The Aftermath

In early 2000 I met someone through an online rpgroup. We started talking about life, ourselves, etc and I finally talked about my family and life and he listened. He made me feel better, something no one else had achieved in forever. We talked every night and our relationship grew with each passing day until a month later he told me he was in love with me. That scared me to no ends. I was already in a relationship that had been dead for the past 8 years if not longer and here I had someone else telling me he loved me. Me? With my level of self esteem, I felt that I did not deserve this, that it was too good to be true.

One thing he did give me was the courage to finally make a decision since I'd been sitting at that particular crossroads for the past 3 years.

Today, 10 years later, I'm living with my soulmate, my dream man and I wouldn't change a thing. I'd be worried I wouldn't meet him if an event was changed in the previous 19 years.

We've been struggling financially between caring for a disabled child and living in a substandard apartment without heat or hot water for 3 years while the court case kept being remanded time after time because the deadbeat landlord kept not showing up and his so called hack of a lawyer kept pleading for extensions. That was finally resolved and we moved out as soon as we could.

We now live in a different city in a small apartment. It's not the Taj Mahal, but it is home for us. My darling husband suffers from chronic kidney stones. He passes them all the time as well as gravel. All this means he's in pain pretty well 24/7. We manage, we take care of each other as best we can.

In 2003 I was diagnosed with diabetes. Kind of expected it since it runs in the family. I'd managed to push it away for a few more years but my being metis didn't help.

I still experience crippling back pain every morning and still roll out of bed but now the pain has spread throughout my body. I wash dishes in boiling hot water in the morning to regain the use of my hands.

I finally saw a neurologist in 2006 who diagnosed me with neuropathy in my feet and lateral neuropathy in my legs and arms. He prescribed amitriptylene and it has done wonders for me. I don't feel like my feet are constantly on fire anymore but I do feel jabs and spasms in my feet and hands.

Every year the amount I take has gone up by 10 to 20 milligrams because I was feeling more and more pain. The kind I call phantom since there is nothing there to cause the pain I'm feeling. I also started experiencing weakness in some muscles, I cannot make a hard fist with my hand without the muscles in my arms spasming. I have problems with sensitive skin, some days I cannot stand anything on my arms or back. Other days I slip on a shirt and it feels like I just put on a shirt made of brillo pads.

So finally this spring I went back to my neurologist and after a thorough examination and answering a lot of questions, he concluded that I exhibit enough symptoms of fibro to now officially have it.