Doing My Part - Making Fibromyalgia Visible

There's a campaign afoot with the National Fibromyalgia Association to "make fibromyalgia visible". As a chronic invisible illness, it doesn't get the press or funding or attention compared to other more invisible diseases. The NFA notice says, "even though people with FM don’t “look sick”… we are living with a very real and chronic neurological disorder."

Did you know?

1. Fibromyalgia affects an estimated 10 million Americans and millions of others worldwide.
2. The condition is often referred to as an “invisible disease” since the symptoms are not immediately apparent.
3. FM can significantly impair normal activities of daily living.
4. There are more than 4,000 published research papers on FM
5. Studies show people with fibromyalgia have several neurologic signs and symptoms.

See the Fibromyalgia Fact Sheet

Info about the area we live in now

And a third post - in one day!

Here's some interesting info Rod found on the development where we live now. It's called "Indian Ridge" and the reason is that there are ancient artifacts there. There's a real archeological dig managed by the University of Arizona here in Tucson.

http://aa4m.com/common/hohokam_tour.pdf

There are photos of where the dig is - http://aa4m.com/photos/arizona/tawa/tawa800x600.jpg

Anybody want to come and help me dig up the back yard? I fully intend to.

My New Head

Oh, I should mention that I'm wearing a "new head" now. Saturday I got my hair cut short and colored a dark brunette with some slight mahogany highlights (to match my eyes, the stylist said). It's freaking me out every time I see myself. I'm not sure what came over me other than I've always admired how nice a brunette woman with a good short cut looks, and it suddenly settled in my mind that I could do that, too. Rod loves it, says it highlights my skin tones and features - and everybody I work with says it looks great, too. I like it a lot, but am still having that strange moment when I catch my reflection. "Who is that person?"

Long overdue - here's a photo -

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, One and All!

I miss you all so much, and I had a complete melt-down, actually, last evening, thinking about all of the people I won't get to hug and say Merry Christmas to. I've wanted to send elaborate gifts instead, but with the new house and the budget not settling down, I've not been able to do that, either.

But please know that you are in my thoughts and prayers and I love you as much as always.

I've not updated you about the house, but we did get it. Closed on 11/20, I moved on 11/23 and Rod moved on 12/18, but his "POD" has not yet arrived. He and Senji and a car-load of things are here and recovering from the flurry of moving from L.A., though, and it feels great to have "my family" with me now.

The new house address is:

6941 E. Taos Place
Tucson, AZ 85715

Merry Christmas and many hugs!

Becky

Update - We've Got the House!

We're doing great! Closed 11/20, I moved the 23rd, Rod's moving 12/18 with a Pod that he's packing in L.A. and shipping down. We had a great Thanksgiving week - he was there the whole time and supervised the move. There were only a few small annoyances with the move, which is pretty good. The crew were tired from other hard moves - and I think going to a U of A game.

I don't know what happened about the auction of my Ventana condo. I stopped checking on it because the Skyline Properties manager was holding me to the lease. However, with the help of my realtor, we negotiated that I could use the security deposit for the last month's rent, but I still had to pay December. The first mortgage payment is due January 1, so that works out OK.

The house is adorable. We both really like it and find that the retro feel of it is cozy and homey to us. Rod's the one who guided us to the older home - I would have gone newer - but he likes to putter and fix and improve. This house was move-in ready - very pretty paint jobs, mostly a dusty light green, but the back bedroom has two painted red walls, one of them brick. The colors are all "Pottery Barn" palette, I think, from what I gathered from a quick look at the color chips the owners left. They left it in great condition - very clean - but we're still finding things we want to do. Cleaning the sliding glass doors window track, cleaning the overhead fans in the kitchen and baths - stuff like that. The longer I'm there the more I've realized that a lot of the reason the place appealed to me must have been very visceral at first, but it's becoming more conscious. It's a lot like my Nana and Pap's house back in Hinkley, Ohio - crank-out windows, "celery" kitchen cabinets of the old plywood style (but they have all new brushed-aluminum hardware).

