pain has hit hard sitting here writing.  I’ll lie down soon.

–God I’m tired!

–My son is having a psychotic episode.

–My intestines hurt like hell.

–I’m watching the last log burn.  Now this wood, well, it’s amazing!

With all the pain and frustration that came with that trip, I managed to get some time out.  I needed to get away from flat land.  I needed to go where the hills surround me.  I needed the cool breeze that always travels through those rolling green mountains.


26 Apr

Without the label of fibromyalgia

Posted by DOGKISSES in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, fibromyalgia, health. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

why do some people dislike labels when they help us understand what is going onWithout the label of fibromyalgia, I’m a human being in severe pain.

I am a human being who feels pain 24/7, 365 days a year.

Without the label of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome — I am a human being who is more than simply exhausted.

I’m not talking about the kind of tired I used to feel after a hard days work.  Not the kind of tired some people say I might have, “because I don’t run ten miles a day like they do,” or “because I write,” or “because I need to get out more often.”

People who think they know why I’m tired or in pain, who don’t know one little iota of truth about fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, are people whose opinions mean zilch to me.

I was a firefighter.  My training made me so tired I had to go to the doctor.  This was before any diagnosis of fibromyalgia or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  This was before Lyme disease in 2003 and near death from Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever in 2005.

I got over being tired after that training.  The doctor, who is a homeopathic physician, told me to rest and drink fluids with electrolytes.  So I did and after a day or two,  I could run with the best of them again.

Without the label of fibromyalgia, I am a person who has severe problems sleeping.  I never get good sleep.

Without the “label,” I am a person who sees days where taking a shower wears me out.  I get all nice and clean.  I get dressed.  I fix my hair.  Sometimes I even put a little makeup on.  Then I take my shoes off and fall on my bed from sheer exhaustion.

Without the label, I am a person who cannot live an active life.  Some days I’m a person who spends the day in bed, not sleeping, too tired to read, too tired to move, who just lies there like the living dead.

Without the label, I am a person who strives to make it through one trip to the grocery store and 98% of the time I can’t get all that I intended to get.  I could if I used one of the riding carts or whatever they are called, but I’m not there yet.  I’m not at a place in my mind where I feel I’m ready to reveal to the public how disabled I am by FATIGUE.

Without the “label” I am a person who hurts when I take wet clothes out of my washer.  I am a person who hurts when I push a vacuum cleaner.  Many days, I’m a person who feels like a plastic bag weighs ten pounds.

Without the label, I am a person who gets so tired that my brain seems to collapse inside my head.  This is called, brain fog, but some people can’t take labels.

Without the label of brain fog, I’m a human being whose brain stops functioning and I have a hard time adding 2 + 2!

Without the label, I would be quite confused as to what the hell is happening each and every moment I live!

Too tired to say how tired I am of people who don’t know squat about what it means to live with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and the pain of fibromyalgia.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Image of ferns by, “The Graphics Fairy”

I chose the image of the fern because even plants have labels.  I stand on both sides of the fence, or perhaps I’m the FenceSitter, regarding the use of labels in medicine.   Labels are useful but can be abused.  Labels can be used to identify a whole person and I believe, those of us who have an ongoing health issue, illness(es) or disease(s), know that we are more than a label.  We remain fully human.

Thank you for visiting my blog.