I can blow dry my hair.

I have surpassed another huge milestone.

This will make no sense to someone who does not have fibromyalgia, but I’ll endeavor to explain anyway...

This harkens back to what I said last week about now being able to raise my arms over my head.

And, it is not that I could not physically move my arms in this manner before. It’s just that it was so incredibly uncomfortable to perform this action that I could not sustain this action for more than a few seconds at a time.

Blow drying your hair involves holding your arms up by your head for several minutes in a row.

Therefore, for years, blow drying my hair was completely beyond my capacity to do.

I’m sure people thought me very strange.

I take a very long shower in the mornings to loosen up my stiff muscles. (Sleeping is a horrible thing to do when you have fibromyalgia. Lying still all night stiffens everything up. I feel much better when I pull an all-nighter working on a project. If not for the resulting fatigue, I would pull an all-nighter every night. The day after an all-nighter I am guaranteed NOT to have a headache or body stiffness. It’s wonderful. I wish our human bodies did not require sleeping. Sleeping is simply a horrible thing to do. I don’t like it at all.)

Showering creates wet hair. I suppose I could have worn one of those ridicilous shower caps, but the hot water directly on my scalp helped with my morning headaches, (from that horrific sleeping thing.) So, I’d turn the shower up to near scalding temperatures, and try to get the blood flowing in the stiff myself in my back, neck, and occipital ridge at the base of my skull.

Once I had used up all the hot water in our hot water tank, I would emerge from the shower. (Yes, I am Al Gore’s worst nightmare when it comes to “being green” in this respect. I’m a great environmentalist in other ways, but a true horror when it comes to my long showers.)

And, having showered, I end up with wet hair.

So, dropping my son off at school, I was the parent with wet hair. There’s a picture of me at a parent/principal social, sitting right next to the principal, and there I am, the one with the head of wet hair. Yup, old damp head Diana.

And, every week for church, you could pick me out in the choir. I was the one with the shiny damp hair.

I’m sure some folks were thinking: “Doesn’t this gal own a hair dryer?”

We own two, actually.

If we had a party or something to go to, my husband would sometimes offer to blow dry my hair for me, knowing how much it hurt me to do this ridicilously simple activity.

Well, no more.

After my big breakthrough with the back last week, I could just feel that things in my body had changed.

So, I did something most unusual...

I reached under the bathroom sink and pulled out one of the hair dryers...

I reached my arms up to my head and turned it on...

Hot air began blowing my hair all over the place...

... and I felt no pain.

No pain?

Where was the pain?

How was this possible?

I grabbed a hair brush, combing and styling my hair as I blow dryed, holding the dryer at every possible angle.

Still no pain.

Whoa...

I celebrated that day by going out and buying...

(gasp)

... hair gel.

I could actually start styling my hair again.

(Of course, now the weather has suddenly shifted to warm weather, so we’re riding bikes to school. This means I’m now wearing a bike helmet twice a day, (four miles of biking), so, well, I can’t get too fancy, as it all gets squashed under the bike helmet anyway.)

But, still, the very thought of being able to finally give my hair such loving care and devotion again!

And, to not be the Mom with the head full of wet hair!

And, to go to church with dry, nicely styled hair!

Its such a ridiclously simple thing, but it means a lot to me.

It is another milestone proving how I am reclaiming my life, and taking back all the pieces of my life that fibromyalgia chipped away from me over the years.

I’m taking this one back.

And, if you don’t have fibro, I’m betting this whole hair drying thing probably made no sense at all to you...

Because fibromyalgia affects every muscle in the body, it is not a disease you can adequately explain to “normals.” (“Normals” is a term coined by Claudia Marek, co-author of Dr. St. Amand’s book. Claudia authored an outstanding “Letter to Normals.” I should re-post that here on the site. Mental note: Diana, do that.)

I wish there was a way we could swap bodies with you normals, just for 24 hours. Not so that I could live your life. I’ve accepted that I have this disease, and that this is God’s plan for me. I’m cool with that. It’s just there are no words to explain something that affects every part of your body, including your brain.

I’ll keep trying, though...

Another huge milestone.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

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