We found some neat information about the area online, that there's an active archaeological dig on a 13-acre site that someone willed to the U of A a long time ago for that purpose. Students come there to learn and dig artifacts of the Hohokam Indians that lived there. Here's the link. And some photos.

I'll miss seeing my family this year. I found myself punching the forward button when that song came on in the car, "I'll be home for Christmas, you can count on me...".

It bugged me, a lot. I want to be someone my family and friends can count on, and this damned disease has exiled me. That's how I feel, exiled. As wonderful a place as this is, it isn't home, and it's not where the people I love are. Exiled.

The House Work is Moving Along!

It's looking more and more like we're going to get the house! Only a few signatures on a few things for the repair work and loan work, and we expect to close on the 20th of November.

Rod's going to be off the week of Thanksgiving and he'll be down here to supervise my move with the movers while I work Monday and Tuesday, and he'll move later from L.A. - late December or early January. I'll use the same movers - I hope! that I used to unpack me before - they were so excellent, Able Movers.

Yippety skippety!!! Yeah!!!

Catching Up

Hi, folks. Long time, no post. I've been very busy. I don't know how I manage it, but I seem to keep myself crazily busy. Rod calls me his "busy bee". I'm going to try to catch up on some news, here, this weekend, now that Drew's wedding is over and I can think a little more. I'll get back to the wedding.

Here's the latest news.

I had a very nice birthday. I was home for the wedding, which turned out great and was a lot of fun. So glad to see him - and her - so very happy. Rod gave me perfume - Vera Wang's "Princess". He's been wanting me to have a scent to linger when we're apart, but he knows how I feel about perfume. Ick! But this is not bad. Doesn't make me sick! :)

And my sister made me a beautiful necklace with black pearls and deep red crystals, very unique. I should remember to post a photo.

And we had a nice visit home and a birthday party and brunch at my parents place the morning after the wedding, very relaxing. And, best of all, we bought a house on the way out of town! Rod decided to retire and move to Tucson and I'm thrilled about it! We've been looking at a lot of properties, debating about old/new, smaller/larger, further out/in town, old character vs. spanking spiffy new. We settled on something that's just barely out of the foothills, very close to work, and old and charming.

We stayed very conservative, planning to be able to afford it on one income if we ever need to. Housing is a good bit more expensive in Tucson than in Columbus. We offered and they accepted but we're finding a lot of issues in the home inspection, so it may not work out. It's in an older neighborhood, soon to be designated a historic area, and we really like its cabin/cottage feel. Its' close to town and work, just barely out of the foothills, which is a good area. Beautiful, near the mountains, but not so near that our doggie will get eaten by a mountain lion. :) However, problems with termites, roof, AC, electrical, etc. They need to fix it or we can't buy. Even if we wanted to, we wouldn't be able to get a loan on it in the condition its in. So, a lot of "lipstick on the dog", which I was afraid of.

Our new home?? 6941 E. Taos Place, Tucson, AZ 85715

I think it would compare to Clintonville in Columbus, but it's not yet ridiculously expensive because of its "cuteness".

There's always still drama with the condo in Columbus. It's on a lease-to-own setup, but I'm skeptical that it will ever sell, that the woman will get her divorce settlement and financing. In fact, she had 60 days to produce loan papers and she hasn't. Now, I got a letter from the condo association with an official complaint about her large dog that they're not cleaning up after - and they're keeping a bed frame and box springs on the back porch - pond side!! I didn't even know she had a dog, no deposit, etc, so have to deal with that.

And I have drama about the condo I'm in here. It's being sold at auction on November 20th because the man who owns it has not been paying his mortgage. Supposedly they can't "displace" me until my lease is up, or for at least 90 days. We're hoping to be in the new house the week of Thanksgiving, so I'd break the lease on the condo.

My health is good, though. I've only missed 2 work days since moving out here, and had only a few weekend down-times. I've had no further belly symptoms after being so sick when home in the spring. I have to have another gall bladder ultrasound in a month or so to see if the sludge has completely cleared, but that's all.

