Category: Personal Experience

My life with fibromyalgia

Business Travel with a Chronic Condition

The days are usually long. The rooms are usually cold. The food options aren’t the best. And sleeping in a strange bed without your pillow is never very fun.

Traveling for business requires different strategies than traveling for pleasure, because you can’t always modify your schedule and you don’t have a built-in support network of family to help lug your bags around. The days are usually long. The rooms are usually cold. The food options aren’t the best. And sleeping in a strange bed without your pillow is never very fun.

For many of my work trips I am traveling with some of my employees or co-workers and have vendors to meet. Not showing up to a session doesn’t always work for me, unless I am calling in dead. So I have crafted a few strategies that help me survive business travel while dealing with the chronic pain and fatigue I experience.

“Learning is experience. Everything else is just information.” ~ Albert Einstein

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30 Day Challenge – Week 4 – Final Results

We shouldn’t put off until tomorrow that which we can start today.

This is the final post in a series. Read the initial post, Week 1, Week 2, and Week 3.

30 day challenge - week 2 results (2)

It is said to take anywhere from  21 – 66 days to build a new habit, with the time really varying from person to person. I started this 30 day journey as a way to get back on track with some of my daily habits that had slipped lately and refocus my priorities. I wanted to concentrate on the following:

  • Gratitude: I had lapsed from writing daily gratitudes
  • Mindful eating: I wasn’t logging my food
  • Fitness: I had added some extra pounds I wanted to lose
  • Mindset: I wanted to see if yoga would be more beneficial for all of my ailments than my typical mindless treadmill walking
  • Rest: I wanted to get my sleep habits back on track

So here is my final check-in of my 30 day personal challenge for the month of April.

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30 Day Challenge – Week 3

This is the fourth in a series. Read the initial post, Week 1 Progress, and Week 2 Progress.

30 day challenge - week 2 results (1)

A set-back is defined as a reversal in your progress. This past week I experienced a bit of a set back, that I wrote about in my post on The Challenge of Slowing Down. I hurt my back, came down with strep and inflamed vocal chords, and was ordered to go home and rest my voice. Then came the fibromyalgia flare. And then word that one of my cousins, who is just a few years older than me, died unexpectedly. Talk about some stress on the body.

This is what happens when you ignore the little voices in your head telling you to take it easy. Take a day off. Get some rest. If I had rested sooner, maybe I wouldn’t have developed strep and lost my voice, maybe I wouldn’t have gone into full fibro flare mode.

“Temporary set backs are overshadowed by persistence.” ~Quentin L. Cook

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The Challenge of Slowing Down

I have had difficulty accepting that I cannot do what I once could. I am not the same person I once was.

Life in general requires overcoming challenges and obstacles of many types. Life with fibromyalgia introduces its own share of challenges: lack of energy, lack of sleep, chronic pain being the most prevalent.  These things can change who you are and how you approach life. What once was a simple task, such as getting out of bed in the morning, can now be a daily struggle.

In the years since my diagnosis, my biggest challenge has been SLOWING DOWN. I have had difficulty accepting that I cannot do what I once could. I am not the same person I once was. Type A personalities like myself prefer to be in the game rather than sitting on the sidelines.

Adopting health strategies such as a clean diet, regular workouts, and supplements, has helped lessen the daily pain and limited my “flares” of my fibromyalgia. It has allowed me to maintain a moderately active lifestyle. And then I begin to think: Maybe I am OK. Maybe I am in some sort of remission. Maybe I can push myself just a little harder. And that thinking usually ends in a crash and burn, i.e. fibro flare and bed rest. Slowing down, resting allows the body to recover from the stresses put upon it. Without a recovery period, we can do our bodies more harm than good.

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