That’s how my fibro has been lately. I haven’t posted here in a long time, mostly because I didn’t have anything new to say other than the same old “I hurt” mantra. It’s been nearly a year now since I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and I’ve changed a lot. My attitude has gone through many levels with this condition. (Do I call it a disease? An affliction? What is it, anyway?)

First, there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t have pain in some region of my body. Learning how to deal with that, not over-focus on it, yet pay attention to the signs my body gives me to slow down or rest, and still maintain some semblance of a life has been a challenge. I’ve chosen to try to ignore the fibro pain as much as possible, although fibro has other ideas for me. There are times where it slaps me upside the head, or down the left arm, or in the center of my back, or in the middle of my calves, or deep in the connective tissue around the bones of my feet.

I accepted that I have no control over fibro, so I focused on a part of my body that I do have control over: my weight. I joined Weight Watchers and decided that I wanted to lose the extra 80-100 pounds I’ve been carrying around as a shield - a shield to protect me from the unwanted advances of men, from being vulnerable, and just the daily pains of life. I’m ready to let the defenses crumble.

I also wanted to do an experiment and see if losing the weight would change my fibro in any way. So far, I have lost 25 pounds in 18 weeks. The benefit in this is that exercising is somewhat easier, but there really hasn’t been any change in the fibro. It may be barely discernibly less severe, but then, like last night, it’s back with full force.

Stress still triggers it. Exercise helps alleviate the stress. Doing too much still triggers it. Starting to take care of myself by eating right, means I feel better about myself, which means I listen to my body sooner, so that helps.

I guess overall, the byproduct of losing weight doesn’t change the fibro, it just makes it easier to manage and to take care of myself.

(Photo: http://www.alphachimp.com/)

There’s a saying that people in recovery from addictions have: “While you’re in recovery, your disease is out there doing push-ups.” Or words to that effect. I think that fibromyalgia is exactly the same.

I’ve been spending the last six weeks not flare-free by any means but focused on trying to minimize my flare-ups or ignoring them altogether. I find that the more I ignore my fibro, the more it acts like a petulant three-year old child and stomps its feet demanding acknowledgement.

Tonight I also realized that I have a new fibro symptom surfacing: nausea. I did far too much today. Actually, I’ve done far too much lately, period. I’ve been pushing myself through low grade flares thinking it will all just go away. Hoping it will all just go away. But it doesn’t.

Today I helped my neighbors with some yard work and I really shouldn’t have at all. A couple days ago, I had snapped my neck and stressed my body when a bookshelf almost collapsed on me. I was already hurting from that, and then I added to it by trimming some hedges, moving paver bricks, raking and digging, and planting a couple plants in a new flower bed.

When will I learn to just stop?

So, tonight, I’m experiencing a huge flare-up, insomnia, chest pain, and horrible nausea.  I want to sleep but the nausea is keeping me awake. How horrible is that?

And it seems that while I’ve been ignoring Fibro and forcing myself to be more active, it’s been gaining strength from my exercises. Crap.

It’s not fibro fog I’m suffering from these days. It’s amnesia that I even have Fibro. I don’t post much on this blog simply because what I have to say is, I feel, just redundant. The same old thing over and over: I hurt, I ache, I feel betrayed, and on and on. I get bored with it. I assume you, Internet, are too.

Even so, I’m still learning how to live with it. This last weekend, I drove six hours (including a lunch stop) to the ocean with my mother, who is 88, and drove us home as well. It was an okay weekend, but stressful even outside of the extensive driving. I should not be doing so much driving. Two car accidents last year on top of my fibro have exacerbated my degenerative disc disease and make it painful to stand and walk upright if I’ve been sitting for longer than 20 minutes at a time.

So what do I do when I get home? Even though a flare is already starting - it usually takes a day or two to really hit - I decide that I must relieve some of my frustrations by doing a complete house cleanup. Yesterday I worked on the upstairs, cleaning my bedroom, my office, doing all the laundry, and cleaning (mopping)the upstairs hardwood floors. Today, I woke up at 6:30, continued by sorting through paperwork in my office, digging through file boxes in the garage, bringing files upstairs, going grocery shopping, and then helping my daughter clean the couches, and then I cleaned (mopped) the hardwood floors downstairs. And cooked all my own meals.

