I’ve had a fairly packed few weeks, and I’m looking at a full schedule until … probably mid February. My anxiety is considerably higher than normal, as there’s a lot to get done over the next few weeks. I’m physically doing considerably more and resting less. This has a lot of consequences for me.
First being that my fibro is flaring up. Which, yeah, go figure. It means random parts of my body hurt. On Friday, the middle knuckle on my right hand hurt. Yesterday, an old injury on my left foot started hurting (and still does). Bits of my leg hurt, and then stop hurting at random. My knees ache more, my right elbow started hurting … you get the picture.
Today I experienced a new symptom. I had a shower, which was all well and good. I was drying myself off when I felt pain running down my left arm. I quickly turned my arm over. It was a water droplet running down my arm.
I felt some not inconsiderable pain from a water droplet.
I briefly panicked and then bottled it up. I didn’t have the time to panic about it, so I didn’t. It’s only now, in the later hours, that I’m sitting down to process this new facet.
Pain from a water droplet.
I’m used to abnormal pain after an injury, or additional pain after physical exertion, but this is new. This is normal sensory input being processed as pain. This is something I cannot excuse away as ‘a bit rough’ or ‘a bit sharp’, it’s a water droplet.
Realistically I’ve experienced this before. Sometimes when my amazing human rubs my head or my arm, it hurts. I’ve had days where pillows hurt to lie on. But I have always rationalised them away – my amazing human was being unintentionally rough, or his nails were too long, and I just had a really bad headache so I was sensitive.
This is the first experience I can’t rationalise away. This is clear proof that I have an issue with sensory input, where either my nerves are sending the wrong signals, or my brain is interpreting the signals wrong.
Today it really hit me. I’m still not sure what to do with this information. I’m probably going to bury it for a while and bring it out to examine at inopportune times (such as during an exam, or when I’m trying to read). But for now, honestly? I’m scared. This is scary. And I really don’t like it.
Walk to Wellness 