Fibro Fog

I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to write about this morning, but every time I would start to get an idea it would either float away before I could really get hold of it ,or another thought would pop up, and I wouldn't even remember what it was I was trying to think of in the first place.  This isn't anything unusual for me, and the millions of others out there suffering from fibromyalgia.  While I'm sure it isn't the technical name, this inability to focus is known as Fibro Fog.

This is one of the most annoying parts of this condition for me.  I will be talking with someone and be in the middle of a sentence, and all of a sudden, I have no idea what I was talking about, or why I was talking in the first place.  I usually try to make a joke about it, or claim to have lost my train of thought, but once this has happened many times, people start to look at you a little funny.  There are times when I cannot think of the names of friends, or even common objects.  I know exactly what it is that I want to say, but the word just isn't there, and no matter how hard I try to think of it, I draw a complete blank!

I also loose things all the time!  I have learned to put things in the same place every time, but this doesn't always work.  There have been times that I have searched for my keys or my cell phone over and over, furious with myself that I can't find them, only to discover that I am holding them in my hand.  I have looked for my glasses for long minutes, only to discover that they are right where I left them - on top of my head!  You can't imagine how embarrassing this can be.  Like I said before, I've learned to make jokes about it, but it really isn't all that funny after the tenth or twentieth time it happens.

I now make lists all the time to keep me on track.  If I am going out to run errands, or pay bills, I have a list with me that tells me where to go, the order of places I want to go to, and the amount of money that I'm going to need at each place.  If I walk out of the house without the list, I am completely lost.  I then depend on my cell phone to call my husband in between each destination to tell me where I'm going next and what I am supposed to do when I get there.  And I hate that I have to do these things.

I always knew that there would come a time when I had trouble remembering things.  I watched my Grandfather deal with multiple infarct dementia, and my Grandmother developed Alzheimer's.  And while the issues that I deal with having "fibro fog" are not nearly as severe as the ones they dealt with, it sometimes feels very similar.  But I thought I had many more years before I began dealing with this.  If nothing else, it gives me a greater understanding to how they must have felt when simple things began to slip away.

If you have fibromyalgia, or you know someone who does, please understand that we do not do these things on purpose.  It is simply a part of the condition that we have to live with everyday.  Try to understand that we did not forget your name because you are not important to us.  We simply cannot access that information at that moment.  The next time we meet, your name will probably come to us right away.  If you notice us struggling to find a word, be patient.  It will come to us, and if it doesn't, but you can tell what we are trying to say, kindly give us that word.  And lastly, join us in trying to increase awareness about fibromyalgia.  More and more people are being diagnosed with this condition daily, and if you don't know someone with fibro today, you probably will soon.