I came to a decision this morning.

Sure, it's fast, but I'm a pretty fast decision maker as a generality. I like things to happen now!

Anyway, I may go into this more later (I'm hurtin' right now, and not really in zee blogging mood), but I have decided that I will, in fact, postpone the massage therapy program for a year.

I'm postponing, not quitting. And it's a mature, thought-out decision, not a failure.

I just don't want to make a bunch of progress towards getting my health straightened back out and then go into a big ol' relapse because I pushed it too hard, too soon. I'm trying to look more at the long-term, and I think that this is the best decision I can make for myself right now.

I talked to C this morning about my thoughts last night, and the possible options, and all that stuff. He's behind me no matter what I choose, but the big epiphany for me was realizing that even if I'm "just" a housewife, he's fine with that. I have the freedom to choose what's best for me, and he's okay with whatever I decide. That is very freeing. To know that he will neither think less of me nor resent me for not "pitching in"... that allows me to make a decision based on what is really the best, rather than a decision motivated by the fear of rejection or other emotions.

Also... this means I can go to J's wedding! I would be lying if I didn't say that this was a slight motivating factor in my plans... But now we can combine the "let's go get my cat and the rest of my stuff" trip with J's wedding, so that's perfect. I'm starting to save up already.

I have other things I can focus on to keep me occupied while I really work on getting myself to a healthy place. It reminds me of what I went through in Id with the S's... I kinda dinked around and kept myself occupied with work of various sorts while I put a lot of focused energy into healing emotionally and mentally from the past abuse. Now that I've advanced much further emotionally, it's time to focus on advancing physically.

Honestly, I do feel relieved having come to an actual decision. This question of "but can you do the massage program?" has been brought up to me many times through the past few months by many different people. I brushed them off as party poopers, determined to charge headfirst into the challenge and prove myself a Mighty Fibromyalgia Warrior. However... I'm thinking at this point that maybe discretion is the better part of valor. I'm still a Warrior... but taking a different tack.

The best part? I feel good about this decision. I believe I'm doing the right thing, and I feel peaceful and settled. I can see that my reasons are good ones, and that I am doing this for good reasons, so I am not afraid. (Much.) Also? It's my life, and it doesn't matter if anyone else agrees or disagrees, frankly. As long as I (and C, since he has a stake in this now) am okay with it and believe I'm on the right path, well... that's what really matters.

I found out from my primary care physician yesterday (whom I love!) that on the last batch of blood work they did, I tested positive for a screening of auto-immune disorder (ANA). What does that mean? Well, this link explains it further, but basically it means that there's some auto-immune involvement, and they're giving me a referral to a rheumatologist to figure out exactly what's going on. (It was the development of the joint pain that really clued her in.)

Specifics? Well, I got ANA positive, speckled pattern, with increased titers of 1:320. According to that website (and my doctor's info), that means that I have increased levels of antinuclear antibodies in my blood. As far as the speckled pattern goes, well... that and the fact that she did an ANA test in the first place... yeah. It's associated with lupus. The dread disease that keeps coming up again and again lately.

Oh dear God, please... not lupus... I don't want lupus. (It looks so matter of fact typed out, but the truth is that I'm fighting back tears.)

Still... here's hoping it's *just* fibromyalgia... Check out this article on the link between low cortisol levels (which I DEFINITELY have) and fibromyalgia. (Unfortunately, the article also points out that FM is often concurrent with... you guess it... lupus. And other auto-immune diseases.)

Anyway, I'm going back to bed here in a minute, but I wanted to get that off my chest. Today's going to be busy, and yesterday kicked my butt, so I went to bed early... but I woke up at 3:30 a.m., and again at 5. Couldn't get back to sleep, so I figured I'd get up and do my math homework, which I didn't do yesterday because of all the butt-kicking and early bedtimes that were going on. I know myself, and if I wake up without getting enough sleep, just an hour or so later, I'll be overcome with my sleep-deprivation symptoms: nausea, headache, a particular "flavor" of fatigue that I can't really explain (it only shows up when I need more sleep), vision problems, etc. Sure enough, the symptoms paraded through, right on time, so I'm ready to hit the hay again for a couple of hours. A nice little nap to kick off the day right :)

Also, I asked the doctor about possibly getting on disability. She said it's definitely a possibility, and seeing these specialists will strengthen my case, give me documented proof, and we'll be able to go from there. Right now, it would be more like "hearsay". So I'll wait a while, but it may happen... particularly if this turns out to be something chronic. Who knows... it may at least help me get on food stamps, yeah?

Also, had some crazy weird vivid dreams last night. The one closest to waking was my wedding. (There was some other one about a young boy on a plane that ended up having to bail because the plane was crashing, and he landed in the Swiss Alps in winter and he and the other guy who made it with him survived and made it back to civilization somehow.) For some reason, we had set up the ceremony so that I didn't have to walk down the aisle until halfway through. So I was there, watching the rest of the wedding party walk down the aisle (C was shirtless and barefoot in his gym shorts, I might add! And they all did this weird "ring around the rosy"/game of tag thing until they tired of it and dashed down the aisle helter-skelter), and then I realized while holding my bouquet, "Oh! I need to get ready! I'm not dressed, my hair's not done, I'm not wearing any makeup, nothing!"

So I'm running around, trying to find my wedding dress (for some reason we were having the ceremony at the SDA church in town, and all the people I was talking to were actual church members!), and then realized that it hadn't come in the mail yet. But it was supposed to be there, that day at the latest. So I grab the phone book, and I'm dialing UPS to see if they have my package as I run outside to the mailbox, and guess what's sitting on the ground? A box, with my name on it! It was my dress, except that now I had this wrinkled wedding dress with no way to steam it, but I put it on anyway.

Fortunately, my hair was already "waved" (because I used the three-barrel curler on my hair yesterday, so it carried over into my dream), but I had to put on my makeup in a hurry, so I applied my mascara and while that was drying I was trying to figure out which shoes I wanted to wear. Do I want the black boots? Or do I want the silver heels that I bought just for the wedding? Or do I want this random pair of cute white heels that I've never seen before? Decisions, decisions... In the end, the silver heels were the most comfortable, and I did spend 8 dollars on them, sooooo....

Oh, it was a mess.

I woke up before anything else went down, thankfully!

But seriously? On the actual wedding day, I'm not going to wait until the ceremony is starting to get ready. (This probably just has to do with my buying my dress the other day and feeling like I'm losing control. Also, C pointed out astutely that I'm not at all used to making major purchases.)