I was just tender 22. One sunny summer noon, frens at med school planned an outing by the river-side of Dolalghat. We swam all day under the dazzling sun. And when I woke up next morning, i couldnt move. It was as if I was trapped in a casket. My hands and body crunched in pain. Oblivious to the source of pain, my friends tried giving me painkillers, massage and hotbags. None of that worked however. I was bedridden.
That was my first attack of fibromyalgia. ...
But it was only a harbinger of the upheaval.. that was about to turn my life upside down!
My hands and back felt foreign to me. I sat stiff, days after days, writhing, hurting, crying and devastated. Disabling pain pinged into my bones. I still sorely remember sitting by my hostel window, wearing jacket in summer heat, and trying to read my course books. I almost flunked my third year final exam. My friends were lost in their own stress of med-school. But i was at war, war i lost everyday. My dreams were thwarted, I sank in my wretchedness. I woke up every morning just to find the demons stronger and fiercer than the day before. I couldn't eat, dinner table sobs became a mundane routine. I was entangled in a vicious web of vexation. Thoughts of ending my sufferings constantly plagued me, and wished for euthanasia back then. My then boyfriend, and now spouse, was the only person who encouraged me to move on.
It took me more than a year to demystify the source of pain. I was temperature sensitive. I had allodynia and hyperalgesia. Temperature changes and wind triggered my attacks. But I didnt know how to avoid or abate it. Desperate for answers, I knocked all doors... specialists, traditional healers, fortune tellers and who not. Renouned orthopedician misdiagnosed me with arthritis and prescribed Methotrexate for a year, with no improvement. Rheumatologist at AIIMS Delhi, brushed off my condition as not arthritis, but wonder what...
Years passed, harrowing pain became a bitter constant. However, I didn't let it forestall my life goals. It wasnt one particular day or event, but when I looked back after 6-7 years of affliction, I realised I had won the battle. I wasn't cured, it still followed me like dark shadow. The disability still tainted my brightest days. During MBBS finals, MD finals or pregnancy, pain would shoot up, forcing me to immobility. But I worked. I worked when I was fine, I worked when it hurt. I worked when I was unable to hold a pen, I paddled through choppy waters. Now I am a proud Derm graduate. Despite days of bedlock right before MD finals, I am Kathmandu University's first distinction holder in Dermatology. Even today, my hands hurt during every hair transplant, while holding laser probes, in household chores and as I carry my daughter on my hips. But I do all of that, and the triumph is priceless.
I am sharing my journey because I know, there are so many others who live this chronicity, shunned and dejected. Life is a battle, one way or the other. Fibromyalgia is a havoc, it engulfs you if you succumb. You have to fight, you cant give up, just cant give up.
