A Day in the Life of Fibro

6:00 AM

• Acknowledge excessive pain in your right hip. Roll over onto your left hip.

• Assume from the quality of light showing around the curtains that it is almost time to wake up anyway. Check watch. Curse.

• Inform brain that it’s too early to wake up. In response, get treated to a review of 80s songs you haven’t heard since childhood.

• During a final chorus from “Rock Me Amadeus,” drift off.

6:30 AM

• Wake to the sound of the cat attempting to dig through the plastic bottom of the litter box.

• Assume that because you slept, it means it is almost time to wake. Check watch. Curse.

• Realize your left shoulder is now sore. Roll onto the right side.

• Convince yourself you can snooze for another hour.

• Reflect on an argument you had with your boss seven years ago, analyzing what you should have said. Choreograph and rewrite a new scene ending—how it should have played out.

7:00 AM

• Shift onto your back to relieve the sudden pressure on your right shoulder and the continuing ache of the left.

• Stare at the pattern of the sunbeams as they move across the ceiling.

• Watch the time roll down from 7:00 AM to 7:01 AM, calculating the exact number of seconds of sleep you could get if you dozed off now.

• Debate calling the sleep doctor in the morning to let her know you haven’t slept properly in a week.

• Laugh silently as you realize it is morning.

7:30 AM

• Listen to the alarm go off while groaning and squeezing your eyes closed in denial.

• Pull blankets over your head as if that will somehow reset the universal timeline back to the night before.

• Cry.

• Achieve pure exhaustion and doze off as your beleaguered husband gets up to see to the breakfast needs of the household.

8:00 AM

• Wake up convinced you have been transported to the surface of the sun. Find nothing more out of the ordinary than the blankets on your body.

• Look at the clock and immediately feel guilty. You are a lazy bum.

• Roll over to take the pinch off your back.

• Stare at the light that manages to filter through the curtains.

• Debate with yourself whether lying in bed any longer makes you a better or worse person.

8:30 AM

• Blink. Realize you dozed off again.

• Drag yourself upright and force your feet off the edge of the bed. Wince as gravity reasserts control over your limbs.

• Stand, throwing out one arm to catch the headboard as your brain forgets how to balance your worthless corpse.

• Wait for the attendant pins and needles to make their way through your hands and feet, lingering in random places as nerves continue sleeping.

• Shuffle to the bathroom, banging a shoulder against the wall as the brain’s orientation comes online.

• Line up the pill bottles and dump the appropriate number and colors into your hand. Blearily, try to remember how many there are supposed to be. Curse your reliance on chemical compounds to keep your body functioning.

• Shuffle to the couch.

• Collapse, exhausted, and stare at the ceiling. Wonder why you bothered to move from one prone position to another in the first place.

9:00 AM

• Apologize to your husband for sleeping late. Pretend not to be bothered when he assures you he understands.

• Scroll through the news. Wonder why you bothered to get out of bed.

• Scroll through social media apps. Secretly hate your friends and family with functioning bodies and engage in active lives that involve more than crawling from the bed to the couch.

• Update your feeds, pretending that all is right with your world. Wonder how many of your followers suspect you’re a complete fraud.

• Roll your eyes when your husband reminds you to eat breakfast.

9:30 AM

• Shake the numbness from your arms and legs.

• Wander into the kitchen and stare into the refrigerator. Wait for your stomach to decide whether it’s going to participate in the day or not. (It never is)

• Prepare a meal of toast and a banana. Or an oatmeal packet if there isn’t any bread. Eat because it’s expected.

• Wonder what it’s like to get excited about food.

10:00 AM

• Remember what it was once like to revel in a shower. To soak up the steam and feel of soap cascading over skin. How you’d spend endless minutes standing under the flow, singing and moving your limbs in a liquid dance.

• Stare at the taps and wonder if it’s worth using the energy today.

• Listen to every crack, pop, and snap as you lift your arms and legs to scrub them down with soap. Contemplate the sheer amount of scar tissue holding your body together. (Congratulations, you are a human scar!)

• Consider for the 5,000th time shaving your head bald simply so you no longer have to wash your hair.

• Look at the neatly-folded shirts and hanging dresses you buy because they’re cute. Recognize you won’t be leaving the house and pull out sweats from the drawer under the bed.

• Decide putting contacts in is too much effort to expend.

• Consign yourself to being a clean slob.

12:00 PM

• Delete 20 email messages from your inbox because you can’t be bothered to read the newsletters.

• Skim highlighted Discord and Slack messages to make the notice bubbles disappear.

• Review the To-Do List in your planner. Review it a second time and decide what actually needs to be accomplished today and what can be pushed off to tomorrow.

• Flip through the Post-It Notes on the desk with your list of essays and stories to write. Remind yourself of how terribly far behind you are on your self-appointed schedule.

• Begin researching a random question on the internet to avoid working.

• Change position every 15 minutes to alleviate the pressure on your hips.

