I look like a normal 24-year-old woman.
I attend parties and college football games, havea writing careerand a slew of awesome friends.
But underlying this facade of normality is the constant self-management of my sometimes-debilitating condition: fibromyalgia.
Courtesy Of The Writer
Growing up, I took extra bathroom trips for theUTI symptomsthat were never UTIs.
I took naps for the mysterious leg pain thats only cure was sleep.
I popped Pepto-Bismol to avoid the digestive symptoms that would send my whole body into a mind-numbing tizzy.
The writer with her niece, February 2016
I went to doctors, who sent me for tests.
All came back normal.
On paper, I was a healthy child, so all my management was quiet and secretive.
New Year’s 2015
Chronic pain is a fascinating thing.
Doctors have cleared you to live that normal life, so you just work through the symptoms.
You see them as unfortunate annoyances, but nothing more.
Researchers think we cryin part to signal to others that we need help.
When you have chronic pain, youre not sure you do.
You know it hurts, but you dont know why.
Youve tried to get help, but its been ineffective.
So what do you do?
Writhe on the floor?
Youve learned these pain responses do nothing to take away the hurt.
You learn to live through it.
Growing up, I did.
Butafter fifteen years of inexplicable pain, my body refused to be ignored.
I finally fell apart in the summer of 2011.
I woke up one June morning with flank pain, slinking down the left side of my body.
It sidelined me from my workouts, and then it grew worse.
It was hard to breathe and impossible tofall asleep.
I wound up in the ER for the first time in my life.
Doctors gave me a CT scan, and told me that the pain was most likely akidney stone.
I remember lying on that hospital bed, feeling confused and concerned.
I could feel my body reeling.
Completely going to pieces was the only way it could signal its need to finally be heard out.
Four days later, I was back in the ER.
Those spasms morphed into full-body sensitivity, concentrated in my legs and throughout my back.
Doctors tossed around scary terms like aortic dissection and lupus, neither of which turned out to be correct.
So I went home again.
But I didnt get answers either.
I went back and forth to the hospital five times that summer.
Fibromyalgiais still somewhat of a black box to the medical community.
The condition seems toimpact the central nervous system.
It affects the way the brain processes messages, seeming to misread everyday sensations as full-blown pain signals.
There are lots of theories, but few firm answersand none that seems to explain everyones fibromyalgia case.
But you dont look sick!
is one of the most common phrases people throw my way when they hear I have fibromyalgia.
I know, I reply.
Believe me, I do.
I work incredibly hard to look not sick.
I also work incredibly hard to sidestep my symptoms and remain stable.
Every time I encounter a new activity or obstacle, I really question if its worth it.
Im glad they dont.
And I will not let you pity me.
Another common thing people say about my fibro?
Most people have heard about fibromyalgia; they know someone whos been diagnosed, theyve seen the commercials.
They know its painful.
But its not tragic.
Not for me anyway.
Pain is now the signaling system that tells me I need to check in with my body.
It helps me slow down, stay well andtake care of myselfin ways Ive never done before.
Had I not flared at age 19, Id have never started writing about health.
I wouldnt have gotten to know myself deeply, before building out a social life in my twenties.
I wouldnt be who I am today.
And despite many flaws, I am proud of that girl.
I might not be normal.
After all these years, Ive come to accept that.
But maybe I was never meant to beand thats finally more than okay.
