My Story Part 1 - The Finding Out

My Story...

Part 1 - The Finding Out

Have you ever had one of those days where you search endlessly for that hot cup of tea you made 30 minutes ago, only to find it in the fridge? Well...welcome to brain fog! 

 

In 2014 I was busy multi-tasking jobs. During the week I taught as a performing arts lecturer at a local college and examined for a national board. In the evenings I was a paid director and choreographer for local, and some not so local, amateur dramatics musical shows. At the weekend, as well as the usual preparation and marking, teachers are bound to, I ran my own dance classes. 

Now you might be sitting there thinking well that sounds like quite a lot, especially if you are a teacher, director, choreographer or examiner. However, obviously I am a self-professed superhero, I am female, I was born a superhero, all women are! Now before I hear shouts from the menfolk, I did not say men were not. In fact, I know many male superhero's, so be calm, you can have that accolade too.

So, obviously from being busy with my multitudinous commitments I was indeed occasionally tired. In fact, as the year went on I seemed to become more and more fatigued. I began getting tired in the dance classes, more so at the college as they were quite demanding due to the age group I was teaching. This continued to the point where I had to sit down during the classes. It didn't affect the students, as they were 16+ up to degree, so more than capable of continuing to work physically on their own. However, for me, someone physically very fit it was somewhat confusing and frustrating. Things then took a further downward slide when I attended meetings. I would suddenly have absolutely no idea what we were discussing. Now I realise, this could be blamed on intensely boring subject matter or droning mono tone voices, but generally speaking, the content was usually interesting and relevant to me so... During the meetings people would start looking at me in a confused manner saying, "we just discussed that" or "I emailed everyone about it before the meeting". In truth I had either completely missed the email on the list in my Inbox or I had read the email and entirely missed the point of what was being said. This was not something that had happened before, and it began to happen more and more. To the point where I actually thought I had lost what few marbles* were remaining at the end of each day. I simply could not concentrate and maintain focus on things that were written, and my body was sinking further and further into the fatigue pit. It honestly felt like I was dragging myself through mud! I seemed to be collecting more and more bodily aches and I started to get a severe pain near my coccyx bone. Meaning, frustratingly, that even if I was tired and aching sitting down provided no relief or comfort.

Now I had, over a period of about eight months been to see several doctors to try and garner some reason for my ever-decreasing marbles, aches and the literal pain in my bum, but nothing was forthcoming. Eventually after seeing various people, blood tests etc…etc, and finding it extremely tempting to stand in the middle of the street screaming “There is clearly something wrong with me, why can no one tell me what!”, I was directed to the Rheumatology department at the local hospital to where I was living. There I met a very pleasant, smiley doctor whom I shall call, Dr Bonce. I was in the consultation for about 10 minutes, in fact just long enough for him to watch me do a few stretches, test my reflexes and watch me walk forwards and back again. He then diagnosed me with Fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition, and hyper mobility of the joints (not unusual in dancers, apparently). Dr Bonce went on to explain, Fibromyalgia was a bit of an unknown entity in the medical profession as it is an umbrella term for a number of symptoms, very difficult to diagnose and treat. He gave me two leaflets and sent me on my way. Now at the time, and to this day, I was mightily relieved and thankful to have been given an actual diagnosis of something. Something to justify what was happening to me however vague the explanation may have been. Looking back, from a more comical viewpoint, he had basically given me two leaflets, that really didn’t provide much useful information, other than how to spell Fibromyalgia, patted me on the head (hence the name, Dr Bonce*) saying “Well done, congratulations. You have Fibromyalgia! Now off you trot”.  

So, I went away with my precious diagnosis and the impression that, OK, I had a bit of chronic pain and fatigue. Take a few paracetamol, rub in some Ibuleve gel, get a few good night’s sleep, it’ll all be good.

 

Erm…no…that is definitely NOT what happened next …

 

*I should explain for my non-British readers, your ‘bonce’ is your head and ‘marbles’ your brain power.