I had great news from my Rheumatologist yesterday. I know now why I have so much joint pain. I know why some days I can’t hold onto a cup and my thumb feels like its broken. I know why I have pain all over my body… I know… youch!

I dunno NOTHING!

I do know something. I have a lot to learn about things I wish I knew.. had no need to know.

I do have arthritis. I have Osteroarthritis. Who knew right? Already had the right knee replaced – twice (yes, twice) in a year and a half. She, the doc, followed this news up with a stunner. Fibromyalgia. Osteroarthritis and Fibromyalgia together. Sounds like a bloody party. Very bloody. Lots of carnage.

I started reading reading a tiny bit about them tonight. I didn’t want to jump into it and become obsessed and blame everything wrong with me on them. I have other stuff for that.

Life is a load of interconnected bits. They go on and on until they make a whole person of pieces stuck here and there. We travel through life discovering how what our bits are and how they work together. Or how they should, could, work together.

I am a woman of many faces, many complex bits and pieces, many parts of me striving and staggering on my path to the future. Somehow I will make it all work. I will strive after wholeness everyday from my now to my next now.

I am a human woman. I have a heady dose of Bipolar type 1 and I exist in a thing called “mixed states”. I have a new knee(s) and Diabetes type 2 in remission. I have Osteoarthritis & Fibromyalgia. I don’t sleep well at all. This provokes psychosis. Yes, I know I owe you an explanation of that… later please. They all seem intertwined to me. One is similar, but not the same. They all affect the one. We roll along and try to find the brakes so we, so I, can catch my breath and suck in lungs full of fresh air.

I need fresh air. I need to understand. I need to conquer myself now more than ever.

Bipolar can slam me with hellish depression in a moment. It can pummel me until I just want it all to stop. I refuse to go to that place. I’ve worked hard and long to cling to myself and to the vision of who I am becoming.

These disorders dance in my body a wild and sometimes wondrous dance.

I am stunned.

Tomorrow will come when I awake. I will begin to formulate a game plan. I live for my children. They have given me as much life as I have given them. I live for myself. I have every right to live.

Tomorrow I will consider how to think about all this. To draw it in and start to sort it all out. I will not allow my mind to destroy me though the little grey cells that do the square dance with bipolar are going to be busier than usual with this knew knowledge. It does that when stress hits. This new information has granted me a gigantic helping of stress. Stress is so bad for me.

The first order of business is to sleep. Tomorrow I will search out ways I have not tried yet to master the pain in my mind and in my body.

I will not stop. I will become like perpetual motion.

You just watch me go. I’m the only one who can stop me, and I’ve chosen to push forward and to have a life filled with joy and love and adventure and so much more. And yes, pains and struggling. These are the facts and my thoughts as I know them right now, in this moment.

Walk with me. Let us see what the future, the moment touching this moment has for us. I think the ride is going to be… BIG.

Stay tuned to this bat time, this bat channel… yes, stay tuned. I’ll be here. The next moment is mine to own. Now, what are you going to do with your moments?