Flare-Ups Ruin My Fun
Camping has by far always been one of my favorite pass-times. Living in Maine, it’s like a pre-requisite for your childhood. I’m not talking “camping” by going to your $250K cabin on the lake with Kohler fixtures and electric heating systems. I’m talking in a tent, by a campfire, with folding chairs and plastic cups. Ok, there WAS a public bath house, I wasn’t exactly taking organic TP into the backwoods or anything. Most importantly, regardless of the accommodations, is the idea of spending time away from the rush of life with some of your closest friends and family.
This weekend I got to go camping at Sebago Lake State Park with a big group of friends (about 15) and spend time hanging out, hiking, wine tasting, smore’sing, cooking, talking, and laughing lots. I love my friends. I’m one of those friends who would seriously jump off a bridge with them, cause it would certainly be one hell of an adventure.
Adventures are definitely a good way to describe the activities of this group. Escapades, hijinks and shananigans might be even better. Which is part of the reason I was quick to jump into my Jeep and head to Rattlesnake Mountain on Route 85 in Raymond. My friends who had hiked it before said it was a pretty easy climb, the elevation only about 500-600 feet. For someone who goes running on Bradbury Mountain I figured this should be a fun jaunt.
After a night of sleeping on hard ground, tossing and turning, lifting and pitching and setting up camp, my body was definitely not at 100%. Such things were not a problem for my friends, they lead normal lives. For me, normal is never a guaranteed thing. After a quick car ride into Raymond (along Route 85) we came to the teeny-tiny parking lot for the Bri-Mar Trail onto 
Rattlesnake. Finding no spaces, we pulled our little 3 vehicle caravan over to the side of the road in the dirt shoulder behind a couple other parked cars and started into the field. The first 1/4 of the trail was pretty flat, only a slight incline and a well groomed trail. The next quarter, however, seemed (to me) to go straight up the side of the mountain over fallen logs, rocks and a slippery carpet of dead leaves. By the time we stopped to grab fruits and granola bars at the mid-way point I was huffing and puffing and my calf muscles were seizing in excruciating pain.
I leaned against a tree to try to catch my breath. My air passage was raspy and my legs were quickly becoming a substance somewhat akin to Jell-o. My mind was slowly slipping into the all-too-familiar fog and I couldn’t form complete sentences as my vocabulary was rapidly falling to an elementary school level. My head was throbbing, and all I wanted to do was stretch out on my back and relax my muscles. I sent everyone ahead, telling them I’d catch up. I didn’t want to be the reason their hike ended. I didn’t want to ruin anyone else’s fun, just because mine was. Thus began the posting of this blog as I sat on a rock by myself fighting back tears.
In June of 1999 (this seems to be my year of 10 year anniversaries) I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I hate this chronic illness so much, and I try to use the word hate as sparingly as possible. Life is too short to waste much time on something as nasty as hate. Yet hate fibromyalgia I certainly do. For the first five or six years after being diagnosed, I was learning to adjust to the fibro. I went to groups and sessions (per the recommendation of my first doctor) to learn how others lived with a chronic illness. I learned at these groups that fibro is a great excuse to get out of doing anything and placing yourself in a scary place of severe social isolation. I lost a lot of people from my life, spent my nights watching episodes of Jeopardy with my family, and aging myself at least 20 years. I was miserable.
That was when I decided I needed to make some changes in my life. Because as much as I do have a weird crush on Alex Trebek (what can I say, I like arrogant older men and their condescending backhanded comments) I knew that my 20′s were not meant for life like this. So I started doing things with folks. I played, I ran, I hung out, I lived my life. Yet there were times I had to ditch plans. There were Saturdays when I couldn’t even curl up with a book, I instead entered my cloudy mind-fog and zoned out on re-run movies and Facebook cause anything else exhausted me. Stress from my job lands me in the hospital with severe dehydration and fatigue. I wouldn’t let it beat me though. I became determined to make sure that my life was mine, not a captive of some chronic illness.
Fibro flare-up’s strike at the most inopportune times. This time, it was on the side of a mountain in Maine. I passed it off as allergies, I didn’t want my friends to have to take pity on me. I don’t want my fibro to define me. Yet I realized on that rock, as one of my friends came back to take me down the mountain (where we laid in a field and I was finally able stretch out and rest,) that it isn’t fair to not let people know either.
My friends are terrific. I signed on for four days in the middle of no where knowing that I’d have nothing but their company. It’s time I let them, and the rest of the world, know that I’m me and that’s cool but with me comes this piece of baggage that may sometimes cause me to ditch and be boring or even a wee-bit comatose. I’m not used to trusting or letting people in, I guess it’s just another way I’m trying to change. I think my friends, crazy as they may be, are amazing and can take it.
ADDENDUM: Sometimes things happen for a reason, and though it seems like my fun was spoiled, this was actually the best flare-up I’ve ever had. As my friend and I laid in a field, talking about karma and why things happen, we saw a police car pull up. The sheriff got out, spoke to a very agitated resident near the entrance of Rattlesnake and a car parked in the teeny-tiny parked lot. She then wandered over to us and asked “Do you know anything about those three cars on the side of the road?” We explained that they were ours, but the rest of our group was still up on the mountain and should be on their way down. To which her response was “Well, they better hurry, cause I’ve called a tow truck. You’re blocking the traffic flow and there’s a business that is being affected.” We looked over as two cars passed by our cars with little issue, except they maybe had to drive within the speed limit instead of the 40-50 MPH all the other cars seemed to be rushing by at. There also appeared to be no signs, and after an investigation of the town site, I couldn’t find anything about no parking on public roads.
I jumped up with my keys and ran to my Jeep to move in into the parking space that had freed up. We frantically called and texted up the mountain, imploring everyone to get down as quickly as possible, especially after we saw the first tow truck come by. As we began to worry with the cop lights glaring behind the other two cars, we heard one of our friends come bursting out of the trail carrying two sets of keys. We moved the cars, we overcame the cops, we won the battle. And all because I quit a hike half-way through as I had my “fun” parade rained on with a flare-up.
The lesson of this whole story? Well, there are two. The first is even when something you have constantly been fighting and trying to change seems to ruin your fun, it might actually be happening for a reason. The second is that you should never buy anything from a greenhouse owner who calls to have your cars towed for legally parking on the side of a road.
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