Why I write

This blog is being written for the PFAM Blog Carnival hosted this month at Bed, Body and Beyond.

Writers write.

I don't always refer to myself as a writer because I have had long periods in my life when I was not writing.  At the moment I am most definitely a writer.

When I think back over the times I have identified as a writer a few moments stand out.  Back in the early 1990's I was reading a bunch of lesbian detective novels, read toss, read toss, read toss... I was burning through them.  Then one day I just thought, "I could write a better book than this!"  So I sat down and wrote a novel.  It was never published, I didn't really try, the act of completing it was the reward.  Then I went back to school and got a degree in Administrative Leadership and one of my professors chose to publish two of my academic papers in his course books for the following two years.  I clearly remember sitting in the heat dressed in cap and gown and the young man beside me saying he had read my papers and he said "How do you make it all make sense?  Are you a writer or something?"  His question brought me up short and made me think.

Am I a writer?  I had taken for granted, up til then, the ability I have to express cohesively in this written word form.  That was the beginning of my awakening as regards writing.  That was the moment when I began to realize that not everyone can do this.  Since that time I have written millions of words.  Another novel (unpublished by choice), a business book (published), hundreds of short articles for various outlets, countless presentations, seminars, speeches, and masses of marketing materials (I rather like alliteration!).  Gradually I have come to realize just how fortunate I am to have this gift.  I take praise of my writing with grace but also with rebuttal as I really think it is a gift and I have only made a minuscule effort to refine it.  I'm just lucky.  I can write anything (except songs which always turn out so corny that I embarrass myself!), technical writing, creative writing, short, long, fact, fiction, academic, irreverent, poetry, prose -- pretty much anything I want to do.  I'm just very lucky.

So why do I write?  I write because I can.  I write because it helps me to clarify my thoughts.  I am a verbal processor.  My ideas and thoughts coalesce as I express them and for me writing is a verbal communication in that I write the way I talk.  People who know me who have read any of my books tell me that they feel I am sitting beside them reading aloud - my voice is very evident.  

I write to process, I write to share, I write to soothe myself, I write to make myself smile, I write to show my love, I write to reveal my heart, I write to enlighten, I write to pass the time, I write to analyze.  Most of all I write because I can, because I was given a gift that I have not earned and I think it would be neglectful of me to squander it.

Lost in Limbo...

I am writing this for the PFAM which is hosted this month by FibroDAZE, Kathy over there is asking about how we cope with new diagnosis.

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Right at the moment I am in a place of great uncertainty and I'm picking my way through a minefield of doctors appointments.  One of the reasons why there is so much happening at the moment is that my health was sorely neglected when I was in the US.  I didn't have any health insurance for my last year there and so I was just muddling on alone.

When I returned to Australia, where, thank the Goddess, we have universal health care I was able to begin to get some of my health issues taken care of (I hoped)...  In actual fact so far, in the two and a half months since my return home, I have received a couple of different diagnoses.

Just a tiny bit of background - in 1994 I was incorrectly diagnosed with Osteoarthritis and basically told "welcome to middle age".  Then followed several years of dancing with various anti-inflammatory drugs all of which caused strange and unpleasant events (like serious depression and hives) until the doctor finally became concerned that my allergy to NSAIDS was going to result in anaphylactic shock if I kept taking the NSAIDS with an anti-histamine chaser.  I then resigned myself to living with constant pain with only over the counter paracetamol/acetaminophen to help.  This went on, interrupted by occasional doses of Vicodin, Percoset and Lortab, until 2009 when I was finally diagnosed with Fibromyalgia.

Back here in Australia I have now started to nail down some of the more specific either parallel or contributing conditions.  First the Rheumatologist (Professor McAwefullyCute) informed me that I have "An undampened stress response resulting in widespread chronic pain"   That's all well and good but it doesn't account for all the other problems that plague me...  Next came a brand new diagnosis of Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, diagnosed by the Endocrinologist, and the probability that there is another auto-immune disorder.  So off to the Immunologist (Professor McCool) who took enough blood for testing to feed the entire cast of Twilight, and arranged for an MRI.

I feel very unstable about my diagnosis at the moment...  I know that McCool is checking for some things that are very frightening like Paraneoplastic Syndrome - which could mean I have Cancer somewhere in my body that is undiagnosed.  I have another week to wait before I hear the results of these tests.  I know he's looking at Lupus, Addison's, MS, Sjogren's etc etc etc...

When you live with a diagnosis like Fibromyalgia it kind of places you in a difficult position,  Because it is a diagnosis of exclusion and to be honest I don't think my doctors in the US really did enough testing to have positively excluded this range of other auto-immune conditions.  This places me on the horns of a rather interesting dilemma...

Do I want these tests to find anything?

Anyone who has lived for a long time not knowing why they feel crappy all the time, why they hurt all the time, why they are so tired that shampooing their hair knocks them out for an hour, will know what I mean...  There is a part of me that desperately wants to know what is causing all this pain!  But I don't want to hear terrifying news that my own body is attacking my brain or that I have Cancer.  I would love a new diagnosis if it was something that could be managed... hell I might even get better!

The Hashimoto's diagnosis was good news... something that can be managed reasonably well with non-invasive synthetic hormone pills... easy...  I might even feel better than I feel at the moment when the thyroid pills start to take effect...  On the down side I am very cognizant that one auto-immune condition frequently leads the way for one or more others.

I guess, in my roundabout way I am trying to say this...  A new diagnosis can be a thing of beauty, it can take you from despair to hope in the blink of an eye!  It can also be a frightening slap across the face with your mortality.

One week from today I will know much more - until then - welcome to my limbo land.