I've been able to be more active, but honestly, the heat of the summer set me back. It was just too hard in the evenings to get exercise when it's still 99 degrees at 7 PM. I finally learned that it had to be AM or nothing, so started getting up in the mornings early enough to take a walk before work.

I did start to get a little creeped out by the critters around here. Saw a mountain lion on my walking path this spring, have seen javalena in the complex several times, and a bobcat. And one morning about 4 AM a hootin' hollerin' yelpin' crazed pack of coyotes came through the complex raising holy hell. So...when I walk now I take pepper spray and my big flashlight with me. Besides it's getting quite dark in the evenings now, and we don't have daylight savings time here - we just stay the same time all year long, AZ time they call it.

Work is good. My boss and I have reached an understanding and come to appreciate each others' strengths. My co-workers are very good men, but sometimes annoy the daylights out of me, as always happens when people work closely together. We're learning a lot from each other though, growing more proficient every day, and the company is supporting us with needed hardware and software and storage - LOTS of storage. Although I want 300 gig all to myself. I don't know if they'll grant me that or not. The only real problem is that we face very aggressive deadlines that seem completely arbitrary. I don't have any idea what's driving them other than our vendor and our management. If we had time to do things well and right and at a sane pace, it would be a perfect job. The biggest problem right now is that there is so much to do in so little time. Life in 2009, I know. Glad I have a job that's interesting and challenging with such great people.

I miss my friends in Columbus, though, a lot. So many evenings I wish I could just call one up and chat, chat, chat. But the 3-hour time difference is the killer. When I get out of work a lot of people are settling down to bed in Ohio. And I can't seem to get on an earlier work schedule. I try, but my body just wants to do 9-6. The boss doesn't like that, so I'm having to kick it into an 8 AM arrival lately.

Miss you all. Call me, write me, and let me know when it's OK to call you!

Love,

Beck

Health is A-OK

Hi, folks,

Thanks for the good wishes on my health.

I'm SO glad to report that I'm doing better - and the test results verify that. I saw the gastroenterologist last week and he speculated that I may have been septic back in Ohio, or passed a gall stone - either would have created the lab results I had. My anemia was so bad it looked as though I'd lost 3-4 pints of blood! He thinks if I had gone to the Emergency Room instead of the Urgent Care the first time I went that they would have cultured my blood then and put me in the hospital for 3-5 days on IV antibiotics. As it is, we don't know for sure whether it was a gall stone or sepsis from the urinary tract infection, but my blood work this time showed that I've returned to normal. I've been exhausted and very frustrated that I rest and rest and still feel like crap. His explanation tells me why, I guess, but it's a slow process.

Health Bulletin

I received the results of the Hidascan and they are negative for any problems in the ducts between the liver, gall bladder and duodenum.

I'm to see a gastroenterologist next and have an appointment scheduled for mid-July.

Meanwhile I feel awful and bloated pretty much every time I eat. Sometimes not, though, and it' s hard to say why. I haven't been able to see a pattern to it, although it seems fresh fruits and vegetables cause the most trouble. For meals where I have just grains and dairy and rice milk, like my morning oatmeal, it seems I'm OK. Other than that, I can't figure it out.

More later...

The Rodney and Rebecca Reading Club

Did I tell you that Rod and I have been reading together? Well, at least as much as two people can do who live 500 miles apart.

We decided we want to read some of the same books so we can talk about them together. First he picked one of his for me to read, a favorite of his. Then we decided to alternate, so I picked one that we read together, he picks one that we read together, and so on.

This is the list so far:

Becky's Pick: Lark and Termite by Jayne Ann Phillips (Excellent, we both loved it. Different story and characters adn beautiful writing)

Rod's Pick: Crusader's Cross by James Lee Burke (Good one, great author, but Rod says this is not his best)

Becky's Pick: Life of Pi by Yann Martel (Classic - everyone should read and debate this. We spent a lot of time wondering how far the suspension of disbelief can go)

Rod's Pick: The Road by Carmack McCarthy (Excellent, thought-provoking, dark book about a post-apocalyptic world. Not as dark as one would think, though, because of the bond remaining between two human hearts)

Becky's Pick: Little Dorritt by Charles Dickens, which I'm mad about since it was on Masterpiece Theater this winter. But we found it too heavy to do long distance, so we've put it aside until we're in the same home.

