I’ve been feeling very frustrated over my fibromyalgia-related limitations. This past week, my arms (or, rather, the shoulder-blades/upper-back region) have been hurting horribly and the muscles have swollen. This weekend (Sat & Sun), I did nothing. Quite literally nothing (aside from using the bathroom, brushing my teeth (electric toothbrush), and feeding myself a limited amount).  I lay in bed listening to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo yesterday and some Neil Gaiman short stories today, sometimes propping myself up in bed and doing Kakuro (cross-sums) puzzles while I listened.

My husband spent the weekend at a “Magic: The Gathering” Grand Prix tournament just outside D.C., coming home only to sleep a few hours Saturday night and finally crash around 5pm on Sunday. He did very well Saturday (top 220 out of 1930, getting him into the 2nd day’s rounds), but the adrenaline high only lasted enough to get him home. So I haven’t seen much of him or gotten to talk to him.

Talking on the phone has been difficult, as has being on the computer, due to the amount I need to use my arms. So I haven’t been able to spend time chatting with my sister or brothers or niece & nephews or grandmother (well, technically, my husband’s grandmother, but she’s adopted me which is a wonderful warm fuzzy feeling).

I couldn’t clean the kitchen floor so local students can be invited to study here. I couldn’t put books on shelves downstairs to get the tutoring room together. Heck, I couldn’t even put dishes away and could barely refill my water bottle with the Brita. The stuff that’s left over from the renovation needs to be returned to Home Depot and Lowes, but my husband has to put it into my car. And the kitty litter, which I’d thought my husband had changed when we went and got litter on Thursday, had not been changed (and it was disgusting then – I am so, so angry)!

Someone’s going to come do a home visit to see if it’s a suitable foster-dog placement. Right now, I’m not ready to let someone into my home.

I feel let down… My husband said I could count on him to do things for me on Thursday and Friday evenings, but that wasn’t completely true, because he really was only willing to do 30 minutes worth of work, max, and if that involved going out and picking up the litter, well, then the litter would have to be changed later. My husband made it sound like I could depend on him to handle the garbage every week, but he will only take 1 trip out on Thursday morning, so if everything can’t be brought on that trip it’ll have to wait. So, when I came down on Thursday, the master bedroom garbage pail was empty (but still in the kitchen) and the cooler from eDiets and the big black garbage bag were gone, the kitchen garbage was still very very full.

It’s a horrible situation: my husband is extremely vehement that he does NOT want people coming in to help me clean even just once in specific rooms, but he is too busy and needs some down time and therefore hasn’t had time to do much cleaning, like scrub the kitchen floor or counters, or wash windows, or do the dishes last week, or just put the Home Depot stuff in my car (I can tip someone for helping me load and bring it into the store), or even go get his own Pepsi out of my car. I understand his point of view: he wakes up early, works all day, needs some time to decompress, needs some time to have fun, and needs to sleep… He’s tired and may feel put upon by all the things that need doing that I can’t share the burden of. He does something for me every day and still that never seems to be enough, I always seem to have more that I’m asking of him.

But carrying my dinner plate and a water bottle to the living room is painful – I can’t do much of anything and just keep hurting myself when I try. We’re running out of clean clothing, but he hasn’t carried any laundry down and may not always be available to carry it back up. Going to Target to get my prescriptions was difficult because I had to pick up shampoo for my husband (which was very heavy, ridiculously enough, but so was pushing a cart) and I got home in so much pain I was dizzy and nauseous.

I guess this is something we can talk about in counseling tomorrow. But I feel helpless and frustrated because I don’t feel like there’s any non-painful way to deal with the situation. No matter what, I’ll be the jerk of a bad guy. Either my husband throws himself into pitching in (maybe he doesn’t see the urgency of the school year ending, of HSA week being this coming week, of me missing important opportunities by waiting) or I’ll need his consent to get someone to come by and clean the kitchen and basement and windows, and perhaps pay a former student to help me get the tutoring room together. But I kind of hit my breaking point this weekend, forcing myself to do nothing while seeing so much to do…

On a more positive note, my husband did say it’s okay for me to buy some personal training sessions with an Elite Personal Trainer at the Columbia Athletic Club, so that someone can help me strengthen my body and arms without exacerbating the injury. So, at least there’s that.