A little something new...

The Retired Bridgeburner is now two years old! Excuse me while I have a bizarrely proud parent moment.

Last year my "something different" was the 30 Day Chronic Illness Challenge. Whilst I enjoyed doing that, it has isuses with repetition and towards the end it became difficult to answer similar questions differently enough to make it worth posting. One of the key problems was in some cases I'd already covered the answer in an earlier post - there are only so many questions you can ask about the experience of chronic illness after all. At some point you enter the murky boggy waters of "Where have we heard this before?"

So, I'm doing something quite different for this birthday. I'm going to answer more typical life questions and see if they reveal any links into the more usual realms of this blog. I'm going to start it off with this post myself with a question fresh in my mind from a recent discussion with a friend, but I'm also quite openly asking for questions from you readers. I'm really looking forward to your suggestions!

So, the first one.

Given complete freedom, name a person you would like to meet and why. 

I doubt this will surprise many of you, particularly if you've stuck around with TRB for a while. Also, I'm cheating. There are two. 

J. K. Rowling

(I really recommend this Oprah interview to other fans - they're actually both very interesting women and it's a nice thing to watch.)

On one level, I'd like to meet her because I think she'd be an interesting person to talk to, and I love stimulating conversation. I've watched the few TV programmes she's done (Who Do You Think You Are, A Year in the Life etc) and my impression from this is of an interesting and grounded woman with a great outlook on life. Who wouldn't want to meet someone like that?

On another though, it's the same reasoning as I have for the second person. I'm a book person, and books are my first great love. However, as for I suspect all people there are certain books which do important things for you, whether it be to teach you something profound about yourself or because they make you feel at home. The Harry Potter books were one of my examples. 

There is a documentary on the special edition of Deathly Hallows Part 2 called "The Women of Harry Potter", in which Rowling discusses the the various female characters and the reasoning behind their creation and some of their actions. The final third or so is about Hermione, and Rowling reveals Hermione came from a very personal place as she is an exaggeration of her at a similar age, She talks about the sort of little girl she was at that age and the parallels with the character, and the first time I watched it I burst into tears and wept rather quietly for the rest of the discussion. The only way I can describe it is as if she had reached through the television and grabbed me around the heart. I can honestly say she could have been talking about me. 

The Hermione Granger comparison is something I smile and laugh at rather fondly now (yes, I can still do a rather good impression of "Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon!" and the like), but at the time it was something I held rather closely. For a chronically bullied young teenager, I cannot express the power of the existence of a pop culture figure who is very similar to you. The Philosopher's Stone film was released in my first year of secondary school, which made up what cannot honestly be called the happiest five years of my life. I'm not suggesting anybody thought Hermione was "cool", but her existence meant I wasn't alone. It made a love of learning, a high level of ability and a strong sense of what was right over what was "cool" that little bit less abnormal, and such small victories are very, very important at that age. They kept me just shy of the brink of despair.

Discovering proof that she was based upon a real person just perfected the sense of what the character and the books gave me. Even as my taste moves on, my love of re-reading the series endures because of that nostlagic attachment. They're also an easy thing to return to when I'm not feeling well because they're undemanding entertainment. It serves as a wonderful pick me up, and makes me feel good. What more can you ask for? 

Steven Erikson

("And ignorant historians will write of us in the guise of knowledge.... They will compose a Book of the Fallen.")

Yup. Predictable. 

As mentioned, books that do something important for you resonate, and I doubt it's unusual to wish to meet the person responsible for them. 

Aside from the books however, Erikson's other writing is often thought-provoking and challenging, and to me that's a wonderful thing. I adore stimulating discourse. I love anything that makes you pause and consider things, perhaps more so than you may have done before. 

For a recent example, he hosted a rather brilliant discussion on Reddit about authorial intent. The good folks of Malazan Empire shared this, and it kept me riveted and deep in thought for quite some time. There is nothing so wonderful for me as challenging and intelligent discussion. 

