Being Well

Just popping in for an update. I'm still in school, although next week will be the last of the semester so it's a stressful time. But I've tried to be friendlier with my classmates at MU than I was at UMBC and I think I'm doing a pretty good job of being social.

Yeah, this happened. Three of my
classmates: Brian, Tabitha, and Kat.

I had my check-up with Dr. A last week. It went really well! I was a little sore from exercising (okay, Wii Fit, but come on, I was doing something) the day before but everything looked good. I've been doing so well that we've decided not to put me back on my medications, just the vitamin D because I continue to be deficient.

She had me set up an appointment in six months to make sure I'm still feeling well then, but she said I can cancel the appointment if I don't have any concerns.

Then she said something magical.

She said that if I don't have any problems, I don't have to go back. She'll be there if I need her but I don't have to go back.

I cannot express how incredible this is. I cannot tell you what it is like to have a doctor, one that I hated going to because she pressed on sore spots and gave me more pills and didn't understand, tell me that I'm well and I don't have to see her anymore. I feel like my health has turned completely around and I can't believe it.

She did point out that she doesn't know it won't come back. I'm being very realistic about this - it probably will come back at some point. But right now, I am well and I am healthy and I am not sick, I don't have to go to the doctor every three months or even see a specialist at all. I can use my Wii Fit for a half hour and I'm exhausted because I am in no kind of shape whatsoever but I have knowledge of a hundred types of pain and exercise doesn't give me any of the bad ones anymore.

Sunset in Greece

I took almost two weeks off from school and went to Greece for a job. I climbed a steep, high hill every day for over a week and did intense work clearing land and searching the surface for artifacts, and it was awful sometimes but I was okay. I rested more than the others but I never reached a point where I had to sit down and say, "I can't do this."

I am well, and it is indescribably beautiful.

No News is Good News

I haven't been posting here because I've been doing pretty well. The summer flew right by. My mother and I drove out to Iowa where I visited the graves of my Gammon ancestors. My only real problem that whole time was that by the time we got home I was having muscle spasm in my back, probably from a combination of being in the car almost all the time and sleeping on cheap hotel mattresses.

The gravestone of my great-great-great-
grandfather James Wilkenson Gammon.

After I got back from Iowa I made a costume and went to Otakon in Baltimore. My feet did some weird things that weekend but otherwise I was fine.

My costume as Schia Donnerstag from the
game Atelier Marie. With our dog, Cookie.

I've been off all of my medications since May. I have had bad days but no fibromyalgia flares. My doctor wasn't pleased that I went off my meds but she is glad I'm feeling better. I'll see her again after Thanksgiving to talk about going back on Savella - usually I feel worse as the weather gets colder. My cognitive problems have let up too, though, so I wonder if maybe the fibromyalgia is going away as I recover from that concussion.

As it turns out, I did apply for graduate school at Monmouth University and was accepted. On the way to Iowa, mom and I stopped at IUP. It's so far and it's not a place I could see myself going to school. Now I am living at home with my parents and going to school only a half-hour away. I got mono and missed a bunch of class, so now I am only in one class. I really thought mono would be the thing to bring the fibro back, but it didn't. My classmates are great, I try not to talk to them too much about my challenges while still being honest. So, with any luck, I will have a master's degree in anthropology in a couple of years!

I am just taking it one day at a time for now. I still believe that there is a day coming that will bring fibromyalgia back into my life full-force but I am happy it hasn't come yet. I'm holding onto my painkillers because I need them when we travel. I will probably start taking the vitamin D again but I really want to avoid medications as much as possible. I am not exercising but I am taking the stairs more often than the elevator on my way to class. I am pushing myself informally, at events with friends and the like. It thrills me to make it through things without pain or fatigue, but I am still scared of pushing too hard.

My greatest victory is this: I do not feel like a sick person. I still think of myself as a sick person, but I don't feel like one!

My Life After Graduation

My five years as an undergraduate ended last month. I presented my research on 19th-century spring water spas in America, which was an extremely stressful project but turned out quite well. It is a bit of a shock to be done because I had only just started to feel like I was back in a good place as a student.

For a couple of years now I have been considering graduate school but have wanted to take some time off first. Now that it's summer and I'm at home and bored and can't get a job I am reconsidering. This past Saturday I went out to White Hill Mansion in Fieldsboro, NJ to volunteer at the Monmouth University field school. Dr. Veit tried to sell me on the brand-new M.A. program at Monmouth in Anthropology. It's a tempting idea but I am looking for very specific things in a graduate program and I'm not sure MU would be the best fit. My favorite right now is Indiana University of Pennsylvania, which has an M.A. program in Applied Archaeology, and is only six hours away from home.

My health has been pretty good actually. I haven't posted much here because honestly I've been feeling pretty normal! I still take my pills and have to be careful about eating and sleeping but for my life, this is as normal as it gets.

Over Spring Break my parents too me and my cousin Kimberly to Paris and London (at the Louvre above - I'm on the left). We had a great time! I was in a lot of pain but I took some Tramadol-APAP I'd been prescribed a few months earlier for breakthrough pain. The label said to take one every 4-6 hours, I believe, but I only took one each day. I felt amazing and had no trouble even making it up and down all those subway stairs.

The next week, back at school, I wasn't so great because I was in withdrawal but it wasn't too bad and after it passed I still felt better than I had before. By the end of the semester I was carrying a backpack again instead of pulling a rolling bag. And I was walking up the hill every day instead of taking the bus. They are small victories but they make a huge difference to how normal and healthy I feel. I don't know whether the pain pills on our trip had anything to do with the improvement, but I am very happy regardless.

So here's to figuring out the rest of my life, one day at a time!

Life and a New Semester

I haven't updated in a long time because most of my problems have been emotional and I haven't felt like talking about them in a public forum. A lot of personal issues came to a head over winter break and I was in a bad place for awhile. I'm doing better now.

I came back from winter break feeling lonely and unmotivated. I discovered that two of my three roommates moved out over break and two new ones moved in, and they are wonderful girls to live with. It's such a relief to live with people that I can stand to be around.

My classes this semester are all on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:30am - 5:15pm with a break for lunch. It makes for long days but it's actually a lot less stressful than having class for a short time every day. I'm taking one of my five classes on audit, so I don't take the exams or receive a grade but it will appear on my transcript. I also attend a Monday night class for fun.

On Fridays I'm still going down to Fells Point for the archaeology lab with Esther. We're working on getting students to come back. I also started driving down to Edgewater to help out at the Lost Towns Project Archaeology Lab on Wednesdays from 9:30am-3:00pm. Most of the artifacts are prehistoric, however, which I have found to be somewhat boring.

This leaves lots of room in my schedule for knitting and baking experiments. I bought a bread machine although I haven't used it yet. I've made so many cupcakes and muffins and mini pies already! It's so much fun to just relax and make something delicious.

I have been feeling pretty good. The lowered dose of Savella has continued to work better than the therapeutic dose for no apparent reason. Hey, I'm not complaining! I'm only on two pills a day now, and that is incredible! I've had some discomfort in the usual places (back, shoulders, neck) but my chiropractor has helped and I've yet to have a truly bad day, although I'm sure one is coming. For now, I'm hanging in there and trying to figure out what will happen after graduation.

This is my life, with pills and without a gallbladder. And it's good.