 Hello there, my beautiful internet friends. The past 10 years of my life have been characterized by searching for a diagnosis for something that has been wrong with my body. By the time I was 15, I knew that I wasn't quite normal. But I never understood why. And that started a journey that has continued up until present date at age 30, over a decade and a half of seeing doctors and being referred to specialists and having tests and scans and blood work done and receiving a lot of shepherd kisses along the way. Being sent to the Mayo Clinic for days for testing, coming back home with no answers, trying to find someone else who might have some insight to what is going on, being in pain management because no one had any answers, not being able to work like a normal person because I just felt bad so often. I have spent so much time being desperate to have an answer. And even if the answer wasn't great, if I could just have a word to describe it, so I didn't feel like a crazy person. So I didn't have to keep describing this long list of seemingly random symptoms to the next new doctor I saw or to the ER visit that I had. Like that just felt like it would be so important. And I have that and I wanted to share with you what it has felt like over the past two weeks to cope with the idea that I have that answer that I've been looking for, but it is something that may not have a solution. So with that being said, let's dive in. As we dive in today, I do want to note that I'm very excited about new merch that I have. This beautiful little coffee cup with this super, super cute drawing on it. And also this t-shirt, as you can see, feature artwork by the artist walking on wheels. They drew this as fan art for me. I loved it so much. I asked if we could collaborate on merch together. So if you're interested, you can find this and this and so much more in my merch store at footlessjo.com. So I'm gonna go ahead and enjoy my Costa Rica coffee from my cozy coffee mug. Let's talk about making peace with a lifetime illness. So I'm not gonna like bury the lead here. I'm just gonna tell you guys that a couple of Mondays ago, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. This comes on the tail of a lot of testing, which is on the tail of even more testing and scans and different specialists and doctors and ruling literally everything else out and also having all of the signs and symptoms for this disorder. Now I'll put some links down below if you're interested in learning a little bit more about this condition, but I wanted to share from an emotional perspective what it's been like to try to reconcile the idea that maybe it's not gonna get better because that's what comes along with this. When you're searching for answers, there's always something that could be around the next corner and after a few years of doing that, you are damn near exhausted and ready to quit and there have been so many times when I'm like, I am not gonna talk to another doctor, I'm not trying another medication, I'm not trying another diet or remedy or whatever it is because I'm just so tired and nothing works, but I think hope is kind of programmed into us and so I've always wanted to like, okay, I'll just, I'll keep going, I'll keep going, I'll keep trying this next thing. He said something that I really appreciated. He said that a lot of doctors aren't really willing to admit the fact that this doesn't have great solutions, that this is shitty news. Yes, absolutely, there are things that we can try, but I've already tried many of those things and he made it very clear that I should keep doing that if that's what I wanna do, but that this is something that a lot of people just have to learn to live with and Brian's reaction was basically, that's unacceptable, right? Like there's, what's the next thing to do? Who do we talk to next? What do we try? How do we fix this? There has to be an answer and it's weird to think that there might not be. After trying things and looking for an answer for so long, I am deeply tired on like a soul level tired of my body and of trying to figure it out and of trying to find a solution, trying to make it something that maybe it isn't. So I've been sitting with this idea that maybe it's not going to get better. Maybe life really is about managing it, helping symptoms as best I can, but not finding a solution or a cure because that doesn't really exist. That is hard to wrap my head around. Like don't get me wrong, the fact that all of these symptoms have existed in my life since I was a teenager in varying degrees, I kind of had like a gut level understanding that my life is probably always gonna feel like this to some extent, but I think there's a piece of you that always holds on to hope that maybe one day someone's gonna say the one thing and prescribe the one medication that's gonna make everything better. And the thing is I could still hold on to that hope. I could still fight for that. I could still go to see new doctors, a new specialist and new appointments and try new things and keep going and keep going. But what if I'm just tired? What if this is how life is gonna be? This is really hard to wrap my head around. I don't know what to do with the idea that I might always feel this way. And when I say that from the outside, I think it'd be easy to be like, well, you know, I get that it's hard, but you've been doing it this long, right? But there's a big difference between something being temporary and something being most possibly permanent. I'm not sure how to make peace with the fact that I might always be in pain, that I might always feel unwell, that I might always have good days and bad days that are unpredictable and have flare ups that kind of come out of nowhere and suddenly I can't do the things that I need to do that I desperately wanna do. How do I make peace with the idea that I might never be in my definition of the term a functional human being? How do I actually sit with the fact that I might always hurt? Because