Occasionally though, you come across an author and you feel an instant spirit of kinship with the way they look at the world. Ms Rowling says in the interview linked above that she thinks you find out what you believe from what you write sometimes. I think the same can be true of reading as well. Throughout the Malazan books I had more than one "light bulb" moment. As I've said before, I first read Malazan when I fell ill and was awaiting my own light bulb moment when a doctor would finally tell me what the heck my body was doing to me. 

Timing is sometimes key, and those books came along at a very formative time in my life rather like the Harry Potter books did. I was older and hopefully wiser, and as such the connection is different and deeper. It's my adult love as opposed to the nostalgic childhood one above. However, they're both examples of an escapism I firmly believe I need for my own mental health. It angers me to sheer fury when escapism of this nature is derided as childish and having no place in an adult world. I don't think it's in my nature to be so wholly cynical, so it's anathema to me that the wish to escape into something reassuring which makes you feel good has no valid place. If there were ever books to prove that fantasy is not for the childish, it would be these. 

On the meeting front, there's a particular death in one of the books which monumentally destroyed me, and I really want to tell him off for that, somehow at the same time as congratulating him on creating such a perfectly crushing moment. Such is the perfect dissonance of those books at times. 

So there you go. I'm not remotely interested in "celebrity" or being famous for being famous. The only known people I would be interested in meeting would be those who've done something interesting. I'm not a person who feels things in a shallow fashion, and emotion runs very deeply for me. In a way I suspect that's part of why I have such health problems relating to stress, why it never fails to cause flare ups. 

Doing the things that make you feel good, whatever they may be, really are one of the keys to overall health and well being. Partially it's why I picked these two people - it'd be nice to say thank you in person, wouldn't it?

Who would you meet given the chance? 

Wishing you all many spoons xxx

How To Train Your Health Scare

(Given the choice, I'd have much rather had a dragon. Image from fanpop.com)

I wasn’t initially going to write about this, but I think I might be able to turn it into something useful and possibly entertaining, so I think it’s worth a try.

Essentially, the lump I’ve been talking about got quite a bit scarier after my consultation and tests this week. We know nothing for certain yet (test results next week) but it’s almost certainly a tumour and currently being classed as “indeterminate” as it has features of both benign and malignant masses. And so, we wait.

There are definitely both good and bad ways to go about handling the intervening period between tests and results. Here are some ideas:

Talk

Let’s be brutally honest – you’re going to drive yourself completely bananas worrying about the problem until you get a definitive answer. This is normal and expected. However, it can be made at least a little bit easier having someone to talk to. They can’t fix it, but they can let you bounce your thoughts off them and just be there for support, which we all need from time to time. Bottling it all up will not make the situation any easier or less unpleasant.

If nothing else, talk at your pet. I say “at”, because I have a cat and we all know they don’t deign to talk “with” mere mortals. Fiddler’s contribution to proceedings so far has been to try and sit on my face and yell at me this morning. Truer words than “there is no snooze setting on a kitten who wants his breakfast” were never spoken.

A word about Google

Rule One – Don’t Google it.

Rule Two – Don’t Google it.

Rule Three – Why aren’t you listening? See Rules 1 and 2.

In all seriousness, it won’t help. It will only make you worry more and add to the confusion. Spare yourself at least some anxiety and don’t go look it up. If you really feel you must, do so with a championship ski slope’s worth of salt and a very critical eye.

Keep busy

This doesn’t have to mean tearing around at ninety miles per hour, but mostly it’s about keeping your mind occupied so you don’t dwell and end up, as mentioned, driving yourself up the wall. For me this meant going back to work, where I can’t help but be occupied because I’m a secretary to seven people (who are proving once again they are in fact some of the nicest people in the world). My friends took me to the pub on the day of the hospital visit, and I’ve a few things planned between now and next week’s results. One of those things is putting together a three door wardrobe whilst trying to keep Fiddler’s “allen key = toy” confusion at bay.

This leads nicely into….

Look after you

You’re allowed, after all. Do whatever you need to do to feel calm and content (or as close to that as you can get). If needs be, spoil yourself a bit. Do all the things you would usually do when you want to feel better. For me at the moment that’s tearing through my Springsteen collection and devoting rather a lot of time to my latest re-read of the Malazan series (me, fangirl? Perish the thought), and watching some really rubbish telly of an evening after work to help switch my brain off.