By about a couple hours ago, I could barely walk. My entire body stiffened up and became extremely sore, and I had to call my daughter to come back home to take care of the dogs because I need to go to bed. I tried a nice hot bath in Epsom salts, and that helped, but as soon as I was done with dinner, I started to fall asleep.

When will I learn to pace myself? When will I learn that I need to find different ways to deal with my frustrations rather than going on a marathon housecleaning spree? When will I remember that I have fibro and it WILL catch up with me. I cannot outrun or outwork it. Damn.

Photo by Petr Kurecka (stock.xchng)

About a week or so ago, I had a complete meltdown. I had not been getting any sleep - something very familiar for those with fibromyalgia. The restless leg syndrome was becoming unbearable, and the insomnia was torture. I was lucky if I was getting a solid four hour stretch of sleep each night. Finally, I sat with my daughter, in tears, and said something had to change. I had no idea what to do. She tossed out the idea of melatonin. Desperate for any relief, short of full-on narcotics, which I will not take, I looked into it. 

Here’s what the Mayo Clinic says about melatonin:

Melatonin is a neurohormone produced in the brain by the pineal gland, from the amino acid tryptophan. The synthesis and release of melatonin are stimulated by darkness and suppressed by light, suggesting the involvement of melatonin in circadian rhythm and regulation of diverse body functions. Levels of melatonin in the blood are highest prior to bedtime. Synthetic melatonin supplements have been used for a variety of medical conditions, most notably for disorders related to sleep.

For $3.99 for a bottle of 100 3mg tablets (that also combine vitamin B6), this is the best remedy ever - for me. I tried the Gabapentin prescribed by my doctor for the restless leg syndrome and it helped, but only mildly, and the side effect of edema-swollen feet and legs was not one I was willing to accept. It also did nothing to help the fibromyalgia pain and insomnia.

So, I’ve been trying this melatonin, along with some vitamin B1 and my regular vitamin D, for nearly a week now. I take 3mg at night, about an hour before bed. Last night, I slept from 11 to 7:30 and I do not remember waking up or getting up once. AMAZING. Friggin’ amazing. I also have not experienced any restless leg syndrome for the last few days - usually a nightly occurrence - and my fibro pain has been mild. Although the mild pain I cannot necessarily attribute to melatonin, because it goes through periods of semi-remission anyway.

Time will tell if this is a long term solution to the insomnia and sleep deprivation, but I’m feeling much more rested each morning. Combined with the dietary changes I’m making in my life, I hope to start feeling better soon. The fibro may never go away, but hopefully this will make life a bit more manageable.

It’s been a struggle for me lately to have a good attitude about this Fibromyalgia. I reeled for the first few months after my diagnosis trying to understand just what this meant in my life. I went through several months of paying attention to every pain and ache and episode of fatigue to determine how to respond. It was the main focus for me as to how I was going to allow Fibromyalgia to change my life, or how I was going to continue living as normal a life as possible with it.

I finally got to the point where I was determined to just try my best to suck it up and move on, attempting to live as normal a life as possible, even while aches and pains, restless nights and sleep deprivation poked at me reminding me that everything was not normal. I was attempting a conscious form of denial. Certainly there were - and are - things in my life that I cannot change. I have to work. I have to support myself somehow, regardless of how much pain I am in. 

But as hard as I’ve tried to deny this Fibromyalgia, it has worked equally as hard to remind me that it is still here. I guess I thought that if I ignored it, it would go away or, at best, subside. I have a philosophy that says that which we focus on increases. So I guess it made sense to me that if I quit focusing on the fibro, it would go away, or at least diminish to a very low murmur. For a few brief periods, it did seem to subside and I was able to resume some things I abruptly halted several months ago - like finishing painting my home after the new hardwood floors were installed. I’ve tried this twice now. After each painting session, I’ve had a flare up in my upper shoulders and neck that literally inflamed the muscles and laid me up for two to three days. I would go to massage and get it treated and finally this last time, my therapist asked me if I was done painting. The tone was more like a sweet mother asking me if I was done trying to make something work that clearly wasn’t working for me. No, my painting isn’t done, but clearly I’m done painting.

It was a day or two after that when I had the worst night I’ve had yet with this fibro experiencing shooting, stabbing pains in my feet and legs that made me limp when I tried to walk and restless leg syndrome that kept me awake until the wee hours of the morning.

