Triple Threat

Triple threat: Migraine, seizure, fibro flare. Intense, intense.

Everything started last night; I hardly slept.

Adam has today off. I want to go home and crawl back into bed next to him. My boss says that if it comes to it, he'll let me go home later. We'll see.

I feel like my body is falling apart, piece by piece, parts of my head first. The images are very disturbing.

There is so much fog outside. There is so much fog in my head.

Comedown

I lasted through the day at work. Thankfully, I didn't need to do much except catch up on some filing and shelving, so I took quick breaks to rest my eyes and body.
I'm home now. Adam made a pot roast in the crock pot and it's almost done. Jason is home from his classes. We will watch "Heroes" and I will take a shower, and give myself a facial and a facial massage, and go to bed. I will take a Flexeril and be okay.

I feel wrung out, scooped out, drained, throbbing, through a ringer. And I wish, oh I wish that it could have been from something I'd done -- worked out for hours, run for miles, something physically stressing. But no... no, it's just my body, it's just my brain. And that's what I hate. I have to live with this, with a broken brain/body connection that shorts out too easily and too quickly. I go to sleep fatigued, I wake up fatigued, I go through the day fatigued, perhaps with strong moments of energy as if nothing is wrong, but underneath is always that current of pain.

There are studies that have shown that fatigue may not be due to overworked muscles, but to an overalert brain that tells us when we need to slow down or stop, to prevent muscle damage. That fatigue starts in the brain, not the body. And it makes sense with fibromyalgia. Stress and pain starts in the brain, stress and pain affects the muscles, and we begin the vicious cycle that is the syndrome. "Physiologically, the brain doesn’t distinguish between imagined and real experiences," they say. "That burning sensation in your muscles is due to the buildup of lactic acid. And tense muscles accumulate it faster than relaxed ones. When you run, are you moving your legs freely or pushing them? If it's the latter, imagine the tension draining from your muscles and your legs moving with ease. "After a few minutes, you’ll feel more energized."
Of course, this is much easier said than done for those of us with physical disabilities like cerebral palsy, where muscles are permanently locked and clenched in a spastic hell.

However, sometimes the mind can work around and with the body's limitations. It is about reinforcing neural patterns. I may feel utterly exhausted and on the edge of collapse, but I can still try hard make myself walk up those stairs, walk those extra ten minutes from the bus stop, do those extra twenty push-ups.

It's all about the brain. That small, powerful gray muscle without which we wouldn't Exist.