5 Things to Keep Me Going

Today marks the start of a journey for me. I'm going to start titrating down off of my pain meds. That means I'll be in pain, but hopefully I'll have my brain back. I've felt like I've dropped about 30 IQ points in the last month and I've decided that I would rather be in pain and learn how to manage it the best I can. The following things are what I need to remember while I'm starting to feel the pain again.

I have a wonderful fiancé. One of the reasons I want to get off the meds is so I can be back to my old stubborn sparkly self. I want to remember the times I have with him and I want to be cognitively available for him. I am so incredibly lucky to be with him.

I live in a house where we have a room solely dedicated to computers and crafts. My craft room is for stuff. We have a whole room just for things. That's more room than about 5/6 of the world has. It's amazing if you think about it.

I am close to a lot of my family. So many of my friends aren't close to their families. They "hate" their mom or their dad's never been in the picture. I live only an hour and a half away from my parents and my sister and love going back and hanging out with them. The rest of my family is out west and, while I'm not physically close to them, I get to talk with them on the phone and there's no bad blood in my family. I like that and am thankful for it.

Even though I've got fibromyalgia and I'm in pain, it could be so much worse! I could have a disease that could kill me or a degenerative disease or something like that. Yes, I'm in pain, but honestly, I'd rather have this and be able to think and work from home than be in the hospital for the next few years until I die.

I have food that is nutritious and tasty. The fact that I have incredible choice in what I eat is something that, again, 5/6 of the world doesn't have. I am so lucky.

So, the next few weeks are going to be hard. But I have everything that I just mentioned, as well as the site (that I'm really excited to be updating soon!), so I need to remember all of this when I'm hurting. Thank you to all of you for allowing me to have this wonderful job!

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi