You can learn more about this year's festivities at EQ2Players.com, and get some in-depth details about the crafting side of things over at EQ2 Traders.

1. Halloween Hubbub I've been immersed in the EQ2 Nights of the Dead...
2. Taking EQ2 by (Lava)Storm The long, long, LONG-awaited GU51 has hit EQ2's live servers...
3. A Nice Perspective Yesterday was my first yearly exam after the Cervical Cancer...

I could have written this; it sounds so much like my own experiences and symptoms. I work from home, and though I don't commute, I do have many of the same issues when it comes to travel in general and daily business dealings.

I thought I would go through my day and try to help a healthy person understand what it would be like to live with fibromyalgia.

At 5am, the alarm goes off. I wake up feeling like I did heavy yardwork yesterday… and the day before that, too. My brain is slow to come out of sleep, and rebels against waking. I slept 8 hours last night, but I'm as tired as if I slept 5 hours. Without sleep medicines, I feel like I've slept 2 or 3 hours, if at all, really, because I kinda had this half-consciousness all night long. Thank goodness for my muscle relaxant because otherwise, the leg cramps would keep me awake for certain.

I roll out of bed. My body is so stiff. I'm 30 years old, but I shuffle. The shower… the shower is the best part of my entire day. The hot water eases that "hit by a truck" feeling, helps me move better. I use lots of water, because it's my only relief without my pain meds. I get out of the shower and take my pain meds. It will take them about 45minutes to an hour before I'm really feeling them. I'll take an hour and a half to get ready to get out the door, because my body is fighting me most of the way.

The commute: Thankfully, I'm still working. It's a miracle. You'll see why. So, I sit on the trolley and listen to music and try to relax my body. The metal seats and vibration make my back tense up, which means pain on top of pain. Sometimes I just try to meditate a bit. If I overwork myself like that fellow over there on his laptop or that guy thumbing through his briefcase, then I won't have any energy left for work. Conserve energy and make it through the day.

I get into the office. Somebody is in a hurry, they want an answer now! My brain tries to produce something useful. Something comes out of my mouth. Gosh, I hope that was right. No… not really. I back-track. Oh crap, they're looking at me like I'm an idiot. Again. Yet, they have no idea how much energy they just took out of my reserves. Wait, I was doing something I had to get done… Shoot, I lost my train of thought and I'm feeling kinda drained. And trying not to be emotional over looking like an idiot… It happens so many times, that look on people's faces… It's hard not to start believing it.

I'm doing my best.

My back aches, my wrist is trying to spasm. The mail comes in… time to sort the mail. No, time to drop the mail. Pick it up… sort this here… there… that's a real job for my hands. They don't want to work right. To other people, I might look slow. They don't know my forearms are spasming and I'm fighting against my own body. The task of sorting checks, copying them and turning them over and stamping them — it's like a marathon for my spasmed arms and hands.

By lunch, I'm relieved. It has gotten to feel like I've been walking around with a dufflebag slung around my neck… my neck is so stiff from the "imaginary weight" and my lower back is screaming. I wish the office had a quiet place I could go lay down, but the office is actually still very "public" for me. Only in my own home can I truly relax. Time for a pain pill to get me through the rest of the day. By about 2pm, I'm switching back and forth mindlessly. My attention span is so short. Probably because the demands of the day are catching up to me, despite my meds.

Most of my day is spent sitting at my desk. Getting up to get ready to prepare the conference room for a meeting is something I have to work up to. The thought of carrying reams of paper down the hall to the workroom makes me want to cry. If I have to do it, I pick a time when I expect I'll be able to let my body recover… the pain keeps my mind from focusing, and I feel the fatigue sweeping over me from that extra exertion. It doesn't feel like a victory because my body deals out punishment. It's keeping score.

By quitting time, I want to cry with the relief of having another day under my belt. My back was just screaming, my head had a familiar daily headache — a dull ache that threatens to turn into a roar. I massage my neck a bit to get the tension out on the way home. Vibrating metal seats on the trolley again. Well, at least it's not the bus where you feel every THUMP as if someone just booted you in the back. I'm too tired to think.

I come home. I pull something out of the freezer and put it in the microwave. I want to cook, really, and I want to do a little housework and maybe exercise… my apartment is shameful. But I have to rest. The computer or TV… something pretty passive. I'd really like to be able to go pick up some groceries. Not tonight. Well, tomorrow I may have cereal for dinner but at least I won't starve. I'm too tired to even think about the dull aches, the spasms… they're drowned into the background. My time is now my own and I'm exhausted. At 7:30, I take my sleep medications. I have to be home, because then I'll need to wind down so that they take effect. Walking around too much or getting into an exciting TV program means they're not going to work as well. At 8pm, I generally crawl into bed, and I try to convince myself to do something low-key. By 9pm, I should be asleep. If I fall asleep at 10pm, that means my next day is going to be 100 times worse. Every single hour of sleep makes that much of a difference.

I follow this same pattern every weekday. On weekends, I don't have all that time to myself. I have to rest up, because 40hours is a long, demanding week. I can plan one major trip to get groceries, but that's at the exclusion of just about everything else I would *LIKE* to do. Most of the time, anyhow. There are rare times when I feel a bit better. There are times I just push my limits and pay dearly later. On Sunday morning, I dearly want to go to church but my body rebels and I roll over in bed. I get up, try to get dressed… and end up in bed again. Sigh, why fight? Monday starts the same drudgery all over again and I need to rest.

If you think this is depressing to listen to… just remember that your body isn't feeling like you're being stabbed, your back isn't giving you unrelenting pain, your 8 hours of rest doesn't feel like half that, you're not trying to convince everyone that you're still an intelligent and worthwhile person and that you can "keep up" — you probably ride a bus without giving it much thought… certainly not wincing every time it hits a bump. A headache probably doesn't visit you like a dear friend, every single day… sometimes all day long. Your hands listen to what you tell them to do most of the time, and your body doesn't act like your own worst enemy. That's fibromyalgia. Every day that I am able to get out of bed, it is an accomplishment. Every day I make it to my job and home again is a miracle, and I don't know how long it will last because two years ago, I never IMAGINED I'd be hearing myself say that. It's gotten worse… and I'm only 30.

1. Dodging the Bullet I know a lot of folks have been following @pasmith's...
2. A Nice Perspective Yesterday was my first yearly exam after the Cervical Cancer...
3. Time's Fun When You're Having Flies (That's totally my Froglok Conjuror's catch phrase.) I can't believe...

Sometime around New Year's Day, my right calf became painful and swollen. I've been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, so I just figured it was one more thing swelling and hurting…no big deal. The issue resolved on its own after a few days, and I went about life as normal.

Tuesday night, as I was heading to bed, I suddenly experienced incredible pain in my chest and shortness of breath. It came on so suddenly and was so intense that I was genuinely scared for my life. I sat on the edge of the bed for a minute, panting and clutching my chest, waiting for it to pass. I was eventually able to get enough breath to finish getting ready for bed, but the chest pain persisted.

I have to say, I played it off as "nothing." I have enough wrong with me, dammit! I didn't need one more thing added to the list. Besides, Peter was still laid up with gout and I wasn't about to drive myself anywhere, lightheaded as I was. I was in full ostrich mode.

I dealt with the chest pain over the next day and a half, and it began to taper off. The shortness of breath persisted, and it remained at a pretty constant level after the initial attack. Walking across the room meant I'd be gasping for air by the time I got there. Peter wanted me to make an appointment with my PCP, and I hedged. I didn't call her until the next day, the 7th, and her office immediately told me to go to the ER.

I was so sure it was nothing that I took the grocery list and a shopping bag with me, intending to pick up a few things on my way home.

The first thing they did once I got back into the wards was to give me a CT scan. After the doctor reviewed it, she came to me with an expression on her face that said she was about to tell me someone died. I'm pretty sure she thought it was me.

She proceeded to tell me that I had blood clots in my lungs (pulmonary embolism), and that she was amazed that I looked as good as I did for what she saw on that scan. She said that I would need to be admitted to the hospital for a few days for treatment and observation. Talk about unexpected! They started me on an IV anticoagulant. They wanted to transfer me to the University hospital in Worcester, though, since they didn't have anyone on staff who could perform an emergency procedure if I were to throw another clot.

