Etsy Update and More

Well, it's been a while. Things have been crazy around here. There's a flu bug running through the ferrets, and that means I have to feed several of them (all the sick ones) 4 times a day, as well as do my usual things around the house. Saying I'm exhausted doesn't really cover it. And one of the sick ones (a six-month old from one of this year's litters) bit me last week while I was feeding him, so now my right index finger is infected. I'm on antibiotics, and the finger has a wet/dry wrap to help it drain, but it really slows me down, since I'm right-handed.

Etsy update -- Needle Bling, my Etsy shop, has had 4 sales! Yea!!!!!!!!!! I've got lots of stitch markers on sale, and I've recently added gift certificates, so you've got no excuse not to give stitch markers as a gift! (grin) And this weekend (Thanksgiving weekend) I'm having a sale. 15% off everything in the shop except gift certificates. It ends Tuesday, December 2, so don't wait!

I've been getting questions about my fibromyalgia, so here's the background story on me. I was diagnosed about 12-13 years ago. I was working in a bank at the time, and one night after I got home my left knee blew up to about twice it's normal size. I figured I had twisted it or something, started favoring the leg and went to work the next day. After a few days of working during the day and babying the knee at night, nothing had changed so I went to see my doctor. He had no idea what had caused it, told me to keep doing what I was doing, and come back in a week if nothing had changed. That continued for about three weeks. At that point, the doctor told me to take two weeks off work. He wanted me to start the next day, but I had things on my desk that needed to be taken care of, so I worked the next day and told the bank manager what was going on. He wasn't happy, but what could he do?

So I took the next two weeks off, except for one mandatory meeting that had been scheduled before I started having problems. I stayed off my feet and the swelling went down some, but the knee was still painful. The day before I was supposed to go back, Ruth and I both came down with stomach flu -- high fever, vomiting, the whole nine yards. I called in and left a message explaining what was wrong and that I wouldn't be coming in the next day. That continued for three days. By Thursday that week, I felt well enough to work, so I took my doctor's note and went in. I worked Thursday and Friday, and when I went in on Monday I was called into the bank president's office. I was told that I 'wasn't a team player and they couldn't have non-team players on their team', and that I was no longer employed there.

I got my COBRA insurance set up and continued looking for a reason for the way my knee was acting. About a month later, my doctor (wonderful man, never told me it was all in my head -- this was the culmination of a two year hunt for answers about why I was so painful) sent me to an orthopedic surgeon. He looked at two years of blood tests for all kinds of illnesses and the MRI of my knee that we'd had done, tossed the file in a corner, said 'Well, that was a waste,' and proceeded to poke me in multiple places. I think I tested positive in 12 of the 18 pressure points. When he said 'You have fibromyalgia', my first thought was 'OMG! I have a diagnosis!" It was a huge relief, even though I had friends with fibro and had an idea of what it meant.

In the ensuing years, I've gotten progressively more painful, and my once-dependable memory has slowly become quite unreliable. When the memory first began to go, I was afraid it was early-onset Alzheimer's, but tests proved that it wasn't. Now I'm lucky if I can remember a conversation for 2 days, much less the 6 months or more that I used to be able to count on. I can't work because I don't retain the training, but I can't get disability because the lovely state of Pennsylvania doesn't think I'm disabled enough. grrrrrrrrrrr

Anyway, that's my fibro story. Nothing you all haven't heard/experienced before!