Time for a Time Out to Tame the Black Dog

It's fair to say that, over the past few weeks, I've become disinterested in being ill, or at least I've become disinterested in writing about my illness.

Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy writing and maintaining this blog, it's just that I've reached the point in my illness where I want to focus less on it and more on myself. Is this a common feeling among the chronically ill? Is it just a phase I have to get through in order to reach the next level?

I don't know.

I feel like I've written all I can about being ill - regardless of the never ending array of new and strange symptoms - I can only write so much about sleep deprivation, back pain, restless legs, brain fog, headaches, irritable bowel syndrome. Nothing is new. Nothing inspires me to write.

This could, of course, be a symptom of that other invisible illness which is hounding me at the moment -  that big black dog depression (for which I have now been prescribed Prozac, as I couldn't tolerate Duloxetine, and some counselling - we'll see where that takes me!)

In short, what I think I'm saying is: "I need a break from focusing on how ill I am!"

In short, I'm saying au revoir for a while. It could be a short while or a long while - it depends on when and where I find inspiration (so I may be back next week!!)

I have a post scheduled for Monday morning - a sponsored post about a product I think you'll find worthwhile - and then I'm going to focus on taming that black dog!

Meeting The Ghost of My Former Self.

I used to be quite a fit and healthy young man. From the age of sixteen I was forced into activities I wouldn't ordinarily have undertaken. Up to sixteen I avoided any physical activity because I thought I couldn't do them with any flare or skill like my schoolmates could. I was crap at everything - running - always came last, swimming - always came last, football - always last to be picked, cricket - ditto, hockey - ditto. Sport + Gary McArthur = Disaster.

At sixteen I joined the police cadets and everything changed. I knew it would and I wanted it to. Suddenly I was challenging my attitude to physical activities as something to be shunned by forcing myself (or being forced) to undertake them on a daily basis. Granted I still wasn't any good at them, but I tried to break my mindset towards them. The police force got me hiking, abseiling, camping, canoeing, mountain climbing, cross-country running, orienteering, weight training and partaking in almost every other sport known to man in much the same way as the army trains a team of dropouts into soldiers. The police force instilled discipline and order and gave me a massive sense of achievement. In amongst all of the legal definitions and laws and regulations the police force also gave me good health which lasted me well into my thirties. Conversely, it also taught me how to drink like a fish! (but never lose my self control) and that's another story for another time.

From sixteen until my mid-thirties I considered myself to be a fit and healthy individual - not obsessive, but I remained lean and strong and enjoyed outdoor activites like hiking. I'd bump into former school mates who'd let themselves go by piling on the pounds and I felt quietly smug that I hadn't descended into obesity. I was no longer embarrassed by my slender build as I had been at school.

Then.

Then I suddenly died. It wasn't gradual or slowly degenerative. It was overnight. I woke one day with backache. It was 2003. Between then and now I haven't had a single day without pain. Obviously, there have been good and bad, as well as bad and really bad, days, but every day I have had some level of pain in my back. Sometime after the backache began I started to get pain all over my body - arms. legs, head, neck, feet, fingers, toes, hips, knees, and sometime after those symptoms started I began to get the internal ones, IBS, Crohn's, you know the drill. Fibro affects us all in pretty much the same way and a whole myriad of different strokes for different folks.

The point is this, on that day in 2003 when I awoke with backache, my former self had died in its sleep. Over the course of the next thirteen years, as each symptom struck, I gradually became the ghost of the Gary McArthur I used to be.

The physically fit Gary McArthur became the disabled Gary McArthur, and over the course of 2015 the Gary McArthur who was always positive and happy go lucky and forward thinking and strong, became the depressed Gary McArthur, the negative and whining and hopeless Gary McArthur, and it was at this point in my life that I finally met, or recognised, the ghost of my former self - that skinny and spotty little sixteen year old boy, who'd been scared of all physical activities who, through sheer determination, had turned it all around, who'd laughed in the face of his fears and grown to love them (without ever being any good at any of them) was dead. He died when I gave up being 'well'. He died when I gave up fighting. He died when I lost hope during the course of 2015 and became depressed. He died despite reading hundreds of blog posts by other fibromyalgia 'survivors', all with a positive message that laughed in the face of their illness. He died when I stopped laughing in the face of mine.