Becky's Quick Pick: The Lorax by Dr. Seuss (don't laugh - it's very allegorical! And Rod reads it aloud very well - he got applause from Lucas!)

Beck's Pick: Beach Music by Pat Conroy (Currently in progress, and we're loving it. Jack McCall reminds me of Rod.)

Coming Next:

Rod's Pick: A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham

Beck's Pick: Saving Fish from Drowning by Amy Tan

Cute Dog! And an update on me

Dave, my best co-worker, saw a woman walking into the cafeteria today with a dog in her backpack. The noive! But maybe he's a therapy dog. She stopped so Dave could snap this photo.

The dog's name is "Wolf". Is he not the Jack Nicholson of small dogs?

I've been still feeling "bloaty", but OK otherwise. Had the Hidascan yesterday, very uneventful, although I was vibrating from radiation today, still. Waiting for 2-3 days for results.

Meanwhile, my Eastern medicine specialist, my acupuncturist/herbalist, says she'll do everything she can to save my gall bladder, if it comes to that. Eastern medicine has herbal helpers for it and they think the gall bladder is much more important than Western Medicine gives it credit for. It's good to know there may be options other than surgery - if it comes to that. She stuck me full of needles today to help with digestion and the spleen, and to heal the scarring from my cold sores. Yes, they got massive - all seven of them clustered together so proudly on my chin.

Don't know results yet, but will keep y'all posted.

Health Bulletin

A lot of you know that I was very sick when at home in Ohio a few weeks ago.

The history: I was sick within an hour of getting off the plane, but I thought it was just fibromyalgia and a reaction to the weather change. It was in the 60's and rainy, a good 30-40 degrees lower than it had been in Tucson. I got better within an hour after taking some meds. Went back to my friend Katrina's for the night.

Next morning felt rotten so stayed in bed most of that day. Got up, showered, went out with friends, back to Katrina's, yacked with her until midnight, then to bed.

Next morning could hardly walk because of the pain. Went straight to the Urgent Care near her house, found I had a 102.5 fever and a whopping urinary tract infection, both bladder and kidneys. Got a shot of antibiotics plus oral antibiotics, instructions to go to the ED if I got worse in any way - I was near needing hospitalization. Called my parents and they came in their van with a mattress in back and took me home to their place in Quaker City 2 hours east of Powell/Katrina's.

Improved enough to enjoy a family cookout Sunday, then got fever again and went downhill Sunday night. Went to the ER in Cambridge Monday morning and they ran tests, just urine and CBC and found the urine was much, much better, but I have peculiarly elevated liver enzymes - like 4-5 of the measures were 4 times the upper limit.

I talked that all over with my doctor (rheumatologist) Monday in Columbus and he says
that the UTI, none of my drugs, nothing could explain that, it must be completely unrelated, but may account for why I felt so bad. He was puzzled about how I could improve so quickly because he characterized it as an "acute situation" that I need to get checked out right away with my doctor in Tucson. He was going to write her a letter to contribute his 200 cents to the puzzle.

Back in Tucson, they've tested my urine and blood, ruled out Hepatitis A, B, C and ANA Titer (immune system test) was negative for any problems. Still white blood cells in urine. Did an abdominal ultrasound and found I have "sludge" - that's the word they used! in my gall bladder and want to run another test called a Hidascan.

I felt like poo all weekend and laid around the house. Keep getting stomach ache whenever I eat now, and bloating. And I've now had my fifth cold sore outbreak since I've been in Tucson, and previously I'd had 2 my whole life! So that may mean something to the puzzle - who knows. Will keep you posted.

Rebecca

Drugged By My Parents

Got this from a nice guy at work. Love this article. Turns out I was drugged by my parents, too.