Also tea and cake, because I’m British and why not?

Most importantly though, make yourself the most important thing for the time being. You’re allowed the break from everything else, and those who matter will understand. I don’t think it’s possible to be worrying about a health scare and lots of other things at once without spontaneously combusting, but we shouldn’t really test that theory.

(Metaphors amuse me, I make no apologies. Image from bbc.co.uk)

Be the Rhineland

I am a demilitarised zone, you are not Germany.

Drama is right out with something like this. It really is important not to get embroiled in the sort of silliness everyone encounters at some point, because in a lot of ways people (all of us) are a bit stupid. We get upset about silly things and we let those things grow out of proportion, and in doing so we make angry phone calls or send ill-thought out bitchy Facebook messages, then the receiving party does the same and it all gets rather messy.

Now is not the time to be involved in those sorts of things. Look after you, ignore everything you need to and everyone else can go have a World War somewhere else. Be antisocial when you need to be, and this sort of thing qualifies.

Mind you, I live in a village in the middle of nowhere in the deepest darkest North, where people think might not have discovered fire yet. It’s really easy for me to be antisocial when I want to.

Be kind to yourself

You’re allowed to be upset, and you’re allowed to be frightened. It’s completely normal. No beating yourself up for being a human being is allowed at this juncture.

Be human- it’s what most of the rest of us are, and to be honest it’s alright.

Have you had a health scare? What did you do while you waited for clarification? I’d love to hear others experiences of this sort of thing as (happily) it’s completely new to me.

Wishing you all many spoons xxx

"And now the page before us blurs..."

I was asked several days ago to try and quantify why above all the other fantasy literature I get excited about The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson is so special to me. As it is all very much bound up in the story of my diagnosis I thought where better to do so than here, on the blog the books inspired the naming of? I’m also currently reading through the companion Novels of the Malazan Empire by Ian Cameron Esslemont, the co-creator with Erikson of the world in which both series take place so this seems as good a time as any to write the post.

The first thing to say is that “special” does not begin to even scratch the surface. Bearing in mind I’m the girl who grew up with her nose in Tolkien and is still hugely in love with it, for me to say something beats it is a big thing. I want you to understand just how high the praise is when I say Malazan is utterly unparalleled. I’m wholly confident I’ll never find anything else like it. Although I consider it superbly well written the standard of the writing isn’t really what lifts it above all others. It’s not even really the fact that it sets about wonderfully deconstructing and running against the grain of the standard fantasy tropes which have become the dwelling place of so many mediocre series in the last two decades or so. About time too.

It’s the themes and the characters and the raw and unbridled emotion, coupled with the fact that when I finally sat down with Gardens of the Moon for the first time, I was mere weeks away from the first burgeoning of illness. By the time I read the second book Deadhouse Gates, I’d been in hospital for the first time. Timing as they say is often everything.

I was unsure about the first book, truth be told. It captured my interest just enough to continue onward, and from about half way through book two I was hooked for good. As time went on I was always reading one of the series each time I went to hospital, including my somewhat disastrous colonoscopy procedure in which I spent my two days of recovery buried in book nine, Dust of Dreams. Without me realising at the time it became the world I immersed myself in whenever I was at a loss for how to deal with my own. All that rage of emotion was in some ways cathartic because (stubborn creature that I am) I wasn't allowing myself a proper release in terms of my own situation. I just kept gritting my teeth and telling myself it would be fine when in reality all I needed was to kick and scream a bit and shed a few tears.

Possibly just as important was the further I went into the series the more I started to sense a sort of kindred spirit within it. Here was evidence on a page (lots of them in fact) that someone looked at the world the same way I did. I kept recognising things I’ve thought and near enough said in the past, ideas incredibly similar to my own about people and how they interact in various situations. Here was contempt for the same things of which I am contemptuous, and here was unbridled celebration of things I found joy in.

More than anything else, someone else wasn't ashamed or frightened of the power of emotion and passion.

