"Here at the end of all things"

As I'm sure you've noticed, TRB has been very quiet for some time.

I thought it was probably about time I made the silence official, but if you're looking for anything particularly profound I'm afraid here isn't the place for it.

The heart of the matter is that I no longer have the need to write here.

When I first started the blog, underneath a desire to help other patients with my writing (two parts whimsy, one part ranting) was my own need for catharsis. Nearing the end of an eighteen month struggle for a diagnosis (by that point, any old one would have done, correct or not!) I was frightened and angry to the point of savagery. Nobody knew what was wrong, suggestions had been made it was entirely somatic and a product of my imagination, and in place of the support I'd expected from friends I was receiving from some only spite and suggestions I was merely hoping for attention.

I was in short absolutely furious. There really is nothing like pure, white-hot fury to get your creative juices going and I channelled them here, into words.

(A design on Zazzle. It made me chuckle.)

 

Part of the silence is that I'm just not angry any more.

Well, that's a bit of a lie. I am angry - I commute by train every day to and from work, there isn't a chance in the world I'm not angry, at least for the amount of time it takes me to escape the station at rush hour. However, I'm not angry about my situation. That particular fire has gone out, and I'm able to let ignorance wash over me and ignore it, something I struggled to do before.

The second and possibly more important part is that, touch wood, I've now been mostly symptom free for nearly six months.

I'd feel entirely hypocritical and just plain wrong if I carried on writing as a patient when I'm not actually feeling much of the effects at present. It feels like deceit, whatever the best of intentions behind it.

I am not foolish enough to think the problem has entirely disappeared, but it is certainly lying very low. It seems to have been that since my cancer scare and subsequent operation in December Petunia has gone into a lengthy hibernation. I will not be upset if she decides she likes sleeping better than she does arguing with me.

I have been very fortunate in that recent changes in my circumstances have resulted in far less stress than was previously a part of my life. I have finally landed firmly on my feet in a job I love, and have the opportunity of really furthering my career in that I am being sponsored through my legal exams to become qualified. This also means a lot of my spare time will be taken up with studying, but I finally feel in a place with my health where I can take that endeavour on.

My other half and I are lucky enough to live out in the countryside where it's very peaceful. I no longer walk home from work and wonder how many drunks I'm going to have to dodge on the main road before reaching the safety of my front door. The most lively think I am likely to encounter on my new route home is the pub Labrador doing his constitutional rounds, who occasionally likes to escort me home.

Never fear, I haven't become one of those people. I don't think that stress is the sole cause of Fibromyalgia and that de-stressing will cure you. Perhaps I am just mild enough on the spectrum that it makes enough of a difference to let me function mostly normally again.

So, as I said my own personal need to write here has passed.

I know the blog has been helpful to readers, because plenty of you have been kind enough to contact me by one means or another and tell me. To have started up expecting maybe ten readers a month, to be here twenty-eight months later with one hundred and forty four posts and fifty five thousands views, two rounds of nominations in the WEGO Health Awards, and having being made part of the Chronic Illness Cat team is the sort of positive reception I couldn't have dreamed up if I'd tried. As such I'm not deleting the blog, merely ceasing to write any new content. It can stay here for those who want to read it, and hopefully it might continue to be helpful.

So, thank you to everyone who has been reading. Thank you for your comments, for making me laugh, for correcting my typing (sometimes you wouldn't believe I'm a secretary!), for sharing your stories with me as I have done my own. Thank you to everyone who nominated and endorsed me for WEGO Health, and especially thank you to everyone who got in touch in December before we got the good news. There were genuinely more than a few tears for all the kind messages.

I have enjoyed our conversation very much, and I hope you have too.

(Image from sfgirlbybay.com)

Wishing you all, as ever, many spoons
xxx