Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"We're being governed by paper-mache patriots; brightly painted red, white and blue, but hollow to the core. Both parties have mastered the cynical arts of media manipulation and fund raising. They've learned the lessons of Watergate and burn the tapes. They have learned to divide the nation for their own gain. They have demonstrated the willingness to exploit any tragedy for personal advantage. The contempt they have for the American people is without parallel.

"This is painful to say, and I'm sure for many of you, painful to read. But it's impossible to heal the country until we're willing to acknowledge the truth no matter how painful. We have to wean ourselves off sugar coated partisan lies."

-- Doug McIntyre, McIntyre in the Morning, "An Apology From A Bush Voter"

Just a quick update on how I've been doing:

Getting the migraines under control (not entirely gone, but less frequent than how often the fibromyalgia knocks me down) has been a blessing, and over the past while I've been making some inroads on my to-do list and making it to some of the places I want to go. Right now I'm "recalibrating" my stamina: I'm able to do so much more than I could for about eight months, so I keep thinking, "I'm so much better -- I can Do Stuff," forgetting that Doing Stuff is still gonna cost me afterwards.

So right now I'm in the old "can do stuff but will need the following day to recover" mode on my pretty-good days (with some Bad Days in now and then). This week I made it to rehearsals for both 3LF and HCB, but I was much less fun to be around during the day Wednesday than I'd hoped, and I was feeling awfully drained by the time I got the car unloaded that night.

A familiar pattern, but one I need to remind myself to account for in my planning, and not get carried away because of the recent relative improvement compared to the eight month migraine.

Tuesday, the plan is to discuss new things to try for the fibromyalgia when I go to the clinic. Let's see whether I can start feeling better than the last several years, not just better than the end of last year and the start of this one. Wish me luck. In the meantime I'm trying to find the balance point for what I can reasonably do right now. The biggest mental challenge at the moment is remembering, on a day when I have what feels like a useful amount of energy and a non-crippling amount of pain, that I'd better not go use that energy to accomplish things because I have something more important scheduled for the next day and can't afford to be recovering then from having pushed myself beforehand.

And that's where I am. Trying to prioritize my to-do list and not get carried away, having a little less than half the "able to be doing things" time as a healthy person, but still feeling so relieved to be able to actually get anything done at all. If we ever find a combination of treatments that really works for me as far as the fibromyalgia is concerned, having as much energy as a normal person is gonna make me feel like Superman.