I’m a very sensitive and highly emotional individual. There, I said it. Laugh all you like, because frankly I pity those who are coldly cynical and sneering of any genuine emotion because they’re mistaken in believing it’s the “adult” way to think. When I was younger it was something which worried me – constantly mocked and branded as “soft” I did begin to wonder if there was something wrong. Thankfully I can say that now it’s something I completely embrace. I've never understood why emotion is seen as something to be ashamed of - it's a part of passion, and what could be more liberating or more beautiful than that?

So, I cry at films and books. Particularly books.

(Heh, painfully true. Image from booksdirect.tumblr.com)

Honestly? The people who claim to never feel anything from any form of art and hide behind cynicism are the people I feel sorry for, because they’re missing out on something very special. There's nothing wrong with them (the world would be boring if we were all the same), but I do feel that having an emotional connection to whatever medium you're partaking in opens up a different experience. 

Erikson puts it better than me:

“There are forces in history that rise and fall, and the factors contributing to both are complex and varied to be sure. Others have made the observation that escapist literature thrives most when reality sucks. As for the proliferation of nihilist fiction, I would think that is but a lazy extension of what we have seen a lot of in film and television (the psychopathic, jaded, non-reactive hero who kills and kills and kills and doesn’t give a fuck beyond the memorable tag-line concluding the mayhem—yippee kay-ay). So, there on the screen, all the cool dudes with the craggy faces and the fawning women hanging off one arm. Nothing phases them. They sleep well at night (after the perfect sex with the perfect woman), and get up the next day, gun in hand, to do it all over again. Cynicism is cool, didn’t you know? It’s the mature way to be.

Fuck all that.

Well, see what happens when you get me started on this?” 

Tor.com, August 2012.

So, having reached the end of the series (and wept solidly for the last thirty pages or so, because it is so heart-breakingly beautiful) I acted on a seemingly out of nowhere impulse and wrote a letter to Mr Erikson. Essentially, I said thank you. The thought occurred to me that if I’d written something that touched someone's life quite so profoundly then I think I’d want to be told. I didn't write in any expectation of a reply*, just a genuine desire to thank someone for having done something unique for me. I said in my letter that as I had opened the books on becoming ill, I’d hope to close them one day with a diagnosis.

As far too neat and precise as it sounds, I was re-reading Deadhouse Gates when my GP finally diagnosed me with Fibromyalgia. The poignancy wasn't lost on me.

It’s hard to explain why the books have become so tangled up in my head with that time period aside from coincidence, and even less easy to opine on why they’re as close to my heart as they are, but I watched the speeches from the premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 recently and J.K. Rowling said something quite pertinent in this regard. “The stories we love best live in us forever.”

Long live The Malazan Book of the Fallen.

“And now the page before us blurs.

An age is done. The book must close.

We are abandoned to history.

Raise high one more time the tattered standard

Of the Fallen. See through the drifting smoke

To the dark stains upon the fabric.

This is the blood of our lives, this is the

Payment of our deeds, all soon to be

Forgotten.

We were never what people could be.

We were only what we were.

Remember us.”

Untitled – The Crippled God, Steven Erikson

So there you have it, though not an entirely successful attempt to demystify my attachment to the series, I hope it explained a little bit. I'm not trying to convince you to go and read the books - you can make that decision for yourself. I don't expect anyone to come back to me and say "I totally agree with everything you said" either, because that's part of the beauty of literature and all other forms of art. You take from it what you wish, and I always enjoy hearing other interpretations of something I enjoy.

Do I need to get out more? Probably, but I'm quite happy as I am!

Wishing you all many spoons xx

*To my surprise, I received one.

30 Day Chronic Illness Challenge: Day 13

Day 13: Has your physical illness had any effect on your mental health? Explain.

My inner child really wants to answer any statement ending in "explain" with "No!" However, for the benefit of my lovely readers I shall behave myself.

I don’t think something so all encompassing could *not* have an effect, really. I think for me it has manifested in two ways – and on a side note, I think I’ll have had my fill of self-examination for a  good long while when I reach the end of this challenge!

I am by nature a bit of a people pleaser, and all those tendencies were heightened dramatically for some time after falling ill. As much as I’m trying to tame it I do have a bit of an impulse to put myself out and not speak up to make it easier for everyone around me. With that in mind, as mentioned yesterday the thought of having to explain why a particular situation is a problem to someone unfamiliar with my health fills me with absolute horror.