A Major Milestone

Today, maybe for the first time in...oh about 10-15 years, when I was at my massage therapy appointment, I had to think hard to come up with a second problem to tell her about. The first was tightness in my shoulders. Tightness, not pain. I can't think when I last went into an appointment without a litany of complaints to be worked on. After a work day!!

Yippety, Skippety!

I've been sticking to a regime of acupuncture and massage weekly. It's costing me a bundle, but for now I'm committed to doing it until I stop seeing improvements and can even out and be healthy and hopefully get on a less frequent maintenance schedule.

When my doctor suggested acupuncture, I was at first reticent, for all of the usual reasons. Needle aversion, etc. But after trying it and seeing how much it helped I thought, "Well, I've spent thousands of dollars on drugs and other therapies, I can justify giving this a try to the same extent - and it's probably healthier."

The acupuncturists I used in Ohio told me that acupuncture was the only modality that could actually cure fibromyalgia. This acupuncturist doesn't go that far, doesn't know that much about fibromyalgia - yet.

But she's awesome.

I even consulted her when I got my third and fourth cold sores since I've been here! She does this thing called "Circle the Dragon" and puts three needles in my chin pointing toward the cold sore and leaves them for the thirty minutes while the other needles are in the rest of my body. We caught this last one early and it worked so well I never really got the full cold sore. Whew! They're miserable.

She has also treated my pollen allergies which have really flared up here - the pollen is a phenomenon here - by putting needles on either side of my nostrils - and into the sinus cavity! It sounds horrendous, so I had to tell you for shock value, and so you'll think I'm incredibly brave. But really, it sometimes stings just a bit and makes the eyes water, but usually they go in with just a teeny prick and no other effect. And they work! The sinuses open right up and stop dripping.

I need my break-through pain medication only about once a week, on average, now. During December and January back in Ohio, it was usually daily. That's quite an improvement. I have many days now with little or no pain.

My liver thanks me - and thanks you who helped me get here. Yeah!!!

[My liver is doing the thanking because the drug is hard on that particular organ]

The Computer Bone Yard

Today I snapped some photos of the work in progress at the loading dock of the Information Services building, where some of our workers are constantly taking equipment in and out.

Here, no one worries about leaving them sit outside. They've already cleansed the drives of confidential information. Theft of this old stuff is evidently not an issue.

Apparently they need the extra space as the equipment is on its way out - and there's no worry about rain.

People leave upholstered furniture outside, too.
No worries.

I'm Older Than Methuselah!!

Check this article -

Accelerated brain gray matter loss in fibromyalgia patients: premature aging of the brain?
J Neurosci. 2007 Apr 11;27(15):4004-7.
This study shows that fibromyalgia patients had significantly less total gray matter volume and showed a 3.3 times greater age-associated decrease in gray matter than healthy controls. The longer the individuals had had fibromyalgia, the greater the gray matter loss, with each year of fibromyalgia being equivalent to 9.5 times normal aging. In addition, fibromyalgia patients demonstrated significantly less gray matter density than healthy controls in several brain regions, including the cingulate, insular and medial frontal cortices, and parahippocampal gyri.

I think it's trying to say I'm older than dirt. Fifty years of age plus fifteen years of fibromyalgia times 9.5 = EGAD! I'm 192.5 years old! That's older than Methuselah!

Sounds like I really should have no IQ left. But I'm not doing too badly, considering... Thank God for Provigil is all I can say. I forgot to take my morning meds once recently and I was just not the same without them. I struggled terribly at work. Trying to absorb audio information was almost impossible, which makes conference calls really tough. It just won't go into my head at times like that! I was thinking, "Darn, it's like I didn't take my meds or something! Oh! Doh! I didn't take my meds this morning!"

People say lots of bad things about medical doctors and the state of medicine in our society, but I say, "Thank God for those medications, the people who work to create them, and my blessed Doctor who prescribed them for me."

Someone asked me recently if I absolutely had to have them, and "What would happen to you if you didn't have them?" I said absolutely seriously, "I'd be dead." And I meant it. I would not be able to live with the pain of this disease without my medications.

