Handling Life in the Midst of Chronic Illness

I’m spending the week with one of my closest friends, so I’ll have to ask you to forgive my absence. It’s been a whirlwind already but one of the best times I’ve had in a long while. It’s been amazing and I’m loving it so much.

In the meantime, my fibromyalgia does not let up when I have company—if anything, the symptoms are even more unfortunate when I do have friends over. I’ve already had a splitting headache once, last night, and today I’m feeling very fatigued. I’m on a new medication that has a side effect of sleepiness and dizziness, and those side effects hit especially hard today. Despite this fact, I just got done having immense fun outside with my friend and siblings—doing a photo shoot and making amateur videos. It was great fun, but now I’m beat.

One of the things I’ve been working on is being more open and honest with my friends when I do feel awful, and so far it’s paid off well. It means the world to me to have my friend understand and know that I’m not feeling well. Even if she can’t feel my pain, at least she knows about it, and can help share the burden. It’s a beautiful thing, and honesty really does seem to be the best policy. It never fails to shock me how understanding and supportive people can be if I just tell them what I’m going through.

So here’s a question or two for you: how do you do your best to enjoy life amidst the pain? Have you found that being honest about your pain or symptoms has yielded good results?