Today was a normal pain level type of day and for a spoonie suffering through fibromyalgia that’s like a healthy person saying I’m in pain because a hammer fell on my foot.
The pain level scale is doubled when you have an illness such as fibromyalgia. It is often normal for a spoonie to feel ok and their pain level to be at a number 6.
I was able to actually get out of bed, take a shower, do my hair, and dig out my makeup and get my Crayola on. However with that being said, I still had moments in the day where my energy level seem to all but disappear.
You see when you have one of these invisible illnesses your energy level isn’t like that of a healthy human being. Something as simple as taking a shower for someone with an invisible illness can destroy your energy level for the entire day.
As a spoonie, you tend to not take things for granted. That’s not to say that a healthy person takes things for granted but when you live on the edge of your bed day in and day out for the rest of your life you tend to see life in a whole different light.
We have to plan everything we do down to the very last second of the day to make sure we don’t over do ourselves. So when I tell you that getting out of bed, taking a shower (complete with washing ,deep conditioning and regular conditioning my hair, brushing my teeth and washing my face) , brushing my hair, styling my hair, and actually applying a full face of makeup is a major accomplishment for the day I hope that you can understand that what I mean isn’t that I’m lazy, pampered, or oblivious; but that all those components that a healthy person would otherwise overlook, to someone who is sick this is the equivalent of an ant pushing a walnut up Mount Everest.
Spoonies tend to celebrate the little things that we are able to accomplish because we never know when the day will come that we will suffer another relapse and be completely bedridden with no way of knowing when that relapse will end.
So today as I sit here writing this, fighting back tears, I feel proud of myself because I was able to get up and accomplished what the rest of the world would perceive as mundane tasks.
I may not have run a marathon or even one lap around a standard high school track, but damn it I got out of bed ( tears now streaming down my face), and I got my fleek on. For me, winning the lottery a million times over would never feel as good as something that simple makes me feel.
Thank you for peeking in on this spoonie’s makeup bag. I send you love, acceptance, and strength as you walk this journey, and to all my spoonie darlings out there hang in there babies ,it DOES get better. May today have greeted you with less pain, more happy dances and a never ending supply of spoons. Until next time remember darlings, always reserve a spoon for a little lip gloss.
A Spoonie's Makeup Bag 