Apparently, fibromyalgia and gluten sensitivity have a lot of similar features, according to Deirdre Rawlings, writing for FOODS FOR FIBROMYALGIA.

Physical symptoms associated with gluten intolerance and celiac disease include the following:

• Abdominal cramping / bloating
• Abdominal distention
• Appetite increased (to the point of craving)
• Back pain
• Constipation
• Dehydration
• Decreased ability to clot blood
• Diarrhea
• Dry skin
• Edema
• Electrolyte depletion
• Energy loss
• Fatigue
• Gas / flatulence
• Mouth sores or cracks in the corners
• Muscle cramping (especially in the hands and legs)
• Night blindness
• Weakness and lethargy

Emotional states associated with gluten intolerance and celiac disease are:

• Brain fog
• Depression
• Difficulty concentrating
• Disinterested in normal activities
• Irritable
• Mood changes

How many of these sound like a person with fibromyalgia, depression, mild anxiety, and irritable bowel? Exactly. How about if I just list the symptoms I don’t have?

• _____?

Yeah, I’ve got it all. And my weekend (Friday-Sunday) was very, very gluten rich and surprisingly increasingly painful. So I might have a sensitivity, if not an allergy (I also sometimes break out in unexplained rashes, which I currently have), and I ought to ask my doctor to do tests to determine whether this is possible. Until then, I should eat a low-carb diet.

But gluten is sooooo yummy. My favorite foods are ice cream, bread, chocolate, and pasta.

So I could change my diet and possibly turn everything around (and also lose a lot of weight without my favorite foods to tempt me) but lose the comfort of those favorite foods except on rare occasion.

Or I could go on as if this weren’t a possibility.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I made an appointment for next Wednesday (3/10) with my rheumatologist and I will definitely be bringing this up.

Luckily, my “adoptive” grandmother (my husband’s maternal grandmother)’s husband has gluten intolerance and he eats a gluten-free diet, so she could have some great suggestions, and there are many cookbooks and diet books out there.

I don’t know what I’m hoping for. Maybe a notable sensitivity in tests, but not a complete intolerance, giving me the the ability to indulge in very small amounts and leading to a breakthrough turnaround that changes my life. Yeah, that would rock.

I know it seems like a silly little thing, but I am absolutely thrilled that my husband has made some new friends! Last weekend, I was unhappy that he left the house after freeing up my car to go prep for Sunday’s Magic tourney in Boston, and less happy when he called to say that he wouldn’t be home until 1am. However, when he got home and explained that he’d met some guys and went to one guy’s house and hung out there, I was thrilled!

This week, he’s stayed in contact with them through Magic websites and is hanging out most of tomorrow at his friend’s house to test Magic decks and watch the US vs. Canada gold medal hockey game. I’ll miss him, but I’m so, so happy that he found intelligent people with similar interest that he can spend time with and that he is feeling less isolated.

When it comes right down to it, Peter is more than my husband, he’s my best friend and I want him to be happy and content. I knew I could not do that on my own, but I can give him the freedom to spend time with friends.

Eleven years ago, in January of 1999, I was in a car accident. It happened just before spring semester of my freshman year of college, and I wound up having to take the semester off. However, I was alive and relatively well despite the mangled wreckage of the little red Mazda coupe I walked away from, and I was fervently grateful (compared to two years earlier, when I was deeply depressed and actually cursed having lived to see my 17th birthday).

This was the beginning of a great deal of introspection. Although I didn’t rediscover religion and (my version of) God until taking Chaos Theory two years later, I did begin to truly etch into being my understanding of my reason for being. I was no longer just living because my death would hurt others, but deciding what my life is. Then again, this is what all college students do after their first semester, when a teenager realizes she is now an adult and is living and learning toward the molding of her own future. In any event, that semester off is when I etched into the stoniest part of my mind my reason for living:

I am here to enrich the lives of others.

In other words, I’m not out to change the world, but if I can make the lives of those whose paths I cross a little bit sunnier, or at least suck a little less… well, that is what I’m here for.

So I became less interested in the diagnosis as in the prognosis. I became less overwhelmed by trying to solve my own problems as I became obsessed with trying to find solutions so other people I meet with similar problems might not have to flounder, or at least not feel alone. I became the person you know now. I became a math teacher for special needs students. I became a disability rights advocate. I became a better daughter and sister and friend. 

Fast-forward to a year ago. I was in severe pain constantly. I was struggling with attendance and performance at my cubicle-based curriculum job but could no longer be a classroom teacher. Just knowing me and my situation made friends and family sad. But worse was my home life: because of me, both my husband and my cat were losing hair and I had completely derailed the future we had set out for ourselves. By May, I had worked in physical therapy for over 6 months with little-to-no progress and all my prescriptions were refilled simultaneously. I recognized I was depressed but I was out of new medications to try. I had determined that everyone’s  life would be better if I was just removed from the equation, and that could only be done by a horrible accident. I stopped wearing my seatbelt, started driving less safely, and had started to research dosages each of my medications that would be safe if taken alone, but fatal in combination.

So I checked myself into Sheppard-Pratt, got 10 sessions of uni-lateral ECT (electro-convulsive therapy of a single hemisphere), and now find myself in the same place with a completely different mindset.

I have come to realize that it wasn’t my physical situation that made me a drain on people’s lives a year ago, it was my absolute, soul-deep despair.

