The TV (House MD) Identifies with Us!

SPOILER ALERT House M.D. Season 4 episode 16 (“Wilson’s Heart”) is referenced and/or discussed below.

I noticed the following before I had this blog, and I wrote it soon after I started it, so now I’m finally posting it, and updating it as well. House identified with us Fibro sufferers long before Lost, which I discussed previously, did.

It’s always nice when TV characters say things that so perfectly verbalize how I have felt. This happens frequently on House MD. I guess that’s to be expected, since House suffers from chronic leg pain. I wonder how the show would be different if he had chronic leg pain all over his body, as we fibro sufferers do. That is not to say that I am arrogant about fibro-pain; obviously any pain can be torture, and obviously people react in different ways. Even I react in different, seemingly inconsistent, ways to various levels and surface areas of pain.

Anyway, this is one time in particular where House and his pain really connected with me. In the relevant scene, House is nearly dead, and knows that either Amber is dead, or she will be soon. He hallucinates or dreams that the two of them are on an empty bus, and Amber has told him that he must leave this bus, and thus go back to the real, living, world. He tells Amber, “It doesn't hurt here. I don't want to be in pain. I don't want to be miserable.” Amber replies with the Rolling Stones lyric and quintessential House quasi-catch phrase, “Well, you can’t always get what you want,” and House exits the bus, returning to his life of chronic pain.

What struck me is that House wanted to stay where it didn’t hurt, even if that place was death. When I had some of the worst pains I’ve ever felt, and I didn’t know if it would ever end (of course that only happened before I started physical therapy, knock on wood), I wanted to die. I mean, I hoped I would die, to escape from the unbearable pain. That is not to say I was suicidal; I was definitely not, in that I would not have done anything to cause my own death, but I simply hoped for it. I’m glad I didn’t die though, since the unbearable pain did go away.

For those suffering from fibromyalgia or otherwise diagnosed or undiagnosed pain, don’t lose hope – there most likely is an end to the pain other than death. If it is or could be fibromyalgia, I can say from experience that the unbearable part of the pain will go away. Fibro-flare-ups don’t last forever, and they will go away, even if you don’t do anything to help it go away. This is what I’ve experienced, and also my awesome physical therapist mentioned a couple of years ago that those periods of unbearable pain will end, either in seconds, minutes, hours, or weeks (in my experience, I don’t think any of these pains lasted for months at a time, but they might have, since my perception of time has been known to get a bit screwed up).

Knowing that there will be an end (a non-fatal one, um, knock on wood) helps so much; I can tolerate a lot more pain when I know it will end. Of course, the sooner it ends the better, and keeping it from getting to that level is even better. Physical therapy, for me, keeps it from getting anywhere near that level of pain. It occasionally gets close-ish, but when it gets that bad, it doesn’t last longer than a day or two. I have had fibro-flare-ups (well, at least one, about two months ago) after physical therapy started that lasted two or three weeks, however, the pain was not terrible; that fibro-flare-up involved fatigue and maybe weakness with non-severe pain of larger quantities than usual. I heart physical therapy.

Carrying the Hands of Time

I wrote the following 2 years ago, approximately 2 months after my Fibromyalgia began. I intended to post it on my Myspace blog at the time, but then decided against it, not wanting to be public about my illness. So I’m posting it now. (I did end up emailing it to a handful of friends and family at the time).

This was written before my diagnosis (I believe the diagnostic criteria for Fibromyalgia require at least 3 months of suffering). In fact, it was also before my misdiagnosis. In the 6 months that would follow, I had 3 relapses that were significantly worse than the original lapse (flare-up, whatever you want to call it) that I speak of below (I haven’t had any real relapses since I started physical therapy after my diagnosis (knock on wood)). When I wrote this, I still thought this was something (all the doctors could tell me at the time was that it might be a virus) that would go away and have a clear end. I had no idea of the chronic nature of what I was facing.

August 22, 2007

As most of the people who know me probably know, I've been afflicted with some unknown virus (every conceivable cause for my suffering has been ruled out) for almost 2 months, and although the bulk of the severe physical pain it caused dissipated within a week (or more?) some pain still persists. But that's not the purpose of this.

