What do The Tough do when they get ANOTHER ICI diagnosis (or two*)?


Call Mom from the parking lot of the doctor's office to tell her about it and sob a bit. After all, I did hold it in until I was clear of the office out of respect for my wonderful rheumatologist, Dr. James Mossell III of Tifton, GA - we joked about what bad PR it would be for a patient to walk out through the waiting room full of patients-to-be-seen, in tears.



Go to favorite Thai restaurant and order whatever I want.

Go hang out in Wal-Mart for several hours. (In my defense I WAS looking at the line of Danskin workout wear; very affordable, very functional, and they remind me of my dancing days.)




Get back to the car and remember it all over - and start crying again.

Have the words "Thy will be done" come to me out of nowhere.



Realize that in the past it's taken literally YEARS after a diagnosis for me to get to this point of acceptance. This time it took about four hours. I'm finding the cycle of acceptance to be a kind of reincarnation thing. It's a never-ending cycle but each time through happens at a higher level.





Go home and get on with facing the music.



*New diagnoses: Herniated cervical disc plus several more bulging cervical discs, and mild cerebral atrophy which is probably unusual for a person my age (possibly related to Fibromyalgia1).


1Accelerated Brain Gray Matter Loss in Fibromyalgia Patients: Premature Aging of the Brain?, The Journal of Neuroscience, April 11, 2007, 27(15):4004-4007; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0098-07.2007

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