Raising my son while living with Fibromyalgia Part 1

When I was first diagnosed with Fibromyalgia I felt my whole world flip upside down. I was so scared of what it meant. It was really difficult when my Doctor said we don't know what causes it or how to make it better for you. Then she said lets try these medications to help relieve your pain as that is all we can do for you someday you may need to be put on Morphine.

I was devastated to me this meant that I would not be able to take care of my son who was not yet 2 years old. He was my whole world. My son could not even climb up on my lap to snuggle without it causing me extreme pain to the point I would cry. The whole situation felt hopeless. I let myself have a massive pity party; I would love to be able to say it only lasted a day but it was more like a whole month. Some of that I feel is because of the pain and the Fibro Fog I was in. If you don't have Fibromyalgia yourself it is really hard to truly explain what Fibro Fog is.

Once the medication started to really kick in it helped to lift my Fibro Fog some. Finally I stopped feeling sorry for myself and decided I was going to find answers on my own since my Doctor didn't really have them. One of the most important things I learned was that there are for many people with this certain foods that cause problems and make everything worse for someone like me. So I spent a few weeks trying to figure out what foods caused me the most problems, for me it was anything with caffeine that meant no more chocolate. I cried when I realized this. What my son said to me when he found me crying changed a lot of things for me. He said, "Mommy don't worry I will eat all the chocolate for you."

With just that one little phrase I knew he was on my team. That my loved ones would have my back and help me as much as the could. If my son caught me trying to eat chocolate he would yell BAD MOMMY NO CHOCOLATE FOR YOU! We also developed a phrase that let him know if I was having a better day (nice mommy) or a bad day (witch mommy).

The first few months were very difficult for everyone. Over time though we were able to start figuring out what my having Fibromyalgia meant for our small family. My son didn't fight holding my hand anymore in a parking lot because I told him it was for me not him. I told him how sometimes my legs would get wobbly and I was afraid of falling down. So he held my hand to make sure I didn't fall down. Most of the time I was fine but I knew trying to run after him would be really tough if I needed to.