The thing is...us old people forget stuff. And we forget the very stuff that we need. It's a bizarre disease, and a challenging one.

Pog?

Remember those photos of my morning commute? Remember the mountains in them? Well, in these shots you can barely see them. We don't have smog here, really, and never have smog alerts.

They have pre-empted a lot of that trouble with really high emissions standards. All cars have to be tested before licensing.

What you're seeing here is a typically crystal-clear day in Tucson - high up. Nearer the ground, you see a thick haze of pollen and dust that the winds have kicked up and spread skyward. If "smog" is a combination of "smoke" and "fog", what would you call a combination of pollen and dust - "pust"? Or fog-like pollen clouds - "pog"?

Mountain Views from the hospital

These are taken from the hospital parking lot, looking north toward the Catalinas. There's still a little bit of snow on Mt. Lemmon.

























And the same mountains, same direction, a view from the back patio behind the IS building, on a cloudy day, just to prove that we really do get them here. But they're still mountains!!

Sights Around Home

A Clear Beautiful Night. There are a lot of observatories out here, and low light encouragement (regulations?) to enable the star-gazers to see clearly.

The Love Birds outside my balcony. We have tons of Mourning Doves here. They twitter as they fly from place to place, and I swear they sound like Star Wars probes, with little descending-pitch “CHIRP, CHIRp, CHIrp, CHirp, Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp”. I don’t remember them doing that in Ohio.
















Someone has made a lizard of rocks on their big rock, and decorated their little patio beautifully.

























Same kind he wore back at Hiram College.

Quick shots of me

Quick shots one morning before work, for Rod

It’s So Nice to Have Tokens of Home

Little messages from my lovin' packers.













My Terry Redlin print of the old church like I went to as a child, Mt. Zwingli in Wadsworth, Ohio.

Today It's All About Pain, and Riding the Edge

I've had a rough day, worrying about money, getting myself into a tizzy. Silly me, I'll be OK. I'm just wrestling too many accounts and homes and bills at the moment.

(image from the American Pain Foundation's video)

And I seem to have a bit of food poisoning, if there is such a thing as "a bit" of food poisoning. Either that or the flu. Or maybe I've just gotten myself into a lather.

And my pain has been rough this week. I miss my massage therapist, the wonderful Christopher Hannan. The pains in my neck muscles, shoulders, and back have been flared up this week, and I know if I just had an hour or two with him, I'd be righted - at least as well as I ever am.

Something made me think of my fellow sufferers from the APF video, and then of an article I read about "Understanding Chronic Pain", so I'm sharing the link with you. It's a helpful depiction of what chronic pain does to the mind, body, and spirit, and the doctor has wonderful quotations from literature and the Bible about pain. They comfort me.

Rod's helping me to try to avoid pain more, and abide with it less, which is my tendency. I try to ignore it and everything about it, to stay in denial until it absolutely takes me over, and only then do I bow to it. Rod's suggesting a more preventive plan, and I'm ready to try it.

In the past I've been approaching this disease with the idea that I want to give it as little as I possibly can give it in terms of time, thought, anguish, adaptation, and of course money. My thinking was that the disease takes enough of me already. It already robs me of my time and energy and what I want to do with my time and energy. I didn't want to give fibromyalgia any more of me than it had already taken. I wanted to give fibromyalgia its due, as minimally as possible, doing just enough self-care to keep it at bay, and no more. I have wanted to ride the limit, pushing as close as I can to it without going over the edge into extreme pain and fatigue. I wanted to maximize what I could do and how much living I could get out of life.

Look at it this way, if my healthy self allowed me 100% of my time and energy, and if my fibromyalgia self, on average, gives me only 75% of my time and energy, I wanted to ride that limit right up to 74% without going over the edge into being "down" for the day, or several days. The problem is, with this disease, one never knows where that edge is, whether its at 41% or 62% or 73% on any given day. I never know how many spoons I have to work with each day, so it's a guessing game (see Spoon Theory). It's a wonderful illustration, but The Spoon Theory's author explains it as though one always knows how many spoons they have to work with, but we don't do we? Even so-called "normal people" :) don't know how many spoons they have in a given day. But if I played it right, and guessed the right number of spoons, and monitored myself through the day correctly, and fibromyalgia gave me a good day, I could maybe get 74% of my allotment of living for the day. What's wrong with that? Doesn't everyone do that?