Since I've been fraught with pain and illness, I've had some strange and interesting experiences involving the mutability of the perception of time and a strange dichotomous sense of bodily awareness (or something like that). The latter, as well as other things I've experienced during this illness, have provided me with new insight that goes far beyond empathy for people suffering from various afflictions.

Throughout my illness, my perception of time has been distorted in sort of a disturbing way. For the most part, time, while I'm moving forward in it, moves so slowly. This makes sense, because it's not exactly fun when you're sick, and time sure does crawl slowly when you're not having fun. But when I look back on the time that has passed, the slowness isn't always maintained in hindsight. To the contrary, it seems to speed up when I look back on it --but it doesn't seem to have flown by, rather, it's slipped away: Has it really been a week since my last blood test already?...Where did the time go?...Where did Wednesday go?...Where did July go?...Where was I?...Did I really miss it? Is the summer really almost over? This all may sound normal, but it's different from normal....It's like it's vanished into the nothingness that it was for me. Life has moved forward -- people have moved forward and done things -- while I haven't moved, while I gradually recover from some unknown virus.

In the early days of my illness, my left shoulder was essentially crippled with pain, to the point where I really couldn't move it much if at all. When I would walk (very slowly), I found myself literally carrying my left hand with my pain-stricken but still functional right hand (fortunately I’m a righty). This was an odd experience -- it felt almost as if my left hand was paralyzed, as if it didn't belong to me, it was just some inanimate object. I didn't lose sensation in my body at all (physically or mentally), yet I still somehow experienced what I can only call illusions of detachment and inanimateness, like some strange dichotomy of movable parts and immovable parts. There is a neurological disorder [Somatoparaphrenia?] in which afflicted people believe a part of their body doesn't belong to them. That disorder involves a problem of perception, of propioception, I believe, and that is not what I experienced. However, carrying my own hand around gave me insight into what that might feel like (of course I always knew it was my own hand).

This illness has also given me new insight into what it's like to suffer from arthritis and chronic pain. I know now what it's like to hear that you may have rheumatoid arthritis (which I do not, thank G-d) -- I know now how it feels to essentially be told that this unbearable severe pain you're in right now will last forever, and may continue to not respond to medications. I understand more fully than I ever could before, why commercials for medications intended for rheumatoid arthritis make a point of being as positive, hopeful, and optimistic as possible. I understood these things before, I sympathized and even empathized before, but now I have this insight and understanding that goes far beyond any of that. I literally know what it feels like, and I'm truly grateful that I'm recovering, and my pain will end.

I think this might be too depressing to post....So I'll end with the bright side of being sick...

Being sick (at least for me) is a great way to lose weight! I don't recommend this method of weight loss though, it's very painful.

[Update: At some point, the weight loss stopped, and I began to gain weight. I’ve gained about 25 or more pounds in slightly more than 2 years since the fibro began, and I can’t seem to lose weight, no matter what I do. So I just try not to gain more weight.]

Since I've been sick, I've learned some new things about some of the ailments that were ruled out and about those that were suggested by people. Learning is always good.

My (finger) nails have grown longer and have become stronger than they've ever been before. This likely resulted from not using them (to open things, etc) as much as I do when I'm healthy. Long nails are pretty! Well, maybe they'd be prettier if they were polished.

[Update: My fingernails have remained stronger than they were pre-Rachel (pre-Fibro that is, see previous blog posting for details about Rachel's name). I’m guessing it (also) has something to do with the glucosamine/chondroitin/MSM and fish oil that I think I’ve been taking since I got sick (I’m not sure when I started taking the glucosamine etc, and I know I was wasn’t taking enough fish oil for the first several months of Rachel).]

When I was in the ER briefly in the beginning of this illness, the ER doctor was unbelievably hot...Clearly, that was nice.

I'm sure there are other silver linings, but I think that's a nice sampling. So if I've depressed you, I hope that this portion of this blog has rejoyified you (I'm allowed to make words up, I'm a linguist :-p [Well, I was a linguistics major in college anyway haha]).