I’m working on being more assertive with this – you do I think eventually arrive at a place where you realise your health is too important to play meek and mild with it, and pretending there isn’t an issue when there is helps no one.

To be completely candid, I’m also not the queen of self confidence in general. I’m not virtually crippled with lack of it as I was when I was younger any more – I’m told I’ve come a long way in the last couple of years in particular – but I don’t think I’m ever going to be a tremendously forward or assuming person. It’s not in my nature, and to digress slightly I don't think that's a problem. I really resent this idea that we should all be super confident and super socialised - who would get a word in edgeways if we were all the same in that regard?

So whilst the issue definitely existed beforehand, falling ill very much extended talons of self doubt and anxiety. I’m no great beauty but even so, I could do without the bloating, facial rashes and the haggard sunken look I briefly took on. Would that be OK, body?

Not a cat’s chance in hell? Oh.

Physical appearance aside, I did go through a stage of feeling guilty and miserable in response to it all. I felt like I was a problem for the people around me and I did go through a horrible phase of fearing to talk about it for anxiety about the way it would be perceived. Thankfully it didn’t take me long to realise that firstly I needed to speak about it for my own well being, and secondly that doing so in a wry and joking fashion not only proved cathartic for me but also seemed to have a calming effect on those around me – if I was able to laugh at it then maybe they didn’t have to worry so much.

On the flipside I’m naturally a very determined and positive person and the attitude of “you won’t beat me” spread deep roots very quickly – it gave me something to really sink my teeth into, and a chance to unleash my very best stubborn tendencies. Since then I’ve almost turned mulish digging in of heels into an art form.

As self-deprecating as it probably sounds with the way I write, I view this as something good. It has (touch wood) kept the wolves of “becoming my illness” and ending up a spectator of life far from my door.

A tidbit - from this attitude came the name of this blog. In a round of messaging which made my inner nerd far FAR too happy, some of my fellow Malazaners on Tumblr named me a Bridgeburner.

I'm giving up. I've already won at life!

(This so beautifully encapsulates my attitude. Image courtesy of sparkplugpeople.com)

Wide Eyed Stupid

Wide Eyed Stupid - someone doing something incredibly daft.

(Nerd points for me - I finally worked Malazan into a post title.)

So today I thought I would talk about some of the peripheral effects of Fibromyalgia. Most people are aware of the pain, tenderness and general fatigue. As I found out slowly over time there are actually a lot of other symptoms and oddities associated with the condition. These are just the ones that cause me problems – they’re by no means the full story.

The title? Well, the peripheral symptoms do just about amount to the body (or more specifically the brain) doing incredibly daft things. A nerdy reference which manages to be fitting too? Fancy that. 

This was probably the hardest post to write so far in this blog, as even though I know this all happens on an almost daily basis to me at some point or another, it still reads as if I might be going slightly bonkers. I bit the bullet and got it all down though, if only in the hope it shows other people they're not going crazy, these are genuine symptoms and it's all really happening. 

Brain Fog

I’ve covered this in my previous post here . It’s not enjoyable and can be frightening, but I always try to laugh afterwards. There is something more than a little amusing about picking up your car keys and forgetting what they’re for. Somewhat funnier is when the example in question is my car keys and they’re attached to a moving bright yellow model of Bumblebee the Transformer. You’d think they’d be easy to recall wouldn’t you?

An addition I forgot to mention in my previous post on the Fog - does anybody else struggle with mixing up or just plain being unable to remember simple words? This actually upsets me a lot, and has driven me to stop talking in company until I calm down again on occasion. As someone highly intelligent with a love of vocabulary and the English language I find this to probably be the most distressing cognitive issue I face. I'd take forgetting what the keys are for over this any day given the choice.

Sound

One problem on the increase in recent months for me is sound sensitivity – my passing inability to filter out irrelevant noise is starting to get noticeably worse. This is most apparent with frankly the oddest of things. My partner was watching Peep Show on Youtube the other night in the study whilst I was on my computer (opposite side of a smallish room) and every time a new character started talking it physically made me jump, even though I could hear every word said in the mean time. Any change in volume caused a rattling-around-inside sensation all over me. Not cool, body. I do find I often have to ask the partner to turn things down if it gets a bit too much.