I was being stubborn, as usual, something my Dear Mother says I have had a talent for since birth. And stubbornness has gotten me pretty far.

But I have to wonder whether I am cutting off my nose to spite my face. My stubbornness and refusal to deal with it has gotten me into trouble, too. What if I tried a more even-keel approach? I don't know. A lot of the experts recommend it. But what if the more careful approach would give me a consistent 60% every day, or even most days? Wouldn't I be giving up that other 14% I might have had if I had ridden up to the limit? Yes, yes, I know. I'm ignoring the times when I ride the limit so close that I fall over it into the other side, into the state of fatigue and pain that takes me out for hours, or days. On those days I have to deduct from my percentage of successful living, and maybe I go backwards for a while. I've been gambling that I can maximize my living by riding that limit. Now, I'm willing to try a consistent routine and less of a roller-coaster.

But I have a feeling that with this disease, there is no even keel. That's been my experience so far. By definition, fibromyalgia is a f***ing roller-coaster!! I don't think I even know how to do the even keel any more. The disease has had me in its grip since....1994(?). That's almost 15 years that I've been riding its waves up and down, trying to get a handle on it, trying to out-guess it, and wondering which element in the routine may be throwing me off. Was it the new medication? Was it the weather? The angry husband?(!) Or maybe the long commute that day,getting stuck in traffic, or the stress and cold of scraping ice off the car and hoping not to get mugged while doing it?

At one point I considered trying to create a database and programs to track every element in my routine, my environment, the weather, my diet, sleep, the meds, etc. in an effort to find a pattern to the flares. But I had barely begun the database design when I realized that there were so many variables that could possibly contribute that it seemed nearly impossible to expect a pattern to emerge. Every time that I had come close to thinking I knew what it was, the pattern was disproved. The only consistency was the inconsistency - and that certain weather (coldness or low gray cloud-cover) would put me down every time.

So why spend that much time thinking about it? I want to spend my 74% not thinking about fibromyalgia. I feared that if I spent that much time tracking every detail about myself that I would start to think of myself as a sick person who needed that much charting, and I did not want to get that self-obsessed. I have too many other interesting things to think about.

All o f that leads to where I am now: in Arizona, away from that sort of weather, and with an opportunity to start new with a clean slate stress-wise. I can manage my own stress picture by choosing what to worry about. That should work, right? Maybe.

So I am going to try for an even keel. A consistent routine, good diet, exercise, low stress. We'll see what that does to the disease roller-coaster. [Right. Being away from everyone who loves me is low stress. Right.]

I am committed to trying it, though. And I'll let you know how it goes.

But...I'm still not sure that I'm made for the even keel. By nature, I need to shake things up, try new things, do different things. Oh, I'm going to fight this. It's going to be a huge battle against me. I wonder which one of us will win. :)

At TMC outside the IS building

This is a typical scene outside the IS building, in front.

They use “surreys” here to tote people and equipment around this large campus - 30 acres all on one level. So that all patients have views to the outdoor patios, it's constructed on a grid system. It was a former tuberculosis sanitorium when the "sunshine cure" was a popular idea. It’s a long walk from one end to the other.

This week I saw a volunteer driver tooling through the building on one of these with a patient passenger exclaiming, "This cracks me up! I can't stop giggling! You actually run these things through the hallways!"

Yep, they actually do.
















Beautiful tree

My Commute Home This Evening

This is even better than my commute to work. In the evening, the sunlight and shadows lie on the mountains in a most restful way.

In LA Again This Weekend

Near Rod's Place 2/22/2009
































Airport construction - doesn't it look neat with the scaffolding on? Seems like it should be part of the structure, but it's not.





























Santa Monica in the rain