Fibromyalgia Fever Dreams

In a really bad 'episode' of Fibro, I am incredibly fatigued and my body feels like achey and feverish as if I'm fighting off the flu. I lie in bed and drift off to sleep for a few hours. Then I'm awake again -- severely fatigued -- but lying awake. My mind is awake but my body is still too tired to move.

This is when the Fibro Delusions begin.

In my Fibro Delusions, time seems to move SOOOOO SLOWLY while I am in bed, and so meanwhile I start to believe that I could get SO MUCH done if only I were able to get up. The longer I spend lying around, the more it seems that if I were well, I would have been a whirlwind of productivity and nothing could stand in my way.

This is the Mind-Game that FMS plays on us. To believe that FMS is the only obstacle, the only thing stopping us from achieving the impossible, and that every other able-bodied person is an overachiever by definition. The mind always moves faster than the body, and when only the mind is moving, untrammeled by the physical body, then everything goes by in a blur of imagined activity.

Every individual's Fibro Delusions take on the attractive form of the creative works that individual most fantasizes about accomplishing. In bed, trapped in their own minds, some compose symphonies, some film Oscar-worthy movies, some write novels. My mind runs to business, so in my fantasies, I am creating and marketing a creative new product or service.

In the first few years that I would get these delusions, the crazy fever dream voice would say, "Come on, you can at least write all this info down -- later when you are well, you will have started this project." I would drag myself to my computer, and try to write an outline, but just the effort of holding myself upright and trying to organize my thought would have me keeling over at the keyboard until I had no choice but to drag myself back to bed before I ended up falling asleep on the office floor.

Now, I still can't turn away from the illusions of the fever dreams, but at least I know they are illusions, so I confine myself to silly business ideas, that I can at least recognize as humorous and so just amuse myself instead of torturing myself with the ideas that will never come to fruition.

I post them here just in case someone else comes up with the idea, and I can document that at least I thought of it first.

First my brain, goaded by my constant fear that I am losing productive time when I am sick and therefore will be in financial disaster when I wake up, tries to come up with ways that people will pay me for doing what I would do anyway. Here we go:

Idea One: "The Coffee Kids"
Did you know that some pseudo-celebrities are paid huge amounts of money just to show up at certain nightclubs, because their being there makes it a "hot spot" where other people will be clamoring to spend their money? Ergo, with all the coffee houses competing for your java cash, what makes one place more hip than another? Enter the "coffee kids" -- the attractively dressed, sparkling coffee-drinkers who will sit in the window of the coffeehouse, chatting, writing poetry and drinking coffee. By positioning myself and a cadre of my cutest, funest friends as the new "coffee kids", I'll get paid for showing up at a coffeehouse and drinking a latte for all to see. Let's see, if I collect $150 per appearance (to start out), and I drink 3 cups of coffee a day...... my troubles are over. Then add in product placement by carrying a cup with a logo on it, and licensing fees from all my associates...... bingo.

I fall back asleep for another 3-4 hours, relaxed to know that my money troubles are solved, just as soon as I feel well enough to drink coffee again.

I'm awake again now, tossing and turning in a pool of sweat. But actually what has woken me up is shivering.... I've got alternating chills and fever. It is a distinctly un-sexy situation. But sex sells, doesn't it? I have to find some way to tap into the lucrative adult-products market. Ah, here we go..... a line of licensed celebrity talking vibrators. With every celebrity living or dead licensing their voice to phone calls and products, and the cheap production of audio chips for greeting cards and mass-produced molded plastic adult products. Now we just need a celeb with a large female fanbase...... Elvis! Imagine "The King" model serenading you intimately with "I'm all Shook Up." That should be good for a couple million on the novelty value alone.

I fall asleep before the bottom falls out of the market (not a good visual image for that product line.)

When I wake up, I'm hungry. What did I eat today? Um, 8 oz of rice milk at 3 am. That should explain the sticky taste in my mouth. I have a bottle of water by my bed, which I drink to try to rehydrate. I keep bottles in the fridge for moments like this, when my hands shake so badly and my muscles jerk around so that I keep dropping things. The water isn't enough. I stumble to the kitchen, feeling even colder all covered in sweat. I know I won't clean anything up, so I look for the easiest thing to eat. Peanut-butter straight out of the jar? No, that's what I ate all day yesterday, the spoon is still there. Try to push harder: I'll open a can of vegetable soup. Get some nutrients. I open the can with a can opener. How did I manage to spill that much? I drop a napkin on the mess. This should be reheated in a pot, but the last time I did that I fell asleep while it was cooking and it all burned. I take a fresh soup spoon and eat the soup room temperature out of the can. It is disgusting. Now I remember why I ate the peanut butter yesterday. I set everything back down on the counter, trying not to think about all the clean-up I'll have to do when I feel better.

Back in bed, I lie there wishing I had the energy for a shower to rinse off the sweat. Later... later... later I'll be able to do anything, once I'm well again.

Several days later, I'm back to as healthy as I get. It's taken me a few days to clean the house up again and feel back to somewhat normal. Then, I sit down at the computer to write this post. Just typing without editing (all I do here) takes me 45 minutes.

Sigh.... I'm back in Real Time now, where physical creating takes longer than thinking. I almost wish I were back in the confines of my fevered brain, where I can make anything happen.