Mad, fat, bipolar woman is back

I’m back!

I know, “What could she possibly have to tell us now?” I would like to talk to you all about the “shocking truth” of Fibromyalgia. This is a condition that I was diagnosed with several years ago and, as my life has changed, my body has changed and my emotional state has changed, so has my condition.

A few years ago I was working at a popular retail store and I noticed that as things got worse and worse at work, so did my health. I would wake up in the morning feeling like I had the worst flu on the planet. You know, when you get the flu and every part of your body aches and you get those quick sharp pains in whatever joint Satan decides to send it to. Well, take that pain and multiply it by 100 and that is what I was feeling whenever I was stressed. We discovered it was this crazy thing called Fibromyalgia. I learned that it definitely was triggered by stress. Eventually I quit the retail store and for a long time I went without any symptoms except for a few times a year.

In the last few months, things have gotten a million times worse. I know, “Dyanne, why are you exaggerating?” That is how it feels to me. I could barely lift my coffee cup in the morning and for those of you who know me that is a VERY IMPORTANT part of my life. Don’t even talk to me before I have had my coffee and cigarette.

Get up and do the chores a stay-at-home mom would do on a regular basis? FORGET ABOUT IT! I was in bed for days, huddled under a blanket that I never slept with normally. I am the girl who sleeps under a sheet with the fan on and window open in the winter. If you ever see me under a blanket you know I must not be doing well.

About three weeks ago I started getting theses shocking pains radiating down my arms and legs into my feet and hands. I was also experiencing crazy muscle spasms where it felt like every organ in my body was having a charley horse. My neighbor next door was telling me, “OMG, you have MS, you are going to die.” So I started panicking and doing Google searches. It was bad. I was talking to my husband, telling him that he needed to prepare for me to die. He looks at me like I’m crazy and tells me to knock it off, and I would look him dead in the face and say, “No, listen, you need to be prepared. I want a celebration not a funeral. Have me cremated, I don’t want 10 men to have to carry my fat butt. Plus the massive coffin would be crazy expensive. Spread my ashes out at the farm. Also, make sure you take care of mom and dad and don’t let anything happen to the homestead.” I WAS DYING!

Well, I happen to know someone in the Odessa area who also has Fibromyalgia. I would like to consider her a friend at this point. I was practically crying to her over Messenger, telling her basically that I had MS and was going to die. She told me, “STOP GOOGLING IT!” She said that Fibromyalgia had all of the symptoms that I was experiencing. She explained to me that she had tried many different things to help with her bad days. They have changed the way that the entire family eats, cutting out gluten and reducing carbs. Well, that sounds easy! I have never really liked pasta or bread. I am going to give this a shot. I downloaded an app and I was on my way. I got this. No problem. WRONG!

I started this journey 13 days ago, and it is not easy. You start off by putting all your information into the app. So I tell it I am 315 lbs, 5’4” (5’3 3/4” but it doesn’t need to know that) and sedentary. I explain to it that I want to reduce carbs and eliminate gluten. I could almost hear the app snickering at me as it was giving my daily allotment of calories and carbs. It told me I should eat 1,500 calories and no more than 63 carbs a day.

First of all, EVERYTHING GOOD HAS A MILLION CARBS, all fruits and a lot of vegetables. Some days I just want something sweet. I think, though, that the worst part is getting to the 1,500 calories. I am a fat woman, but I didn’t get that way from eating too much. I got that way because I have a severe fear of eating, the fear of being judged and the fear of getting fatter. I am a one-meal-a-day eater. I am sure there are people who will call “bull” on that, but it is true. For the first few days I was lucky if I made it to 700 calories a day. But I have been determined to make this pain go away.

Since I started this journey the pain has gotten way better. Has it gone away completely? Heck no. I awoke this morning at 4:30 with my husband and was unable to get back to sleep because of the fabulous shocking pain in my arms. I can say, though, that I haven’t felt it in a while. For a while, it was daily, and I just lay in bed feeling so sorry for myself, wanting to take my own life to get rid of the pain. Don’t worry, though; I am far too selfless to take my own life. I have also lost 15 lbs in the first 13 days of this journey. Will I slip up and make dreaded mistakes? Yep, I am human.

So here we go, trying to change my life and get rid of my pain. I am taking you all on this journey with me so that everyone who experiences what I have can know that they aren’t alone. You will always have this Mad Fat Bipolar Woman on your side, and I hope to have all of you and God on mine.