FM - Chronic Pain News Report

Hi everyone - As I had said in my last post life just seems to keep me from getting here.  Every time I think about it I'm either too tired or too bogged down with "Fibro Fog". Since my last post a lot has been going on in my life. First the holidays, then my hubby has been in the hospital twice and we have moved. So as you may well know the Fibro monster has reared his ugly head several times. Hopefully we are getting into some type of "normal" life - whatever that might be LOL So I will try and be here more.

I just received my first copy of the new FM-Chronic Pain News Report  from fmaware.org and wanted to share it with you. The first article really caught my eye since I have several buldging disks in my neck in the same area as they talk about in the studies named here. Although much of it may seem technical, I believe that atleast the summary can provide you with some very important information.  "Abnormalities of the cervical spine and their connection to Fibromyalgia" may prove to be a real breakthrough for some of you. I have not had time to read the entire newsletter, but I'm sure there are great things here, as I have read many of their publications.
Please let me know what you think of this article and the newsletter as a whole. If the link does not come up in this post let me know so I can try to send it again.  http://www.nfmcpa.org/media/newsletters/issue1

Sending gentle hugs and blessings your way.
Darla

A night of fun = A day of pain

Why is it that when we spend a night out having fun we have to pay for it all day the next day? My friend Lella and her boyfriend, Allen, had us over for a cookout and to play cards last night. We went about 6 PM and came home about 2 AM and had a GREAT time. However, the old monster Fibro raised it's ugly head this morning when I tried to get out of bed. It took me several minutes, and tries to even move. Of course I slept so hard and I had laid on my back -- which is a NO NO that I thought it was broken. After I finally managed to get up came the legs and arms and on and on. Gee it's the best time I've had in ages and then today is crap. :(

They say to pace yourself and make sure you get rest. I took a nap yesterday and didn't get up until 3 PM to get ready to go. So it's not like I was up all day and night. But I feel like I was drunk (NO we weren't drinking) and walked out in front of a truck. Maybe if I was drinking I still wouldn't feel it LOL

I write this knowing that only those of you that have this dreaded curse can understand. Others say it's cause you're getting older, need to exercise more, blah, blah, blah. I really dislike those people that think all you have to do is exercise and eat veggies and you'll be just fine. I don't think setting in a chair and eating has anything to do with lack of exercise. Well that's my gripe for the day and aren't you glad I'm finished with it :) Maybe next time we'll play football or go roller skating so I can have a reason to feel this way.

I'm sorry I haven't been here much, but life keeps keeping me away from here. I am pretty sure my comment section is working now so I'm hoping some of you will let me know what subjects you would like for me to discuss. I saw a very interesting subject (at least for women) on another website that I am planning on discussing soon. It seems that I am not the only one that thinks the "bra companies" should come up with a Fibro friendly version. What do you think? More to come on that later.

Also coming up is my life as "The Princess and the Pea" -- so stay tuned and keep coming back.

God's Blessings for pain free days for all of you -- Darla

New card sheet for charity

I have made this sheet as a tribute to all of our service members past & present. Please do NOT use it for personal gain, upload to any other site or put on CD's. etc. This is copywritten to me and I will prosecute for this one. You may use it for personal and/or charity work - as long as the money goes to charity.

Please let remember September 11 !

Please feel free to post any comments you may have as I THINK my comment section is working now :)
{gentle hugs} & blessings Darla

Check out the FREE blog candy on fibrocrafts.blogspot

Hello all my fellow fibromites :) I wanted to pass this post along with the link so you can win you some nice blog candy. This comes from another fellow fibromite that also had to quit working because of Fibro. I just want to say welcome to my site Amy :) I didn't add all her wonderful teasing pictures here as I wanted you to go have a look around her site. Good luck and don't forget "Sharing is Caring" so if you need my address let me know LOL

ALSO MY COMMENT SECTION IS NOW WORKING -- well at least it was so give it a try:)

Friday, August 6, 2010

1000 sheets for A thousand sheets... and then some! :)
http://athousandsheetsofpaper.blogspot.com/2010/08/1000-sheets-for-thousand-sheets.html

Today is a special day here at the ol' A thousand sheets of paper blog. No, it's not quite the one year anniversary, as that was on July 16th. Instead I thought it would be fun to combine that celebration with another crazy milestone that I've been keeping track of and finally hit this past week... you see, since I started making cards and posting them here I've been keeping track of the number of different sheets of pattern paper that I cut into for my cards just to see how long it would take to get to 1000. I'm excited to say that it only took a couple weeks over my year anniversary to get there! I told you this was crazy! LOL!