I stayed in the ER at the University hospital for about 24 hours. They did an ultrasound of my legs, during which they found the origin of the clot (deep-vein thrombosis, or DVT…you've heard it talked about on TV, I'm sure). An echo of my heart showed that it hadn't been affected, which was great news. They finally had a room open up upstairs on my second night there, and I was whisked away from the chaos and clutter of the ER.

Long story just a little shorter, I spent another 48 hours in the hospital room, and they came to draw blood and take my vitals every few hours. During that time, my shortness of breath and chest pain eased and my blood oxygen level returned to its normal range. I was taught how to give myself anticoagulant injections in my belly (which totally sucks ass) and I'm on a varying dose of another anticoag, this time a pill, until the nurses at the Anticoagulation Clinic are satisfied with my bloodwork, and then I can stop the injections. They say I may need to be on the pill for as long as a year, and during that time I'm going to have to be extra careful around things that could bruise or cut me.

In the meantime, I have to undergo some medication changes to get off some drugs that might cause clotting. I foresee some suckage because of that in the future, but I'll take it. By all accounts, I'm lucky to be here. The type of PE that I had — a large "saddle" embolus, which is a clot that settles in the area where the pulmonary artery splits off to go to the left and right lungs — is usually fatal, often within minutes of the onset of symptoms.

The moral of the story, kids, is that you should practice what you preach: You would want your loved one to go to the ER if they experienced chest pain and shortness of breath, right? No matter how much you think or hope that "it's nothing," it might not be. Get medical help right away and be sure to describe any unusual symptoms you may have had in the previous days or weeks.

In an ideal world, I would have called my doctor when my leg was swollen. They could have discovered the clot then and given me anticoags or "clot-busters" to prevent it from causing any serious damage. In a non-ideal but certainly smarter world, I would have called 911 when I had the chest pain and shortness of breath.

It is much, much better to be safe than sorry.

1. A Healthy Person's Introduction to Fibromyalgia This was posted on the PatientsLikeMe forums, and I'd love...
2. A Nice Perspective Yesterday was my first yearly exam after the Cervical Cancer...
3. Time's Fun When You're Having Flies (That's totally my Froglok Conjuror's catch phrase.) I can't believe...

I guess you could say I enjoy things that stimulate my senses; when shopping, I'm always touching things, loving the textures of fabrics and materials. I love eating good food…it's hard to stop because I enjoy the flavor so much. I like looking at shiny, colorful, or bright things that catch and hold my eye. I almost always have scented candles or incense burning because I love the different aromas.

All this makes it easy to overindulge when I should be thinking about the bigger picture. I want a second helping of pasta because it turned out so well. I want to order another box full of beads because they're new and shiny or have such pretty colors. It's not that I need to stop enjoying these things; I just need to know when to stop.

I have more than enough materials to make countless bits of jewelry…all I have to do is sit down and commit some of my ideas to the materials I have on-hand. I don't need to cook less-tasty food…I need to learn to listen to my stomach when it tells me I'm sated rather than listen to my tongue and get another helping.

There's more to be said, but that's for another post at another time. Suffice to say that this year will be a year of moderation!

1. A Nice Perspective Yesterday was my first yearly exam after the Cervical Cancer...
2. A Healthy Person's Introduction to Fibromyalgia This was posted on the PatientsLikeMe forums, and I'd love...
3. Early Resolution I've decided that I'm going to try to blog a...

I've been down on the Gulf Coast visiting my parents for a few days now. The flight down was ok — except for that combat landing into Memphis, ugh — and the airport wifi gets a big thumbs-up from me. It's really nice being able to tweet, email, and even do a little gaming while waiting for my flights.

Of course, I wouldn't be able to do any of that if Peter hasn't gotten me this kick-ass laptop for the holidays/my birthday. /dance

1. So you think Firiona can dance? Watched this week's So You Think You Can Dance competition...
2. Dodging the Bullet I know a lot of folks have been following @pasmith's...
3. A Gift to Myself The gift I want to give myself in 2010 is...

In other Halloween News, the Super Spooktacular in Free Realms is still going on. You can earn lots of cool costumes and prizes, and the quests to get them are short, sweet, and fun. Most of the festivities center around Sanctuary, although you'll find celebrators through Sacred Grove who will point you in the right direction.