This was the first time the fibromyalgia has driven me to tears. I cried alone thinking that life has to be better than this. If this was what it was going to be like - sleep deprivation, random shooting, stabbing pains, constantly alternating dull or sharp aches, a strange syndrome preventing me from doing everything I wanted to do - I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue on. The thought of this still makes me weepy.

Even writing this now, I feel as if I should still suck it up. There are so many who have things so much worse than me. My brother has a malignant brain tumor, is alone with his two dogs in Utah, and here I am whining about my fibro. At least my fibro won’t kill me. We don’t know how his treatment is helping, or if it is at all. There are blogs that I read of people dealing with life threatening illnesses, and here I am complaining about stabbing pain and lack of sleep. In that perspective, it sounds a bit stupid, doesn’t it? Like I really should be grateful my problem isn’t life threatening, and that it could be so much worse. Right?

Yes and no. Yes, because in my head, I know this is true, and I really am grateful that other than a stupid (what do we call it anyway? disease? syndrome? autoimmune?) ailment, I am the picture of health. But no, because when in the middle of the night there’s a bolt of electric shock that sears through my feet and legs and wakes me up by catching my breath, every shred of logic and rational thinking falls away and all there is is fibro. My pain. I hate it and I want it to go away. And like a filthy neighbor who won’t move, I’m stuck with it.

I guess the next stage of grieving is acceptance. I’m not quite there yet.

They called me today. Seems I’m 28 pounds overweight for the study. I asked why that mattered and they said that over a certain BMI then they have to test for things like sleep disorders and such. So, I guess the study is open until May. If I lose 28 pounds by then, I can call the lady back. Go Weight Watchers.

But I didn’t tell them I already have a sleep disorder. Not sleep apnea, but one just below that on the severity scale - according to the sleep clinic - upper airway obstructive disease. And I’m convinced that it’s not related to weight (contrary to popular belief) because I was diagnosed with it when I was a good 50 pounds lighter than I am now.

I’ll keep you posted.

Lately these days when I hear a TV commercial mention fibromyalgia, I usually ignore it or brush it off as some drug company selling me pills that aren’t primarily designed for fibromyalgia. However, fibromyalgia seems to be either becoming a trendy diagnosis to be used in selling drugs, or it’s becoming more prominent in the research field.

As it turns out, the research field appearst to be paying more attention to fibromyalgia, as this website that was mentioned on a commercial in my area (Seattle): www.myfibrostudy.com 

It appears that they are doing research across the country, and I checked the location in Washington state where they are doing research and it happens to be the doctor that the rheumatologist who diagnosed me had mentioned was the best, but had now moved over to research only. Lucky for me.

I did the survey and applied. We’ll see what happens.

I used to think it was a good idea to disclose to my friends that I have Fibromyalgia, so they could understand why I can’t do certain things, maybe appreciate why I’ve gained some weight, or why I can’t keep up with the things I used to do. I hoped that by disclosing, I’d get sympathy and understanding - and who knows, offers to help? I’ve learned this is not such a good idea and I never get the reaction I hope for. Well, except for once. A friend of my mother’s was truly saddened to hear it as he had a friend who had become completely disabled from it.

Mostly, the reactions I get run like this:

Comment 1: “Oh, I had that years ago. When I got myself out of the stressful situation, all the symptoms completely disappeared and have never returned.”

Translation: It’s all in your head and it’s only caused by stress.

Or…

Comment 2: “You know what Fibromyalgia really is, don’t you? It a few doctors getting together and deciding that if you hurt in these 18 places they’d just all tell you that you have fibromyalgia. Not to say that you aren’t really in pain, but…”

Translation: It’s all in your head and it’s a fake disease because doctors don’t know what’s wrong with you or there’s nothing wrong with you.

Comment 3: (After disclosing to a friend who had the flu that I ached all over from a flare up.) “Well, the good news is for both of us this will go away.”

Translation: It’s all in your head and you really just have the flu.

These were comments that were really said to me over the course of the last week. To the first person, I didn’t respond. To the second person, I commented after he continued to point to his head and imply that I shouldn’t let it take over my thoughts and consume me and that I could think myself better. SERIOUSLY. I told him that if I could have wished my way away from this, I would have. To the third person, I said, well, your aches will go away. Mine keep coming back.

Let me say here, Internet, this shit is NOT in my head. I’ve tried for the last year to do everything possible, including diet and exercise, to make this go away. I’ve tried to ignore it and “act as if” by doing everything I’ve been used to do. My body slaps me down and forces me to stop. Anyone who really has fibro knows exactly what I’m talking about.