This rattling about sensation is the best way I can describe my usual reaction with sound sensitivity. I don’t actually think it’s to do with volume most of the time – it’s the pitch and tone of a sound. I know it’s not volume because I’m fine at loud heavy metal gigs (with earplugs*, that is) Some voices are fine at any volume – others irritate straight away. The “rattling about” is swiftly followed by the muscles of my neck and shoulders tightening up (something akin to coiling a spring, or that’s how I visualise the sensation) and the sound becomes more and more of a problem the longer I can hear it. 

As you can imagine, the tightening up is painful, and the longer it goes on the more painful it becomes. It feels almost as if “fight or flight” has gone into overdrive and you're constantly waiting for something to react to, even though you aren’t consciously trying to do so. I suppose this is to do with the lack of filtering I mentioned. Frankly, it’s a bit tiring.

Oh, and a sudden noise I’m not expecting? Think the same process about one hundred times as fast. Ick.

One theory I have kept an eye on in recent months has been the theory of Central Sensitisation. It’s shown rather neatly in this diagram below:

(I found this on Tumblr without a source. If anyone knows where it comes from, please let me know and I'll add it in!)

If we follow the idea of areas of the brain being overly “switched on” and constantly trying to assimilate and process information, then all those sensory overload problems start to make a kind of sense.  Or at least in my head it makes a sort of sense. 

Smells

Smells are funny.  When I’m in pain I constantly pick up a pervasive “wrong” smell. I don’t know what it is – I doubt it’s anything in actual proximity to me and probably just a bodily reaction – but still, it’s an oddity. Given we’re currently drying out our bathroom and half the kitchen from a bathroom leak, it’s hard to tell what’s the damp and what’s the funny pain smell. 

Dizziness/poor balance

My general clumsiness and ability to overbalance at the slightest provocation have never really been in question (graceful or elegant, I am not!) but it’s certainly something I’ve noticed worsen with the Fibromyalgia. The best description I can give is to compare it to almost constantly *just* overdoing it – so being that tiny bit over balanced or stopping a tiny bit too late. It really is a very small measure of mistake, but it’s happening most of the time. I await general chaos and hilarity when I strap on the high heels for the wedding of some friends this weekend.  The shoes are pretty – see, I have my defence of possible broken ankles all set already.

Blank moments

I’m unsure if these little blips are a part of the Fog or not. It’s like staring into middle distance all of a sudden waiting for your brain to kick back in. I’ve no control over them, they’re a little bit frightening and they seem to come paired with the onset of all over sensations of “heavy” limbs and increased aching. It hurts, it’s not pleasant and I have an utter inability to do anything until it passes – except sit down as fast as possible as I tend to go dizzy as well. I've baffled two consultants with this so far, so I’m looking for my hat trick!

Bowel habits

I'll admit to this being a somewhat sketchy inclusion. I'm currently back to diarising food and bowel habits again and I'm waiting to find work again so I can pay for some specific food testings which were recommended to me some time back (if anyone wants the link to have a look at, let me know and I'll find it for you). I'm aware Fibromyalgia can disrupt bowel behaviour and it's tempting to put it down to that, but something doesn't quite sit. My old Gastro consultant pretty much dismissed the idea of IBS - and I'm still pretty convinced he was correct, I don't seem to fit the pattern. However, it's something I think needs to be looked into further. Does anybody suffer with bowel changes and wouldn't mind telling me a bit about them? It'd be interesting to see if it correlates in any way. 

I'm aware Fibro can affect bladder function to, but given that I was diagnosed with IC I think my issues stem from there.

So yes, that's some of my little oddities. Does anybody else suffer from these, or different ones?

*The earplugs I have are ER20s, They are relatively inexpensive on Amazon and I can't recommend them highly enough. 

Helpful things

Things which are helpful are entirely individual to each person, but I thought I would do a post highlighting mine.

