A Human Barometer

Thunderstorms are headed my way

I never thought I’d be a human barometer.  Not until fibromyalgia entered my life.  I used to love rainy days and thunderstorms.  I would sit on the couch by the window and read while I watched it rain.  I loved falling asleep to the sound of rain and thunder.  Now, I dread storms.  I can feel them coming hours before hand.  It’s 70% humidity here today and they’re calling for scattered thunderstorms this afternoon and evening.  I’m a more trustworthy weatherman than any of them on my local news stations.  I can feel it in my bones when a storm is coming.

Late last night, my pain entered the horrible range.  I had to take extra medicines to fall asleep and I already take plenty – a good dose of muscle relaxers and Klonopin every night.  The pain woke me up at 4:30am.  I got another ice pack and took more medicines and slept until 9:30.  I woke up miserable.  Every part of me hurts bad, and  my head is throbbing.  I always feel the weather the most in my head, neck and legs.  I’m not sure why it’s those three that get the worst.  My feet are killing me and I want a foot massage badly.  I’ve been dozing for the last half hour.  Once I can take my next dose of pain medicine at 1:40pm, I’m also taking a muscle relaxer to try to sleep through this afternoon’s storms.  Sometimes, if I can sleep through the worst of the storms, I can decrease my miserableness.  If I’m awake all through the storms, my brain  never shuts off and my pain just builds and builds.

My mom emailed me yesterday.  She watches the weather now and is concerned when storms are forecast.  She lives in West Virginia and I’m in Virginia.  There’s usually a day’s delay for weather to hit her and then hit me.  It’s sweet that she knows enough about my illness now to email me in concern about how the weather will effect my pain.  There are lots of triggers for my pain that I can control — stress, emotional distress, over or under exercising, etc.  But I can’t control the weather.  The best I can do is ride out the storms.  Not bad advice for living life actually.

May we all ride out our storms as best we can and come out feeling better on the other side.