Coming back to life

It's spring! I say that with all reverence and gratitude. The winter has been very harsh in more ways than just weather. Mostly I dealt with the fallout of a-fib and congestive heart failure but a positive was my CPAP machine. This is a device that helps you deal with sleep apnea. I think it has probably helped with the fibromyalgia, too. With fibro, sleep problems were a major problem; most often I'd get an almost-headache similar to the ones I used to have but not as fierce. I've since learned it was related to sleep, or the lack of it.

Let me explain:
Back in the 70s, I developed these crazy headaches. I call them headaches but they were really neckaches, starting in my shoulders and radiating into the base of my skull and then to my head. The muscles got very tight and painful. My only relief was pain pills, sometimes more than was good for me. One doctor gave me a sleeping pills, which made me sleep but didn't stop the headaches. Years later friends told me I had done some crazy things while taking those pain pills, such as erratic driving.

In 2000, the same year of my breast cancer, I found a doctor who gave me medication for my fibro. It was the first time in 30 years that I could sleep all night without insomnia or headaches/neckaches. Yet as time went on the headaches returned, a little. My shoulders were no longer tight as drums but some muscles insisted on tightening up, again radiating into my head. Last fall the pain meds came to an end, an edict of the American Medical Assocation. My doc could give me pain pills but not that particular one. Just the other day one of my grown children told me that in the past 10 years (the duration of my fibro meds) I had sounded quite drunk at times on the phone.

So now I'm dealing with breathing problems and some fibro. Oddly enough, I feel better than ever. I'm working in my flowers again, just got through planting 24 petunias and helping a little boy develop some pride in himself. He dug holes, he and a friend decided on a design, and I taught them how to water the hole, then the plant, and pack dirt around it. Sounds like a small thing but he called his mother over the see what he had done and today showed a great-aunt. Oh, and the grandmother he lives with lent some encouragement and praise as well. He wanted to know if he could come over some this summer and see the flowers, even giving them some water sometimes.

The boy has an unfortunate family history but his grandparents are helping him overcome it. Lucky kid.

Hope I can hang around long enough to see what kind of man he becomes.