Is it foggy in here?

For me, Fibro fog has been one of the very worst tortures of having fibromyalgia. Like a thief in the night, it crept up quietly on me at first; I hardly even noticed it. As it got worse I found myself shaken to the very core…. Was I going crazy?

I had my ‘mother’ of all fibro flares just a few months after having my fifth child. You see, I had two pregnancies very close together, my two youngest children are 13months apart, so I had been suffering from ‘baby brain’- which I am told is not just an old wives tale, apparently the condition causes less oxygen to travel to the brain as your body is using it to give the baby. So after about 22 months of pretty much constantly being pregnant I was suffering badly from what I thought was baby brain, which is mainly forgetting stuff all the time, appointments, birthdays, what day it was…… you get the idea.

In true typical woman style, we adapt to our environment, rather than changing it, and after I had the babies I still had baby brain, but I was so used to it I hardly noticed. Instead of improving it got worse and worse - to the stage where friends, family, even my own kids would joke about my antics, such as not being able to remember where we were going once I had made it to the end of the driveway, or I would ask my eldest to get ‘those things I need to start the car’ or I would ask my daughter to get the hairbrush from ‘that room you have a shower in’ I knew the word, but I just couldn’t say it, I would then get very, very frustrated with myself, who does that? Who can’t remember simple words like keys, or bathroom?

I continued to get worse and worse, if I found myself in a situation where I was rushed, excited or needed to say something in a hurry I would stammer and stutter unable to put the words together in order to convey my feelings at that time, followed by more frustration.

I have lived with what I now understand to be Fibro pain and fatigue for most of my adult life, but in the latter part of 2010 I had the worst flare I could ever have imagined possible, the pain got so bad, coupled with so many other things going wrong with my body and having two infants and three other children to care for it all got a little bit too much and I am sad to say that I not only got angry with myself but I got grumpy with everyone around me. I was at breaking point, I would get angry, snap at someone, and then burst into tears, because I knew that I shouldn’t be getting angry at other people - it wasn’t their fault.

I went through three months of complete hell on earth, I was in pain, angry, tired, frustrated, mixed up, confused, alone and trying with every fibre of my being to try and keep it together, I was on the brink, if ever in all of my life there was a time I thought that I may be going crazy it was right then – I stopped sleeping altogether, I would lie awake in bed agonising over the day before, then I would get up the next day tired, emotionally drained, sore and do it all over again.

I have had some dark times in my life where I have felt that I was looking into a deep dark abyss, but I have never been that depressed and that close to the brink that I was afraid I would be swallowed up – not until then.

I was fortunate enough to be referred to a Rheumatologist, but to see her meant a 800km trip to our capital city, which in my fragile confused state was a mammoth effort just in itself, booking accommodation, packing for 7 people, organising, preparing while moving through mind fog that had become so thick that I could barely see two fingers in front of my face. I made it and was finally given some medication to combat some of the pain, but mainly it has been a miracle with getting rid of my fibro fog.

 After 2 months on the medication I began to realise a lot of changes that were happening gradually over that time, I began to remember things a little easier, I found myself getting frustrated less and stopped snapping at people. My memory is not perfect and I still have my moments, but I am happy to report that things are getting a little better in the fog department these days.

I just wish that I knew then what I know now, I just wish that I had known that I wasn’t going crazy, and I hope that by creating awareness that someone, somewhere who may be going through what I went through, or has been there, can find comfort in knowing that it will be alright, you don’t need to suffer through this alone.