"1. Discovery- this stage involves many blood tests, x-rays, maybe even
a few tubes stuck in places that weren't meant to have tubes. Drinking
liquids, waiting in doctor's offices, lab technicians drawing yet
some more blood, waiting for test results, being told at least a dozen
terrible diseases you don't have. Throughout this entire process, you are
never in as much pain in the doctor's office as you are at 3 o'clock any
given morning. You have nothing to "show and tell" the doctor except it
hurts here and there and up there and down there too. Though usually a
long process, it finally comes to the diagnosis of Fibromyalgia.
"2. Treatment - in an ideal world we would actually do stage 3 first,
but since this is our world we are dealing with, this stage of the dance
usually follows diagnosis. Treatments start to get tricky here. You should
be a veteran of at least no less than a dozen courses of anti-depressants,
anti-convulsants, anti-inflammatory and just about any other medicine that
starts with "anti". This stage is usually divided into several lessons
as after months of prescriptions that don't work, beginning dancers usually
give up and turn to "alternative treatments" which can include anything
from herbs to voo doo. After this back slide in lessons, most of us go
back to the first stage and start all over again. This treatment stage
can vary in length from 6 weeks to infinity. Some treatments seem to help
for a while. Other treatments cause other problems that result in more
medicine to treat the new problem while never getting rid of the original
problem.
"3. Acceptance - This stage of the dance is the hardest one to learn
and gives most people the biggest
challenge. Every where we turn, we are told to change something in
our life style. This is the step we
all trip over many times. Nobody wants to be told that they can't do
whatever it is they do. It
doesn't matter what we're not supposed to do any more, we fight this
step and tell ourselves we are
not going to "give in" to this disease. Somebody tells about another
"new" treatment and we rush
off to try that one. If we had lost an arm or leg due to an accident
we would ''accept'' the
different life style that would present, but for many reasons, we refuse
to accept that this disease
requires we accept some limitations if we are ever going to learn the
dance. The longer we ignore this
step and avoid it, the harder the dance is to learn.
4. Dance - Here is where we finally arrive if we can just get through
those first 3 stages. We are free to dance the "new" us. Hold the head
up high and do what you want to do and stop when it starts to hurt. Ignore
the comments of others who have no clue as to what you are dealing with.
Allow yourself the joy of sometimes doing what you want to do even when
it means not being able to do some of the things you are "supposed" to
do. Learn to tell the difference between what we need to do, have to do
and want to do. We need to take care of ourselves, we have to change
some of our life style, we want to enjoy life as much as physically possible.
Talk to the people in your life who are special and you want and have in
your lives. If they understand what you're going through that's great,
but if they don't understand that's ok too. When each day dawns, deal with
the pain and limitations this disease causes, but rejoice in the fact that
it is a new dawn and you are still here. Throw away any and all guilt you
feel because your disease doesn't show. Those standards by which we judge
illness no longer apply. Some people in your life will leave because of
this, but many will stay if you let them. This can be a very painful
part of this learning. You are the only person who can dance this dance.
Do it with style and grace and embrace what life has to offer and most
importantly enjoy every minute of it. Learning this dance requires change,
but what in life doesn't? If you have made it through the first three stages
of learning then it is time to laugh again and dance the dance.
"If you now qualify as a Fibro Fling dancer, then it is time for you
to teach others how to dance the
dance as well."