Fibromyalgia wins the day

I didn’t make it to the rec center. I made it about half of the 2 mile walk to the rec center.

One of the joys of fibromyalgia is that it can lie in wait, silently, and POUNCE the moment you do anything physically stimulating. The pain started almost immediately, and escalated consistently as I walked toward the rec center. After about a mile, I knew I wasn’t going to make it. I sat down for a few minutes to let my body rest because the pain was so bad I wasn’t sure I could walk in any direction.

After a short rest, I started walking back toward home. The pain continued to increase as I walked home. It became nearly disabling. I kept having to stop to rest to let the pain subside just enough to allow me to continue my trek. By the time I was 5 minutes out, I was in tears from the pain and feeling the world’s biggest fool for crying just because I had to walk home, something people do and take for granted all the time.

I entered my home with gritted teeth. I walked straight to my bed, kicked my shoes off, and collapsed on my bed. I just lay there for probably 20 minutes, breathing deeply to keep the tears back, and waiting for the pain to recede to a manageable level.

The pain is still pretty bad. That’s another fun part of fibromyalgia. Just because you stop being active doesn’t mean the pain goes away. It sticks around, sometimes for 2 or 3 days, just to miff you.

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I really loathe walking…but I’m going to do it anyway

When I lived in a small town in Oregon, I actually walked everywhere and I loved it. If I’m walking to somewhere, I enjoy it. However, if I’m walking just to walk, walking to fulfill a fitness goal, I kind of really hate it. Yet, I’m about to head out on a walk/jog because I bought this Fitbit and I have a goal of 10,000 steps and the only way to do that is to leave my house. Unfortunately, there is NOTHING close by I can walk to. If I want to walk about 6 miles, I can walk to downtown, but I’m not sure I have 12 miles in me today.

I wish there was a walking app that had a “what’s nearby?” feature that showed what’s of interest that you can walk to. I’d walk to the library, but it’s closed of Sundays.  The only other thing I know of in my neighborhood is a Walmart and I don’t really want to walk around a Walmart.

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So after some googling, I found a rec center nearby, so I’m going to walk over there. Unfortunately, the pool is closed on Sundays, but I think the rest of the center is open. If nothing else, I can go and get more information.

The Worst Walk

Yesterday I went to the library! I’d never been to this library before. I didn’t even know it existed until late Friday night. They’re only open until 5pm on Saturdays and I normally get up between 1-3pm, so that doesn’t leave a lot of time to walk to the library and back, so I set my alarm for an “early” noon.

Yesterday afternoon, I got up, dawdled a little on my 3DS and phone, took a shower, and left.

I had already planned on yesterday being a fasting day before I knew about the library, and I didn’t alter that plan when I decided to go to the library. I also didn’t have any water before I left, and ended up walking during the hottest part of the day. Yeah, I’m brilliant.

The walk there didn’t actually phase me. I had planned to look around, maybe sit and read for a little bit, and then walk home. However, come to find out, this library was tiny. On top of that, it was FULL. With no place to sit down and feeling sort of out of place, I grabbed 2 books randomly from their very small fantasy collection, and the only Star Wars novel I could find.

I checked out, grabbed a drink from the water fountain, and left.

I only made it about a third of the way home (the walk is about an hour) before I was having difficulty breathing and was feeling like I was going to pass out. I found a shaded hill and sat down for a couple minutes.

For the rest of the walk, I felt extremely weak and dizzy, constantly on the brink of passing out. However, I don’t have phone service anymore, so I couldn’t even call anyone. I had to sit down again when I was about 15 minutes from home. I almost fell into the street just trying to sit.

Getting up that second time, I got tangled in my ankle-length dress trying to stand. As soon as I was upright, I had to lean against that wall next to the sidewalk so as not to fall. That last leg was brutal. I am sure I looked drunk, I was swaying and just struggling to stay upright.

Finally, I reached my street. Just one more hill (luckily down hill) and I was home.

As I crossed the street to my block, a police office pulled up to the intersection. I was seriously tempted to ask him to drive me the half block to my house.

Once inside, I kicked off my shoes and collapsed on my dad’s bed (it’s closer than mine, and underneath the air conditioning unit) and lay there for about 20 minutes until I could see properly again.

On the plus side, my legs were fine. Despite the fact that I haven’t taken a 2 hour walk in quite some time, all my biking has paid off. However, my body really does not appreciate the not eating, not drinking water, etc.

Too bad. It’d better get used to it. I’m determined to go back to restricting. I’m sick and tired of bulimia.