Back from Hiatus!

Hi everyone! I'm baa-ack! I know it was a long hiatus. The holidays were really, really tough on me this past year. To be honest, by January, I was feeling like a bit of an emotional trainwreck, so I didn't want to risk subjecting any readers I might have to all of THAT!

So. This is the NEW fibrogrrl blog. You might have noticed, I changed the name. I really loved Phoenix Rising, because it seemed to fit so well. BUT, my rising from the ashes has been very slow to date, AND it just so happens that there is ALREADY a blog called Phoenix Rising, and it's about CFS.

Fibrogrrl, if you're wondering, stems from a couple of different things; first my fellow Gen-Xers may remember the whole RiotGrrl movement. Although I'm not sure I'd call myself a RiotGrrl, a big part of my life pre-Fibro was dedicated to the pursuit of and enjoyment of good music. I was a grunge girl, wore babydoll dresses with 20-hole Doc Martens. Or with pink schoolgirl skirts and knee-his while smoking in the parking lot of my high school. I listened to Hole and Human Wast Project, and wanted to be sure everyone understood that girls could rock just as hard as the guys, and that we could run in music industry circles WITHOUT being groupies.

Most of my credit card charges were for schoolbooks and concerts. I even had a fabulous internship at a music mag where it was my job to go to concerts and shows and give out free stuff or execute marketing promotions between the magazine, and partners which included radio stations and bands (none other than LA.'s World Famous KROQ, and the likes of Metallica, or Korn!)
Pre-Fibro, music was my life. I judged people by the music they liked, picked boyfriends and friends the same way. Sounds crazy, right? But really, the type of music a person likes says a lot about a person. Or so it seemed at the time, lol. Those were some good times. I lived, breathed, and dreamt music. I could go the Sunset Strip and go to any of the famous little clubs you hear about anytime a cool band was playing, and I would know someone there, whether music lover, person in the band, a journalist or mangement, and various other people from the music industry. I rubbed shoulders with soon-to-be rockstars and sometimes the actual thing. And no I was NOT a groupie, lol. (Actually, you had better not have even used that word with me!) I actually hated how full of themselves guys in bands could be, so I rarely gave them the time of day...I left them to their true groupies. I just wanted to be around the music, and the people who loved it.

Okay. So, the other part of Fibrogrrl is that, well, to be honest, living with a chronic illness, much less a few of them, sometimes it CAN feel like you need Superpowers or something. It's not something like Cancer, where you (usually) go through a set period of hellish treatments (which at least are proven to work) and then you're either better, usually for good, or you are no longer of this Earth. Everyone understands the severity of Cancer. They know it's not always visible on the outside. They don't question a person with Cancer for managing to pull off looking normal, like so often happens with FM and other invisible illnesses. (It's like, sheesh, well excuse me for using makeup, putting on my best clothes, taking extra pain medicine and managing to smile for family and the cameras for a couple hours on holidays, sure that MUST mean I'm just fine, right?)

With chronic illness, you have to reconcile yourself with the fact that you may be feeling almost normal one day, or several even, and then feel like you honestly are trying to summon Super-human might just to get started with your day or accomplish the most trivial of things the very next day. Sometimes just getting through the day almost feels like too much...

I recently heard or read someone remarking that they thought it would be better to just have a leg amputated than live with Fibromyalgia, because at least then you would know what to expect, you could deal with it, and get on with life. I have to say I agree...Awful as it sounds, even w/o a prosthesis, you would at least know what you were up against every day, and learn to work around it. The scenarios with my particular group of illnesses are so varied, I can't seem to get a handle on them, and it drives me nuts!

I'm stubborn, a fighter, a problem solver. I'm used to being the underdog. But I was also used to meeting my goals, getting to the finish line. The hardest thing for me to accept is that my health seems to be a problem I cannot solve. I've tried so many things, evaluated, re-evaluated. Pushed myself, forced myself to rest...Nothing seems to work. When I have more than a few good days sometimes it seem like a cruel joke...I get so happy that I can be a productive human being, feel useful again, not feel like a failure, let go of the guilt that plagues me for not being able to work a normal job...I begin to think maybe I just wasn't pushing hard enough before...that I'm just wasn't being disciplined enough with myself. I start to have hope that I can find a way to make money despite my health...and then it all comes crashing down. Hopes crashed, coping skill sets must be switched. No amount of pushing will help, because I just physically can't. And did I mention that even the good days are challenging to get through?

Anyhow, so that's what that change and name are all about.

Stay tuned for next time, an update on my battles with Dysautonomia and Chronic Enteroviral Infection. Fun stuff. lol!