it's much easier to hold on to hope and like a positive mindset when you're still looking for answers. But if I am at the end of that race that's been going on for again, over 10 years, if this is the truth of my situation, how am I gonna live with that? How am I gonna do that? I've definitely had a lot of dark days where from almost like a rational standpoint, I'm like, hmm, okay, looking at the factors in my life, I don't wanna exist in this body. So my options are exist in this body or don't exist. And I don't like either of those options. So I've been very mad and very sad and very unmotivated and having a very hard time functioning. And I feel like my tolerance level for everything is just plummeted. Like I'm not interested in doing things I don't wanna do anymore. I'm not interested in smiling if I don't feel like it. I'm not interested in saying yes to things and people that I really wanna say no to. And I almost wonder if that might be a hidden blessing in this that where I wanna spend my limited time, energy and resources now understanding that this is what my life is gonna look like, that bar has shortened a whole lot where I want to be very specific with the things that I do with my life because if this is it, if this is the body that I am blessed and cursed to be here in, I'm gonna do what I want with it. You know, if my options are exist as a human on this planet or choose not to and I'm choosing to still exist, I almost feel like I have permission from myself now to actually make my life what I want it to be, to take time for the things that I know are good for me because for so many years, I have like pushed and pushed and pushed myself to do more and to function better and to try to mimic being a normal person as best I can with this stuff and never really knowing what was going on. I have minimized my symptoms a lot. I've not been vocal about the extent of the discomfort that I am often in. I've denied myself help that I needed. I've been very harsh in my mind towards myself and my body because it's not what I want it to be and so I push it to the breaking point pretty consistently. Maybe now I've done enough of that. Maybe I've pushed through things hard enough. I'm not interested in doing that anymore. Like I'm never gonna function as a person who is healthy because there is something that is wrong with me and knowing that does bring a weird sense of peace and relief and in the moments where I can accept it. I not like give up to it, but just accept that this is the case. Accept that I actually do have limitations. I feel a lot more compassionate towards myself to actually give myself some grace to do the things that I need to do to take care of myself, to take preventative measures. So I'm not always responding to the fact that I've pushed my body way too hard and now it is incapable of doing anything. Maybe I could like, you know, stop before that point. I kind of feel like a deer in the headlights with all of this. I think what I'm trying to say is I'm not sure what this feels like. I'm not sure what it's gonna look like. I'm also aware of the fact that I cannot predict the future and I have no idea what tomorrow is gonna bring. So when I say this could be forever, I obviously don't know that, but based on all scientific evidence and all personal evidence, it does appear to be that way. And at some point, I think I'll be into, you know, trying things or talking to different specialists or, you know, trying new remedies. But right now I am just trying to figure out what I feel about this and what it means and to let myself feel whatever emotions come up as they come up. And I think that that is all that I know how to put into words right now. I'm sure at a later point, I'll talk more about this. If you guys are interested in learning more about Vibromyalgia in general, like I said, I put some resources down below and I'll probably do a video in the future about what this actually is and some kind of like the intricacies of it, how it's diagnosed and why it's often missed and how it's often misdiagnosed and all that good stuff. But right now I'm just gonna sit with this. I have some videos coming out that are just fun in the near future, like maybe something involving a running blade, which I'm very excited about. I also wanna pause for just a moment and say that during that doctor's appointment of getting diagnosed, I was very overwhelmed by that information. I think Brian was as well. And I talked about this app before called a bridge. This video was not sponsored by them, but a bridge basically transcribes, records your medical conversations. It'll like highlight key terms or if a doctor mentions the medication, it'll kind of point that out and tell you what that's all about. And so I used a bridge for this conversation like I do for most of my medical conversations. And it was so useful to be able to go back and be like, okay, that was that name of that random medication he said that I've been on before and I could try. And here's what he said about the fibromyalgia center in Colorado and just being able to review all that information, having one place was so helpful. There are links down below to that, but it was really helpful to know that this conversation was gonna be recorded and reviewed because I kind of felt like a deer in the headlights by the end of it and just trying to like absorb all this information. Thank you, especially so much to my Patreon supporters who make all of this possible. I cannot tell you how much your support truly means to me, especially in times like these. Link on screen if you're interested in what that's all about. But to you watching this video right now, thank you so much for spending a few minutes out of your day here with me today. You could be anywhere else in the world doing anything else. And you chose to hang out with me for a few minutes and I truly appreciate that, thank you. I love you guys, I'm thinking about you and I will see you in the next video. Bye guys.