valerieP's Journal

This is Valerie now. Can I just say that I love my husband? God knows I'm hard to live with and I really have no idea how he copes.

The withdrawls eased up late last week, though bad aches persisted. I've been having leg aches on and off for years but this is different. I've described it as it feels like my body, skin, bones, whatever just tighten up and hurt like hell, and that it feels almost like my skin is on too tight. My PM worked me in late yesterday afternoon and diagnosed Fibromyalgia. We knew it was coming, and I still need/want to see a rheumatologist for confirmation, but it makes so many things fall into place. Still, I don't know how to feel. Adding insult to injury, he let me know that he and the other doctor that I had been seeing there (and this other doctor was one I though of very highly) had been talking about my case and came to the realization that they had done pretty much all they can for me, and that I will likely be better off finding somewhere else to go to. I will say he said it nicely, and said it was humbling as a physician to realize there was not much else you can do for a patient. But it still hurt my feelings really bad. I have been taking it hard mainly because I loved the other dr. so much. I thought he would be the one to "fix" me. I'm SO TIRED of this. At my wit's end. I DO NOT WANT TO LIVE MY LIFE LIKE THIS. I do not want to spend every day in pain, grouchy, crying. I'm bipolar and just lost my big sister so that just adds to it. I dare not ask "where does it end" because I know the Lord will remind me, but still my shoulders are weak and I want a break. I need a break. My husband needs a break, my kids need a break. Hard to want to keep on keepin on when I feel like shit all the time.

My best friend in Mississippi emailed me some old pictures this morning. I howled with laughter, cried bittersweet tears. They were from two seperate trips we took to New Orleans, one was back in Aug. 2003(I think?) and one was Feb. 2006 just before I got married and moved here to TX. I look at those pictures and think "Where did that person go?". I had already begun to lose that part of myself just by moving here (long story, won't go there) but I feel with the chronic pain, my back being nothing but trouble, and most recently the loss of my sister, I just do not see that person anymore when I look in the mirror. It makes me sad.