The only analogy I can think of to describe this is that telling someone with fibromyalgia to just not let it get to their head and to not let the fibro take them over is like telling a drug addict or alcoholic to just have some willpower.

This ignorant attitude of others just pisses me off. And how do I educate them? Can I even educate them? I don’t know if I can. Never mind that the American College of Rheumatology recognizes it, so does the Mayo Clinic, or that the Job Accommodation Network, as part of the U.S. Department of Labor, has guidelines on Fibromyalgia accommodations, and so many other legitimate entities also recognize it.

I do know that I have decided that if anyone truly wants to know what is wrong with me, I just tell them - as was suggested to me by my younger daughter - that I have chronic pain. Or that my back is hurting me. That they understand. When you tell them it’s fibro, it’s like instant eye-rolling, sighs, and the implied, “Oh, that. That’s a fake disease and you’re just being lazy.”

The truth is that when some people ask you how you are, they really don’t want to know. It’s sad, but true. And as I was talking with these people who said this, all I could think of was that I wanted to talk with my circle of fibro friends that I’ve met and tell them about this. I knew they cared and would understand. That has to be enough for me. And I think it is. I know this isn’t in my head. I no longer need to convince the world also.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Update on the Gabapentin: It seems to be working. I’ve not experienced any restless leg syndrome lately, unless I don’t take the meds at the same time each night, then I get some RLS. Or if I’m extremely over-exhausted, then I do. I’m not sure if it has helped with the fibromyalgia overall, or if my attitude has changed and I’m refusing to sit still regardless of how much pain it causes me. Could be a little of both. The jury is still out, I guess. Besides, I’ve only been taking it for a month and it’s a little hard to tell so soon.

I was told about a clinic near me (I won’t mention their name) that treats fibromyalgia patients and chronic fatigue patients. The woman who mentioned the clinic said something to me about treating the underlying “cause” of fibromyalgia. Wow, I didn’t know that the medical community had figured out yet what actually causes fibro. I obviously became defensive, but I always try to stay open minded, so I researched this clinic. Following is a quote from the clinic website, with some specific phrases bolded by me for emphasis:

It is through a holistic, integrated and comprehensive approach to the treatment of underlying physiological factors that differentiates our approach and ultimate patient success. Our treatment approach begins with testing for hormonal imbalances, immune deficiencies, thyroid and adrenal dysfunction, and underlying mitochondrial dysfunction. We treat the underlying causes of your condition rather than just masking your symptoms with medications.

Sheesh. I’m sorry, folks, but for those of us who have fibro, haven’t we all been through all these tests more than once? And wouldn’t we all love for the cause of our fibro to be a simple hormone imbalance? Do these folks think that the rheumatologists that diagnosed us haven’t already tested for all this?

I don’t buy it. Not one bit.

Technorati Tags: fibromyalgia

I’ve been taking Gabapentin now for a week after my doctor prescribed it for my restless leg syndrome (RLS), which goes along with my Fibromyalgia. This doctor is a general practitioner, not a rheumatologist, as the rheumatologist I went to won’t treat Fibro, preferring to stick with more typical diseases like arthritis, lupus, and so on. There aren’t really any doctors in my area that specialize in fibromyalgia. There was one, but he has moved into research of fibro only, not treatment, which is good, really, because the disease needs more research. I mean it, too. I’d like to see even more awareness and acceptance of this horrible whatever you want to call it - disease, syndrome, whatever.

Anyway, how’s it working? Hard to tell. I am probably sleeping a little bit better, but not much. I’ve not experienced any RLS since taking it, but it’s only been about 10 days, if that. I do know that I’ve been in a fibro flare-up for the last several days. I think the flare-up is unrelated to the drug. I think it’s because of the change in weather - much colder the past few days with snow - and just tiredness and having done too much a few days ago. I still don’t get to sleep more than about six hours a night, if that. Then, once I’m up, I’m up. I have to work, so I need to stay up. Although I’m grateful I can work from home, so the stress and trauma of a daily commute is eliminated. Every once in a while, I’ll allow myself a nap, but I really wish I had the ability to let myself sleep. Yesterday, I was exhausted so at about 5 p.m., I told my daughter I was going to go take a nap. I slept an hour and for some reason, I made myself get up.

I’m not sure anyone really cares to know all this, but I’m hopeful that the Gabapentin will help with the pain. If it does, I’m so happy.

