Monday, February 14, 2011
Momentary distraction from the task at hand....
Going through the e-mails real fast before returning to something I absolutely have to get done tonight. Found this link via another post on a fibromyalgia Facebook page:
You know you have fibromyalgia when...
I have an appointment with a pain doctor tomorrow. Not feeling very confident about it as I truly believe I have already tried all that is reasonable to try. Just finished some awful medication for a bacterial infection and have had three minor "procedures" (surgeries) since October as well as a major change to my diet in the past few weeks. I am soooooo not in the mood for new medications that may cause yet another bout of side effects.
But I am on disability and am almost four years overdue for a review by Social Security of whether my disabling condition(s) has/have shown substantial enough improvement for me to go back to work so they can discontinue benefits. Even if I am not better, if I don't go to medical specialists for ongoing treatment, Social Security can wrongly conclude that I must be feeling better. It doesn't matter if the docs can't do a damned thing for me, I must have a paper trail that shows I am going to appointments. So I have agreed to go to the pain doc even though I would rather walk hot coals.
Yesterday, I started typing up a summary that I will bring to the appointment, stuff that I'm pretty sure they'll ask that is either difficult to remember or difficult to describe. It is taking me far longer to do than I had predicted, and I am only halfway through it. I was listing just how severe the pain is, what types I have, how widespread it is, etc. when I realized that it truly is much more intense than I generally let on, and this depressed me. Believe it or not, even though most people focus on the pain of fibromyalgia (and that of my other ailments), I tend to ignore it as much as possible. It is the exhaustion and cognitive dysfunction that destroy my ability to function, so those get most of my attention. After 14 years of 24/7 pain, I guess I just take it for granted, especially since I know nothing exists that will rid me of all of it.
Okay, now I'm stalling from getting back to my depressing documentation. Maybe I will post some of it here once I finish to show you what I mean....
You know you have fibromyalgia when...
I have an appointment with a pain doctor tomorrow. Not feeling very confident about it as I truly believe I have already tried all that is reasonable to try. Just finished some awful medication for a bacterial infection and have had three minor "procedures" (surgeries) since October as well as a major change to my diet in the past few weeks. I am soooooo not in the mood for new medications that may cause yet another bout of side effects.
But I am on disability and am almost four years overdue for a review by Social Security of whether my disabling condition(s) has/have shown substantial enough improvement for me to go back to work so they can discontinue benefits. Even if I am not better, if I don't go to medical specialists for ongoing treatment, Social Security can wrongly conclude that I must be feeling better. It doesn't matter if the docs can't do a damned thing for me, I must have a paper trail that shows I am going to appointments. So I have agreed to go to the pain doc even though I would rather walk hot coals.
Yesterday, I started typing up a summary that I will bring to the appointment, stuff that I'm pretty sure they'll ask that is either difficult to remember or difficult to describe. It is taking me far longer to do than I had predicted, and I am only halfway through it. I was listing just how severe the pain is, what types I have, how widespread it is, etc. when I realized that it truly is much more intense than I generally let on, and this depressed me. Believe it or not, even though most people focus on the pain of fibromyalgia (and that of my other ailments), I tend to ignore it as much as possible. It is the exhaustion and cognitive dysfunction that destroy my ability to function, so those get most of my attention. After 14 years of 24/7 pain, I guess I just take it for granted, especially since I know nothing exists that will rid me of all of it.
Okay, now I'm stalling from getting back to my depressing documentation. Maybe I will post some of it here once I finish to show you what I mean....
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