1:00 PM

• Assure your husband you know you need to eat lunch.

• Walk around the confines of your office to stop your legs from aching.

• Rotate the wrists to restore feeling despite the ergonomic keyboard, mouse, and chair suite you spent a small fortune on.

• Check social media feeds. Curse the need for constant engagement.

2:00 PM

• Acknowledge that you have not eaten lunch, but you will. You promise.

• Sit back in your chair and close your eyes to attempt to calm the fuzziness of your vision.

• Indulge in a full 20 minutes of imposter syndrome, complete with deleting a document and tearing up a page of notes.

3:00 PM

• Attempt to sneak into the kitchen and grab something (granola bar, handful of crackers, carrots and peanut butter) to serve as lunch without your husband noticing.

4:00 PM

• Question whether you accomplished anything throughout the day.

• Shift all incomplete tasks to the next day in the planner. Firmly resolve to wake up on time or early tomorrow.

• Clear inbox, deleting another 15 unread messages. Promise to review the number of subscriptions and thin the herd. (Again)

• Stretch to remove stiffness that has set in since last leaving the desk.

• Spend 15 minutes attempting to remember the word “conversation” to send response to an email.

6:00 PM

• Doze off on the couch despite every attempt to stay awake.

• Struggle to find a comfortable position, even with frequent shuffling and adding pillows.

• Realize the essay you wrote at the beginning of the day was a complete disaster. Tune out an anticipated television show attempting to rewrite it—without actually writing anything down, as if you have any hope of remembering a word.

7:00 PM

• Eat the wholesome dinner prepared by your loving husband.

• Vehemently deny any accusations that you failed to eat a complete lunch earlier in the day.

9:00 PM

• Forget to take your sleep aid on time.

• Complain that you have to take a sleep aid in the first place.

• Realize you never remembered to call the sleep doctor as you planned in the wee hours of the morning. Tell yourself you’ll do so tomorrow.

10:00 PM

• Take the remainder of your medications.

• Feel optimistic about the level of exhaustion and lethargy present in your body.

• Attempt to ignore the sudden chill, even with the presence of warm pajamas and a fleece blanket wrapped around you as you sit on your reading chair.

• Sternly attempt to keep your brain focused on your book.

• Fail abysmally to keep your thoughts from wandering.

11:00 PM

• Climb into bed at the first sensation of sleepiness, confident in the miracles of modern medicine.

11:30 PM

• Stare at the backs of your eyes, cursing the baseless promises of medication.

12:00 AM

• Contemplate whether you should approach your essay from a different angle. “Write” three paragraphs out. Find misplaced confidence that you will remember them in the morning.

• Shift off your aching right hip.

12:30 AM

• Wonder about the plans you’ve made for your vacation in nine months. Start walking through everything you’ve learned.

• Check your watch and realize how late it is. Curse.

• Start counting in a childish attempt to lure yourself into sleep. Wander off on a tangent about sheep after 46.

1:30 AM

• Flop onto your back because of shooting pains down your left arm.

• Calculate exactly how many hours and minutes of sleep you could get if you doze off now.

• Debate whether you should repeat a dose of your sleep aid. Wonder what the potential side effects would be. Consider whether you should check. Talk yourself out of the idea because you don’t want to expose your eyes to an electronic screen.

• Consider getting up to read some more. Tell yourself you feel tired, so you’ll fall asleep soon.

2:30 AM

• Check your watch and realize it’s been another hour without sleep. Curse.

• Struggle to find a comfortable position.

• Chant “Go to sleep” over and over in your head.

3:30 AM

• Realize you’ve been chanting for an hour.

• Allow one moment to marvel at the resiliency of your brain.

• Acknowledge that this is your last opportunity to redose your sleep aid. Discuss with yourself the merits of doing so versus your reliance on a chemical substance to gain rest every night (which isn’t working). Firmly decide to call the sleep doctor in the morning and tell her something is wrong.

• Mentally scream at your body for all of its malfunctions.

• Kick your leg to relieve the suddenly frozen muscles.

• Remove one arm and leg from the covers to drop your overheated temperature.

4:30 AM

• Cry.

• Bundle yourself tight within the blankets to ease a sudden chill.

• Remember a conversation with your mother when you were a teenager. Wonder if she has the same memory.

• Slow your breathing. Realize your bradycardia is why your Fitbit thinks you sleep at night.

5:30 AM

• Debate with yourself whether the light coming through the curtain looks brighter or not.

• Look at your watch. Curse.

• Stretch your arms to pop the joints and ease their pressure.

• Listen to your husband snoring and sleeping blissfully beside you. Contemplate whether a jury would convict you of homicide, given the circumstances.

• Curl into as small a ball as possible.

• Promise your body that if it sleeps, you’ll do something nice for it. Beg. Bargain. Offer an exchange of one day of zero activity in exchange for just two hours of sleep. Plead.