Not the F* Bomb You Think It Is

The Undefeated
May 7, 2017
3 min read

12 letters. One word. Many interpretations.

I haven’t been writing lately, mostly because I have no idea what will come out while writing. It’s cathartic for me but it’s also always a surprise what I present and then deal with.

On February 15th of 2017 I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia.

I was crushed. I was angry. I was confused. I was scared. I cried a lot.

Fibromyalgia is a nervous system disorder. Basically my brain can be telling my hands that someone is trying to remove my fingers from my hands, my knee is being wrenched from my leg, my head is in a vice on a shop table with a middle schooler operating it, my shoulders have just done a 10 hour workout, only none of that has or is happening. But my brain tells me it is and often nearly everything can be hurting at once.

A lot of the time the pain starts out at a 5-6. But pain is like being poked in the same spot, because what started out as a 5 at 10 am, is now an 8 at 4pm and nearly unbearable by 9.

Fibromyalgia. It doesn’t have a cure.

There are a few treatments that can help with pain, but nothing that will just end it.

A lot of battling fibromyalgia is knowing your boundaries and pushing them when you can, or when your body lets you.

A lot of times I'm battling light sensitivity which brings on migraines, so I recently got dark blue curtains that make me feel like I'm hanging out at on the ocean floor. I like it.

Fibromyalgia makes sleep really hard, sometimes impossible, and almost never restful.

I was on one kind of medicine for fibromyalgia and had an allergic reaction to it. I had to take Benadryl consistently for 2 days before the symptoms went away.

One of the nights that I was taking Benadryl I slept so well and I woke up the next day and told my mom that was the best sleep I’d gotten in over a year.

The last 8 years have been fraught with health hurdles.

After I was diagnosed I texted my friends and told them. Many of them in trying to encourage me simultaneously diminished what I was facing. Saying things like, “at least it isn’t Cancer”, “That’s not so bad”, and one person acted as though my diagnosis was laughable. I understand that maybe they didn’t know what to say, but I haven’t been able to speak to them since.

I don’t know what to say.

I also had my closest friends who bolstered my self-esteem and told me things like, "You've survived everything else. When I wouldn't have, you did. You'll surprise me again, I'm sure", and "I'm so sorry. I'm here".

I’m a very independent person and have to work through my physical feelings and emotional before I move forward. No one can make me move forward if I don’t want to.

So it’s taken a couple months, I still feel much like I imagine Zach Kornfeld, of Buzzfeed, felt when he was the punching ba—excuse me, held the punching bag for a UFC fighter. I’ve recently been watching a lot of buzzfeed. It only took me 10 years to get into youtube. { ;) You’re a cool dude, Zach and you got back up again real quick. Respect. }

Well I’m moving forward in my own ways. I leap forward into the unknown, hoping by the end of my leap of faith I’ve met some people, grown a lot, gained perspective, laughed til I cried, lived well, loved well, and like Michelle Khare, of Buzzfeed, conquered my fears.

One fear I’m going to be conquering this year is going back to school. I’ve decided to pursue a Degree in Graphic Design and after I've gotten that I want to pursue a degree in Theology/Youth ministry.

I refuse to be defined by limitations. A very good friend of mine has repeatedly told me that I can’t let my diagnosis define me and at first I didn’t really understand. I have Fibromyalgia…that in itself defines me.

Wrong again, Hilary.

It defines the pain and the pain will not define me.