Right now, I see options. I see being on disability an opportunity to be a better me, to better fulfill my other roles in life, as well as a chance to feel better. I have accepted the fact that I can’t be everything I want to be and that trying to just hurts the students I want to help and keeps me from being a good wife or being there for friends and family.

So once again, I look at why I was put on this Earth and remind myself that I am here to make others’ lives sunnier, happier, easier, or at least less sucky. I am here to be a good wife, cat-mommy, sister, daughter, aunt, friend, and more… and if I have to put the role of educator on the back-burner and put off the role of mother, well, I should focus on what I can do with the energy I have and be happy that I can afford to be so many things to so many wonderful people, and I will cherish and enjoy the time I can spend with them.

There’s something to be said for happiness inside a marriage. When two people are getting along and happy together, even if it’s a happy-you’re-happy and happy-we’re-getting-along and happy-because-we’re-not-thinking-about-tomorrow/next week/next year… well, it adds a general contentment to life. I may be anxious about the future and about the situations in the very-very-near-future, I know I have a partner and I know I can cope.

I have a plan of action (or, more specifically, homework) from my psychologist.

1. I need to keep a record of my stress/anger/frustration, its triggers, the response, and what I did that helped or hindered a pain response.
2. I’m going to do my best to cope with situations without holding tight until I snap or holding it in until I explode, but to actively communicate (verbally or nonverbally) my feelings when possible, assert my needs, exit overwhelming situations as needed, close down or reroute conversations that make me uncomfortable, and be less passive by initiating interactions with my siblings and telling my parents and siblings that I don’t want to be on a side or hearing any one half talking about the other.
3. I’m going to do more to initiate intimacy with my husband and get myself in the mood before initiation by not doing chores of any sort and doing something calming like reading (which might also get me in the mood by feeling romantic but is mostly there to help me get out unwanted feelings) before Peter gets home and for the rest of the evening. By “intimacy,” I don’t just mean sexual activity, but also just spending some relaxing time together.

That third part is more for when we’re at home, but it helps to keep it in mind, because I won’t be seeing my doctor again until Tuesday, January 5, and I’m hoping to have enough coping skills to return to work March 1 ::knock on wood::.

I promised my doctor that I would begin posting a journal entry every day, at least monitoring my wellness: depression, anxiety, pain, tiredness/energy, level of activity, and WW points consumed. So I will begin doing that as soon as possible. I’ve only just started looking for a good widget for WordPress.

Unfortunately, yesterday afternoon I was busy getting my interim grades in. They were makeshift, classwork-only grades, but that is all I could do in one night and all I am legally permitted to do as of this morning. With help from my husband, I was able to grade everything done with the subs (that had been collected) and thus grades were in and I went to bed before 1am.

So, the first weight off my mind is this: grades are in and I am not legally allowed to worry or dabble in work except, perhaps, to check my email.

What else is up? Well, Christmas is around the corner. Literally. So, on Saturday, I procrastinated grading by attacking Amazon.com, Overstock.com, and Novica.com to get gifts for: 2 parents, 2 parents-in-law, 2 brothers (+1 birthday), 2 sisters-in-law, 1 half-sister, 1 brother-in-law-in-law,  1 niece (+birthday), 2 nephews (+ 1 birthday), 1 close friend, 4 cats, 2 dogs, and 1 for the family gift exchange. I also stuck to only 4 presents (under $100 total) for my husband and kept everyone else under $20 per present.

So, the second weight off my mind is that I am done holiday gift-shopping.

The most important weight off my mind, however, is the most major concern I’d been having earlier: the d-word. After an awkward Saturday morning, I spoke with my husband and discovered he had no clue what he had actually said when we’d talked that fateful evening. He reassured me that yes, of course, he sometimes feels trapped. That’s natural. He still feels that we need couple’s counseling, but does not feel ready to discuss separation. We are both going to work hard to be a real couple and share each other’s lives. My getting a life, and having the energy to do things and be a helpmate rather than just a burden, will be a part of that. We even made love in the middle of the night last night, for the first time in waaaaay too long (well over a month) and I don’t plan for it to be the only time this week

So the third and final weight is that my husband and I are working on our marriage/partnership, rather than working on a separation.

Of course, out with the old, in with the new… Now that those weights left my shoulders, a few hovering birds have perched:

1. Finances and paperwork: it will take time, but I can help it out by slowly chipping away at it, doing what I can when I can, cutting out some costs and dipping into the money that has recently been regained in my nest egg. I’ll soon be cutting-out my cell’s data plan and my laptop wireless-anywhere connection and shopping at the supermarket regularly so we eat out far, far less.
2. Combatting depression: I’m going to have to set goals for each day and rules, such as only allowing myself 2 hrs of TV before 4pm. This will include a list of choices of recreational activities and a HUGE checklist of small tasks I can do with minimal pain, and forcing myself to do at least 1 task each day. Tomorrow, the task is to uncover and decorate the Christmas tree. I will also see my doctors regularly and remember to shower, dress, and take my AM meds as soon as I wake up.
3. Getting healthy: I will be using the WiiFit, other active Wii games, “Sit and Be Fit” DVD, or taking walks every single day – at least 30 minutes of activity in groups no smaller than 10 minutes. I will eat within my daily points allowance. I will chew gum or drink no-points, no-caffeine beverages when I feel an urge to nosh.

I’d like to set a routine for myself, but I don’t want to feel obligated to sleep more/less than I feel the need to on any particular day or set myself up for failure, so a list of tasks to check off and required activities seems to be the best bet.