Oh, and on another related note, the doctor retested my vitamin D level, and my level has doubled in the months I’ve been taking the vitamin D supplement. This is really good news. This means that my vitamin D is up close to where it should be, and that any muscle aches and pains are truly fibro, not a combination. I’ve eliminated one cause of the muscle aches. YAY.

Today I went to the doctor for the first time since I was diagnosed with Fibro. This was my regular general practitioner, not the rheumatologist who diagnosed me. This doctor (the one today) I like. She’s really the only doctor in that clinic I do like. She takes her time and listens and really pays attention. We are going to try a new drug - no, not Lyrica. She wants to try me on Gabapentin. It’s a drug that is usually used to treat restless leg syndrome. She thinks it will help with my RLS, and my fibromyalgia. In addition, she wants me to have another sleep study. I had one back in 1999 and was diagnosed with upper airway obstruction syndrome (or something like that.) It’s not sleep apnea, but just next to that.

To be honest, I’m very hesitant about taking any drug, for any reason. I had to go through a period in my life where I had to take about four or five medications every day. It saved my life, but it was horrible to have to take pills every day. Now I’m off all pills and I like it that way. But - if a medication will improve my quality of life, and it is doctor prescribed, then I’m willing to give it a try.

However, that said, I’m doing a ton of research on the drug. I don’t know if I’ve turned into more of a natural treatment advocate or not, but I want to make sure before I ingest a chemical I am fully educated on the side effects. Does the benefit of taking the drug have the potential to outweigh the issue of living with problem untreated? That’s what I have to decide.

It’s been about six months now since I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. I thought I’d recap how it’s been for me adjusting to this deal. At first, I was in a bit of denial and had to do a lot of research. Then when I accepted it, I started realizing the ramifications of what this diagnosis meant. It meant changing everything in my life. My priorities, my self-care, my goals, my commitments, and so forth. This was quite an adjustment. For a while I even went through a period of focusing on every pain and ache to determine for myself my limits and how I could deal with it - or not. I think in any type of self-awareness and personal growth some introversion and self-focus - some would call it self-absorption - is necessary, if for nothing more than to understand it. I think where problems occur is when someone doesn’t know when to turn outward again. Sometimes that takes professional help. I’m all for professional help and have had my share of it years ago.

Now I have accepted the fact that fibro is a complete part of my life. Aches and pains are always there to some degree. There are days when it slows me down or completely stops me, and then there are days when the pain is only lightly under the surface and I feel quite good, have more energy, and can get more things done. Overall, however, the pain never seems to go away. Ever. That can be depressing at times, and there are times it makes me feel quite old, although I am still quite young. (I refuse to label myself middle age yet. I doubt my mother rarely calls herself middle aged and she’s almost 88. It’s a mindset, you know?)

Anyway, lately, I’ve come to terms with some things. I am not going to give up on a happy future just because of fibro. I’m not going to let it completely cripple me without a good fight. I plan to do as much as I can socially, physically, and employment-wise that I can, without overdoing it. And there’s the rub. Overdoing it is hard to determine. The line is so fine, it’s almost invisible. Often I’ve found with this stuff that by the time the thought occurs to you that you might be overdoing it, you’re past the point where the pain would be minimal. But I’m learning to recognize the warning signs. I’m learning to listen to my body. This from a woman who would often push herself so hard and so fast that the only time she’d stop was when she became so exhausted that clumsiness and accident-prone set in. Like falling off a two step ladder and almost - but not quite - breaking my arm on the window sill.

Today, I pushed myself and I’m paying for it. But sometimes it’s worth it. I was able to help my mom get her computer stuff set up and she is happy. She’s happy that I’m able to do it, and she trusts me. I was able to spend time with my mother, which I value all the time now as she gets older, more tired, and so on. Every moment is a gift.

Kind of like this fibro. It’s given me a new way of looking at myself and at life.

I’ve talked before about the profound impact Embraced by the Light, by Betty Eadie, had on my spiritual growth, understanding of life and God. I read it just a few months prior to my father’s death, and what I read helped me understand just what was going on. That was 14 years ago, and it’s probably time for me to read it again. I might read something new in there this time.

 

However, I wanted to share with you how I was later blessed with an opportunity to meet Betty Eadie.

