Pain

Pain comes in so many varieties. Cutting yourself on a sheet of paper can hurt so much, but you can't feel pain from a major trauma (at first) because of the production of adrenaline. Muscle soreness after a hard workout can feel nice, the satisfaction of a heavy workout. You forget pain during childbirth, fortunately, but otherwise no woman would want to have a second child. And sometimes mental pain can feel real too. Pain because someone hurts you or the empathy of someone else's pain.

Pain is a response of the body. A warning: beware something is going on. Pain is most of the time for a few seconds, hours or days. But what if the pain doesn't go away. That the pain suddenly continues for weeks or months. That pain that cannot be explained. Pain throughout your body but not continuously and in the same place.

A few months ago I went to the doctor. Again with vague complaints: I have a kind of muscle pain in my hands that has no clear cause, but does not go away either. Fatigue that persists. Which I thought is due to the treatment, my thyroid, permanent fatigue after cancer. Loss of strength in my legs when I go down the stairs, can't keep my arms up while hanging the laundry. Sour legs when I walk up the stairs.

The doctor suspects a pain syndrome in / around my joints. She doesn't have a name on it yet, but I get a referral to the rheumatologist. I had already found that my complaints fit with Fibromyalgia. This is mainly determined by ruling out the possibility that there is another cause.

So we are entering a medical process again: taking blood tests, visiting a doctor and above all, waiting a long time. The rheumatologist finds no evidence of arthrosis or arthritis. My joints move smoothly and there is nothing abnormal in my blood. The conclusion: Fibromyalgia, also known as soft tissue rheumatism. A condition that is very vague. I may be in pain somewhere now, but it’s gone in a few hours. Pain that is not detectable. Pain that occurs in the soft tissues in other words: your muscles, tendons, connective tissue. Pain that is sometimes continuously present as a nagging feeling or pain that feels like they are stabbing you with a knife.

Because I had suspected for some time that this could be the case, I started reading up on what fibromyalgia entails. What can I expect. And actually the most important thing is: just learn to live with it. There is no medication for it, there is no telling how the future looks like. The expectation is that things will go well and bad in periods. Stress is an important trigger of pain complaints. I will have to get to know my body again. Finding my limits and trying to guard them. And something will go well one time and not another time.

A few weeks ago I went to Ikea with my daughter. We walked around there for an hour, but when I got home I had so much pain in my legs that I could barely walk normally. Feeling like you've run 10 km. But without that nice feeling that running always gave me. Now after a few weeks of having a lot of pain every time I use my legs, I've decided to help myself. So I went to the home care store to purchase a wheelchair. An extremely difficult step, but necessary to give my body a little more rest and thus save time and energy for my family.

Admitting you need help is one of the hardest things there is. I am confident that there will come a time when the wheelchair can stay in the shed. But right now I need the help of the wheelchair. So that I don't have to deny myself things or not be able to do anything for days, after an hour at Ikea, because of the pain.