Crazy or not though, I'm in the mood to celebrate (and clear out some paper) so I've got A THOUSAND 6x6 sheets of paper that I'm giving away! Wanna see what 1000 sheets of paper looks like? Take a look-see...

That's a lot of paper, huh? Perhaps just a bit crazy to send all to one person, so I'm breaking it apart into five candies of 200 sheets each. And the fun doesn't stop there! I couldn't celebrate a wonderful, exciting, surprising and simply amazing year of stamping and blogging without throwing some stamps into the mix as well! So I have collected stamps from all of my most favorite companies into one MEGA CANDY! Wanna know who all is included? There is:

Sweet November Coral Reefweaver, Chanter Heartsong, Coriander Fairy and Darby & Penelope
CC Designs Lil Emma Bug, Cherry Emma and Halloween Hansel
The Greeting Farm Miss Anya Dressy set, Fairy Chloe and Fairy Eva
Tickled Pink Lil Lolita Ivy and 60's Mod Ivy
Simply Betty Stamps Lola and Miller
Stamping Bella Maisy Ketto
Christy Croll Appley bowl Huggabug (since I couldn't include one of her fab Tiddly inks digis)
My Favorite Things Pure Innocence Fairy Girl
Sugar Nellie Gorjuss Girl "Just a girl"
Kraftin' Kimmie Drucilla and lots of little extras
Lili of the Valley Tiptoe fairy

Wondering what you need to do for a chance to win all of these plus some yummy paper? Well, because this is pretty big and I'm pretty excited about it, I really want to spread the word sooooo... in order to be eligible to win the grand prize you have to post about the 1000 sheets blog candy on your own blog (feel free to right click and use the paper photo above or even the stamp photo below), linking directly back to this post. Once you've done that, just leave a comment here and you will be entered... easy peasy! Like always, I will ship anywhere so all are welcome to play! :)

I will leave this candy open through Friday, September 3rd then random generator will pick a winner and I will announce on Saturday, September 4th


Gentle hugs - "see ya when I see ya" -- Darla

Fibromyalgia and Fatigue

I found this wonderful article on WebMD about Fibro and fatigue and wanted to share it with you. (see link at the bottom of my post) It has been one of those weeks for me to fight for energy every step of the way. I had to force myself to go to physical (water) therapy yesterday. But I did and after only one hour of easy exercise I came home and took a 3 hour nap! There are so many days I fight with myself because I still have that little voice inside saying "You are just lazy." So I get up and do something - anything to see how the day will go. Sometimes it works and I feel better, but other times I feel worse. I think with us Fibromites it is sometimes trial and error. At the same time I have to be careful not to hurt myself by letting what society (family, friends, spouses, etc) thinks I should do and what I can do get confused. If I do then I end up doing way too much and suffer for 2-3 days after. They call this an invisible disease for one reason and that's because no one except ourselves can know what's really going on with us.

My story may be like that of many of you. I hear rumors all the time about someone saying "What's happened to Darla, Mom, Auntie, etc, she used to have a spotless house and now it's like she only does what she has to". Or "She stays up all night and sleeps in the day time and takes naps". Oh my how horrible is that? lol I am way past 21 and I don't have any kids to raise so now I try and take care of myself and do what my body tells me I need too. I spent way too many years pushing myself to do what was expected of me and often ended up in the hospital from exhaustion. Of course now I realize it wasn't just "nerves", as I was told many times. Actually a lot of it was the stress I was putting on myself by thinking all this pain was in my head and I was just being lazy. So while I was trying to live up to what others thought I should be doing I was actually hurting myself.  I pray that for many of you this information will help you to understand that what we suffer from IS REAL and if no one else can see it and they don't understand what we tell them then it's "their problem." A little thing I learned when I was working was trying to decide "whose problem is it?" and if it's not mine I will not own it and let it go. Please try not to worry about what others think or say! You know how you feel and so go with that and take care of yourself.

Till next time I pray y'all have pain free and restful days.
Gentle hugs - Darla
http://www.webmd.com/fibromyalgia/guide/fibromyalgia-and-fatigue