 

When my father died, he was a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous with 32 years of continuous sobriety. (I never saw my father drink.) One of the things he and my mother did was host a talk radio show about sobriety. One of their friends took over that late-night talk show after my father’s death. On the anniversary of my father’s passing, she (the new host) had invited both me (representing my father) and Betty Eadie to be on the show. I do not recall what Bettie Eadie had in common with AA or sobriety, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I was able to spend an hour with Betty and her handsome son, Joe, on the air, and some time before and after the show. Somewhere I still have the recording from that show, I’m sure.

What I remember most about that night is this:

Betty Eadie’s near death experience happened on the same day of the month (or the day before) that my father passsed away. Of course, hers was several years earlier. I thought that was a very strange coincidence, and had by then come to believe that there are no coincidences in life.

The woman, Betty, was the warmest, most loving human I think I have ever encountered. There was a grace, dignity, and serenity that enveloped her that was indescribable.

When we parted, Betty gave me a hug. Not the air hug that some people give when they meet someone for the first time, or the light obligatory hug that is socially acceptable. No. This woman gave me a hug and held me for a brief moment. I felt pure love in her hug. This woman didn’t really know me from Adam. This was the first and only time I’ve met her, but I felt this hug from her as if she had been my mother all my life and was saying goodbye to me and blessing me in my life ahead as I ventured forth on my own.

She probably will never know the impact she had on me in that brief moment. But it is a memory that will burn in my soul forever, and one to which I can cling when time are tough and I need a hug. All I need to do is think back to the feeling of that night. Acceptance, love, and serenity. All wrapped up in a moment.

Someday, I will pass that on, if I haven’t already.

Sometimes I wish I was a “Real Housewife of Orange County” where I had all the money in the world for whatever I needed, where I didn’t have to throw darts to see which bills get paid with the current check. Of course, some of what they have I don’t want as I have so much I am content with.

I know this year will be one of a lot of changes for me. I’m undergoing a background investigation for a job that I think I’d really like to have. It came to me, I didn’t go searching for it. But it sounds like a great job: flexible, well-paying, great clients, doing exactly what I like to do and what I’m good at.

I have no skeletons in my closet, so the background check should be just fine. But part of my anxiety is just irrational paranoia - part of my makeup. I’ve had to live with it for years, and I think it’s partly because I’ve been single for so long. I have no one here to really bounce this stuff off of, or to just lovingly tell me I’m full of crap, things will be fine, and to move on.

Some of the fear is fear of success. I know how to manage my life as it is now. I’m fairly successful already, but what will life be like if I’m successful beyond my wildest dreams? It’s possible. What if I really do get the life I want? Absolutely everything in my life could change.

But I have to try the freelance run-my-own-business thing. When I realized that my company was making close to $40K in one month on my efforts alone, I realized I really have to cut out the middleman.

So, I’m venturing out this year on new things. I’m scared, but I’m doing it anyway. I figure, if I don’t try, I’ll never know. I have conflicting feelings of apprehension and enthusiasm, confidence and insecurity, excitement and depression. I guess this is all normal and I should just ride the wave and enjoy the refreshing water as it washes over me on this new journey.

I talk about my dad a lot. Today I came across a photo of him, and I thought I’d share it with you.

The quality is poor, as it’s a photo of a print of a scanned photo, so about three generations degraded in quality. But I love this picture. My father always smiled like this, often after telling some corny joke, and often he’d make crazy faces too in his pictures. He had an infectious laugh and a sense of humor that wouldn’t end.

The main picture I came across today at my mom’s was actually a full 8×10 portrait. I flipped it over and stapled to the back of the photo was his talent scout resume. It was a brief list of his abilities that a talent agency would need to know to send him out for auditions. I found the list quite interesting. Among his many talents of voice and acting, it listed him as a “freelance copy writer”. Hmmm. Isn’t that what I’m working towards being? The freelance part, that is. I’m already a copy writer.

It made me choke up a bit to think about how much like my father I am. I have many of his talents and interests and if he were here today, he’d be all over the new computer stuff we got set up for my mother. I also like to think I have a lot of his sense of humor.

So, where does the grandsons part of these posts come in? I had thoughts of that a while back, but my fibro fog dulled those thoughts right out of my brain, so I can’t remember. I do know this: I hope to be able to pass on to my grandsons all the wonderful things I’ve inherited from my father. I see a lot of the humor and sweetness already in my oldest grandson, Cayden. We have yet to see about Evan, but I’m certain he will be just as sweet, and just as handsome.