Last week I went on vacation.  It was a great time.  For the first time in years I went on a vacation with someone, my niece, so I wasn’t wandering around alone.  It was my first tropical island paradise vacation.  I snorkeled for the first time, dove in a submarine and saw a shipwreck, rode a catamaran, bobbed around on ocean waves while the sun set.  It was beautiful and peaceful.  Of course the journey took 20 hours there and 20 hours back, what with 10 hour layovers in the Miami airport. But in between those travel days was lounging on a white sand beach, bobbing in ocean waves while the sun set, peace and quiet.

Today was my first day back at work.  I didn’t make it.  Flat on my back…  So what’s going on.  General fibro symptoms are flaring a bit just from exhaustion.  There were problems with swollen feet and legs on the journey, but that has gone down, leaving just a general ache.  The joints in my hands are tight and sore.  My back and neck are aching.  No problems there, really, nothing I’m not used to.  The problem is on my face.  A little over a year ago, a sore broke out on my chin and kept growing.  The doctors at the time declared it a Saint Marys Hospital bug I had picked up (where I used to work), probably staph, strep, or MERSA.  At the time, the glands in my neck swelled up trying to fight off the problem.  It has returned.  Infection – I’m infectious.  They’re doing a culture to see what I’m actually dealing with, but it’s likely staph, strep, or MERSA or impetigo.  Lovely.  At the same time, I have a headache, the kind that makes the eyes burn, and noise/light hurts.  Of course, I fell asleep without my CPAP on, and that increases headaches and neck pain, causes throat pain, probably from snoring like a maniac.

Wonderful vacation, and I’m willing to take the punishment my body doles out.  I’ll be to work tomorrow.  I made it to the doctor this morning and got the antibiotics I need to fight this infection.  I’m still exhausted, but I’ll be there.  The only thing I can’t face is not doing whatever I need or want to do because of the pain and fatigue.  Bullheadedness is a necessity with fibromyalgia.

Upcoming search for information on the immune system, fighting infection, and fibromyalgia – the connection.