Dealing with Chronic Pain

Well, my old friend, the mystery illness paid me a visit again this week.   I am not totally sure if it is the quick onset of summer heat right on the heels of winter cold, the thunderstorms, or something else that caused this.  I know I have been pushing hard, with the Steampunk Symposium a few weeks back, the missionary prep work we have been up to, and the continued work Clockwork Cross Outreach.    This is the first time in a very, very, long time that I have had any type of flare up of my chronic pain connected with my unknown, mystery immune dysregulation. 

Headaches, sometimes migraine leavel, wrist pain, joint pain in general, being able to feel every past injury hurting all at once, lack of energy, pain insomnia, heat rashes, and some others that come and go, those are what I face in a flare up.  Heat rashes and low grade pain are normal, but the rest and extreme pain are not. After nearly 19 years living with this, more than half my life, one would think I would be use to this.  But I am not.  I hate the not knowing this mystery illness creates.  It makes hunting for anything other than temp work very hard.

At least the Victorian era had a culture that allowed for illnesses, true they had a bunch of quack treatments, but we still do today, just not as many total quacks slip through.  When dealing with a mystery illness, that it took doctors 6 years to even give the "lupus like" immune dysregulation title, and more medicine that never helped, I have learned to take doctors with a grain of salt, and seek help where I can get it... from naproxen sodium, to green and herbal teas, and arnica.

If your like me, suffering chronic pain or mystery illnesses, hang in there.  I am praying for all of us.
If your not suffering, pray for us and be here for us, thanks!

~ Michelle

Bronchitis causing a Flare

I have pushed and pushed this winter, having first taken ill in December prior to Rob and my anniversary escape to Taos, NM.  After walking out in the bitter cold about Taos, my nearly recovered, I thought, cold turned into raging Bronchitis.  I made it through Christmas, struggling, and took the students to Winter Retreat at BABR, with fever raging.  I muddled through, barely getting anything out of it, except that they loved it, and it was good for them.  For me, sick as I was (even though the doctor had cleared me to go, saying I was "on the mend"), it was the lift of spirits I needed to keep going.


This has laid me low.  It has caused my "mystery illness" to rage full flare.  I have no energy.  I cant smell.  The cough just does not want to go away.  The doctor says, with my immune dysregulation, I was just a day or two away from a long hospital stay when I turned the corner.  The recovery will be long and slow.  I hate this.  I give it all to this work out here in the desert both with the Native youth and Clockwork Cross.  Now I am forced to care for me, nearly bedridden, for a bit until this health flare passes.  The lingering results, I am not sure how long till they pass.


If your like me, suffering chronic pain or mystery illnesses, hang in there.  I am praying for all of us.
If your not suffering, pray for us and be here for us, thanks!

~ Michelle