Cleaning the Windshield

So here I sit, trying to get some of the streaks off the dirty windshield. Been a heck of a last few days, with this whole fibromyalgia thing going on. I have been reading and researching about my new illness and I am guessing I have had it for awhile, just never knew what it was. I just tossed my aches and pains to getting older and not really ever have taken very good care of myself. I have always worked hard and not always in the best environments for ones body. I work outside now, towing cars in the rain and snow and cold. For years when I was young I was a butcher, which required working in the constant cold, and when I was a butcher it was back in the days when everything came hanging on hooks, none of this box, pre-cut stuff you see today. When some tells me they are a “meat cutter” now, I just smile. Kids.

As I think of my new disease, and read up on it, I figure I am pretty lucky. I read about these people who can hardly function with FM, and I can understand why. If mine were much worse, I might not be able to either. But I guess there are varying degrees of pain and symptoms. I also have always had a pretty high tolerance for pain I guess. This started when I worked for my father in a family owned business and it was instilled upon us to always go to work, no matter how you felt, the store had to be opened. I remember during the infamous blizzard of ’78, walking through two feet of snow to go open up, what an adventure that was. And I have always needed the money I get from working, and not having a job that pays sick days for the last ten years, if I don’t work, I don’t get paid. So all and all I guess I am pretty lucky.
I may need to make some decisions, mostly about the little house on the lake. One of the “triggers” for FM is stress and as anyone who has consistently read this journal knows, I am constantly stressed about the little house on the lake. I may need to get rid of it and loswe that burden, it will be hard but I will do what I got to do. Looking back, as I said I have probably had this for some time, since they aren’t really sure what causes it, I don’t know, but when I started feeling worse was when I bought the little house on the lake and started worrying about making the payments every month.
Like I said in my last journal entry though, at least now I know why I feel like shit. I am always tired, my joints hurt, I have what is known in the business as “Fiberfog” where I tend ot forget things, or can’t concentrate, again not as bad as some, but it is there. I have many of the other symptoms as well. Now the interesting thing I think about with all this is, how much of these symptoms do I really have and how many do I think I have because of what I have been reading? That is always a potential problem for anyone I guess. You read something and the next thing you know, you feel like that, whatever it is, well in my case I have read about being pregnant and I am pretty sure I have never felt that way. I do remember when I was studying to be an EMT that every thing I read about I definitely had, I am surprised I made it through the class alive. It is one of those “which came first the chicken or the egg” kind of questions. Am I stressed because I am hurting or am I hurting because I am stressed? The mind is a funny thing. I do know I am going to do my best to keep a good attitude, hopefully all of my readers, all 9 of you, will bear with me. Writing has always been a good therapy for me. Speaking of which, I have finished a short story and will be sending it out to see if someone will publish it, I’ll keep you posted.
Anyway, it’s time to put the cleaning rag away, we don’t want the window to be to clean now do we? At least now I know where much of the dirt comes from.