1. Hot water bottle
It's such a simple thing yet often very beneficial for both a histrionic bowel and general aching. Mine lives in a fluffy hippo cover, because I'm a massive child at heart.

2. Toll the Hounds by Steven Erikson
This is more a reference to the entire series (The Malazan Book of the Fallen) than to that one book. Whilst I find reading anything to be a relaxing activity and therefore beneficial, the Malazan books own a very special place in my heart. I began reading the series just before falling ill, and it so happened that through each time I went in to hospital, each difficult appointment, each trip to A&E and each disappointing negative result I was reading one of the ten book series. The series is Tolkien-esque in both epic scope and seamless world-building and so provided me with a total escape from everything. I could forget about the pain and the fact I still knew nothing about what my body was doing to me and immerse myself in the world of Wu and its colourful cast of characters. In a way I find difficult to describe these books have become a tangible source of comfort and catharsis for me - I actually wrote to the author with the effect the books had on me and to tell him how much joy and comfort they gave me, and received a reply from him which I will always treasure. My pain management clinician told me that attachment to books, music, films and the like isn't uncommon for those with incurable conditions. Do you have any particular attachments like this? What are they?

3. A CD player
Music is a great escape and mood lifter. I like most people have quite a collection, but because I do quite a bit of work on my computer I devised a Youtube playlist to run in the background. Mine contains all sorts - particular bands such as power metallers Serenity, Edguy and Sonata Arctica, classical crossovers like Il Divo and Russell Watson, odd songs I really love such as Rufus Wainwright's Hallelujah, Bruce Dickinson's Jerusalem and Sixpence None the Richer's cover of Don't Dream It's Over, film soundstracks such as The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, game music from the Forgotten Realms and Elder Scrolls series as well as the work of Youtube artists Malukah, Peter Hollens, Lindsey Stirling and Miracle of Sound. There's no particular defining quality besides that they all make me smile. I have it playing now as I write.

4. Lavender bunny
It's not a cuddly toy, although it looks like one. It's a microwaveable wheatbag! As it heats it releases a relaxing lavender scent and is also easy to place on any part of the body or, especially useful for me as my Fibro likes to attack my hands, easy to sit with my hands around it. Heat is an absolute must for me when the pain strikes.

5. Fibromyalgia Serenity Prayer mug and Awareness keyring
I bought the mug from Cafepress because it made me smile. It's a version of the Serenity Prayer ending "And grant me the wisdom to hide the bodies of the doctors I shot when they said "You're perfectly healthy, it's all in your head." The keyring is from Zazzle and part of their illness awareness range. I like to make small purchases such as this to help the cause. It features the fibromyalgia butterfly (symbolic of metamorphosis and the lightest of touches causing pain due to our hypersensitivity). Other awareness symbols to look our for are the Cranberry Ribbon (fibromyalgia specific) and the Purple Ribbon for all autoimmune conditions.

6. Thermal base layers and ski socks
Heat is a must for me and keeping warm is of paramount importance. Those socks are leftover from my days as a skiier but any thick woolly socks work just as well. The base layers came from Sainsbury's, but any supermarket or clothing store should stock them fairly cheaply. They make a world of difference despite their deceptive thinness.

7. Heat therapy gloves
These fingerless gloves fit snugly to the hand and are made of neoprene, which traps heat against the skin. I found my hands feeling warm after just a few seconds of wearing them. They have been invaluable to me as they allow me to regain some dexterity when my hands are bad - which has been wonderful as one of my main hobbies is sketching. Here are a couple of different options:

http://www.easylifegroup.com/neoprene-heat-therapy-gloves-3215

http://www.coopersofstortford.co.uk/sku/D052BUNDLE/group_id/5435A32C-DE64-4370-895C-C46E68D8B61B/coopers-of-stortford-neoprene-heat-therapy-gloves-buy-1-pair-get-1-pair-free-prodd052bundlei/

8. A box of spoons
This was a lovely gift from my friend Jenny, a fellow awareness blogger who lives here: I Have Eczema. It's a little ornate box filled with tiny spoons. I have it sitting open on my computer desk and it always makes me smile.

What are your helpful things? I'd love to hear about them.