But, fear not, for that skinny little sixteen year old's spirit is still inside me and he will live again.

I've set myself a goal for 2016: To find the spirit and the grit and the determination and the hope I had as a sixteen year old boy, and laugh once more in the face of my illnesses. To challenge myself in the way I did when I joined a career path I knew I wasn't suited to, simply to face my fear of all things physical.

Being A Fibro Dad at Christmas

Christmas is a wonderful time of year. A time for living, a time for believing, a time for trusting, not deceiving, love and laughter and joy ever after, ours for the taking,..... ahem! sorry, slipped into Cliff Richard mode there, but Christmas is definitely a great occasion best spent with family and friends. Great nights in, great nights out, fun, laughter and yes, joy ever after. (Cliff was so right!)

But what's Christmas like when you're in constant pain?

I've spent thirteen Christmasses in varying degrees of agony. Christmas 2002 was spent looking after my heavily pregnant wife - pushing her around town in a wheelchair because the baby had decided to settle on a nerve somehow. A year later and I'd been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a condition which I didn't fully appreciate at the time. Nor did I have time to. A new baby to care for, a wife with post natal depression and anxiety to care for, a house to look after and a full time job, there was no time to think about what I was doing to myself. 

I started coming down with every condition known to mankind - flu, bronchitis, cold after cold, stomach disturbances, and pain. So much pain. My back was the worst, lower to middle, aching constantly, but I fought on and each Christmas I stood at the oven cooking the family feast. No matter how much pain I was in. I'll be doing so this year too. My wife and I promised ourselves that we'd book somewhere for this Christmas but her mother wouldn't hear of it, so  it'll be just as it always is.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Christmas, and I love cooking the meal, but once in a while I'd like to give my body a rest from it. Thankfully we don't have a massive family descending upon us each year - but, sometimes, it would be nice to, so that we could go to them!

Also, since 2003 we've had our little bundle of joy to entertain and excite in the run up to the big day. A a father I was suddenly expected to not only cook the Christmas dinner but also unpack and assemble the latest fad-toy - Disney Princess houses, fairy coaches, Barbie cars, kitchens, Littlest Pet Shop villages, Play Mobil schools and villages and cafe's, Moshi-Monster tree houses - all of which seem to have been packaged in high security metal twists and impregnable duct tape, with no prospect of speedy opening or the "Easy assembly" promised on the box! It's difficult enough for a fully able bodied person to fathom these things out. Manufacturers obviously conclude that because you're buying for a child, you're young enough and fit enough to unpack and build their items - they don't think of the less able bodied.  

Thankfully, this year it's fashion and make-up and Hunger Games Mockingjay stuff so there'll be no assembling (fingers firmly crossed) and Emily is at an age to understand that I'm no longer Superman. Imagine telling an excited little girl that she can't play with her new toys until Daddy has the strength to assemble them? It never happened. I pushed through the pain to complete the task, and paid for it later. But it was all worth it in the end and we have some very happy memories to look back on - my only regret is that I don't know how much better it could have been had I not been in agony for most of it.

How do you cope with Christmas? Do you push through and suffer the consequences later, or do you hide yourself away until it's all over? 

Counting My Spoons - The Interview

This week I am honoured to have been the subject of an interview by Julie Ryan who operates the Counting My Spoons web site. 

The site has been running a series of interviews (Fibro Warriors) detailing the lives of those affected by Fibromyalgia, and I am one of a number of men who've shared their 'fibro-journey'.

You can read the full interview by clicking HERE

Many thanks to Julie for giving me the opportunity to share my story.