This wasn't planned, but I noticed that my dog Moxy is dressed up as a Gay Pride parade! /thumbsup

1. I hope you're feeling frisky… …Because Erollisi Day is coming to Norrath again! From February...
2. Time's Fun When You're Having Flies (That's totally my Froglok Conjuror's catch phrase.) I can't believe...
3. Free Realms: One Week In I've been puttering around in Free Realms since shortly after...

I've been seeing this doctor since October '07 (you know, the CCS) and at first I wasn't really sure about him. He was quiet in a "let's get this done as quickly as possible" kinda way. (Which isn't necessarily a bad thing when it comes to "OMG, do I still have pre-cancerous cells" visits.) Yesterday, though, was my first "actual" exam done by him, and he was just as pleasant as could be.

He asked me what I've been doing as far as work these days. I told him that I design websites from home. He asked if I used programs like Dreamweaver, and I said, "Oh no, I do everything by hand."

His jaw dropped for a second and he said, "So you can just look at the code and see what it's going to make?" I said, "Yeah, I can."

He was amazed…astounded. He said, "It's incredible that you can look at characters on a screen and know exactly where each little dot will fall. So you're like a musician in that way, someone who can read music. They look at the notes and can hear it in their head."

Personally, I've always envied people who can read music. I started to get the hang of it in high school show choir, but that was 12 years ago, and I've never picked up a piece of sheet music since. I was deeply honored to have the work I do — and love doing — put into that sort of perspective. I've never thought about it that way; it's just something I taught myself to do because I really enjoy it.

I think this is going to be my happy thought for a while.

1. A Healthy Person's Introduction to Fibromyalgia This was posted on the PatientsLikeMe forums, and I'd love...
2. Time's Fun When You're Having Flies (That's totally my Froglok Conjuror's catch phrase.) I can't believe...
3. I hope you're feeling frisky… …Because Erollisi Day is coming to Norrath again! From February...

I can't believe it's been a whole month since I've posted anything. It's not like I've been slacking, either…I've put in enough hours on a recent corporate project to warrant browsing for a laptop of my very own. Yvria, my Weaponsmith in EQ2, hit level 80 last week. Kharri, my Carpenter, finished her crafter epic yesterday. I'm steadily leveling up my combat jobs in Free Realms, one at a time. My Animal Crossing: City Folk town is still chugging along, and I log in daily to keep all my flowers watered and stuff.

With the weather changing from summer to fall, I've had a fibro flare-up or two that's slowed me down for a few days. Right now I'm suspicious of some intense coughing fits I've been having recently. If I feel myself passing away, I'll let everyone know well in advance. No, you can't have my stuff. :p

I've decided to move my guild's website from Dragonfly CMS to WordPress, since I've been really getting into making new themes lately. I'm even seriously considering making a WordPress port of Roster Master as a plugin, but we'll see how that goes when I have more time to concentrate on it.

I'm designing an AION website for an ex-EQ2 sig artist friend. It's going to be way cool and will be launching before the game is released later this month. The AetherNet — keep an eye on it!

1. Twilight Alliance is Born Well, at least it's born in Free Realms…I have...
2. Destination: AC Cross-Platform Comprehension So I realized after fiddling with AC:WW for a day...
3. Halloween Hubbub I've been immersed in the EQ2 Nights of the Dead...

1. A Gift to Myself The gift I want to give myself in 2010 is...
2. Anticipa… Today I'm expecting Animal Crossing: Wild World [Flash alert] for...
3. Destination: AC Cross-Platform Comprehension So I realized after fiddling with AC:WW for a day...

First of all, three-pip difficulty dungeons don't faze me in the least now, and one-pip dungeons are WAY too easy. Sure it takes a little time to get through the three-pips, but I can typically do a run without using all my potions and only losing one or two knock-outs.

I remember that as a Brawler in my teens, three-pip dungeons were pretty hard to do, if I could do them at all (even with help from Peter), and I'd go through a stack of potions and most of my knock-outs. It was really frustrating, but I don't blame that on the game at all…I just wasn't strong enough to do them alone.

Maybe now I can finish that tough boss battle to save the Queen…whee!

1. Free Realms: One Week In I've been puttering around in Free Realms since shortly after...
2. The Dares' Free Realms Concert Those of us who actually stayed up-to-date on the concert...
3. Early Resolution I've decided that I'm going to try to blog a...