Fibro, geology and martial arts – my fibromyalgia story

It’s November again, the muscle ache has flared up again, the arthritis is in the joints, the fatigue is back, there is that touch of insomnia, but there is also something new this year. At random occasions some mongrel darts in from somewhere and rams a knife into my thighs, the sharp pain I can live with but when the collapsing leg damn near caused me to throw my recently purchased coffee into the bushes I was seriously pissed. Yep, another anniversary of getting sick has rolled around, the 19th in all.

Working in Nicaragua

So where did it start, it was 1998 and I was working in Nicaragua as a field geologist kicking rocks and dodging jaguars (and Rebels with rifles and bloody little black and white monkeys that constantly threw stuff at me – the content of which I prefer not to think of). Trudging around the hills and mountains, through rainforest and up creeks… many, many creeks… in northern Nicaragua. Now anyone who tells you they “love the rainforest” has never worked in it, everything wants to bite you, sting you, poison you, trip you and pierce you… and that’s just the plants! Give me the desert any day! One of the delights of the forest are little blood sucking critters, and I don’t mean the leaches, no I mean the ticks. November 1998, I was working in an area we called Cerro Diablo, well named, and chock full of ticks. Little ones, big ones, giant ones, red ones, brown ones and little pin prick black ones. It would not be unusual for me to pluck 40 to 60 off me at the end of the day (bad advice these days but plucking them off was the thing to do back then), and that was just the ones I could see. Every morning I rolled myself out of the hammock, pulled my wet clothes back on, wolfed down some boiled rice and commenced a new days mapping. Only one day I started going down hill, fast. A fever chilled me all night, my body ached, my joints screamed, I was fatigued all the time. Walking was a chore, I was fit but a 5-kilometre mapping day was a killer. Even 3 km would take all day – to the point that the local guys we had doing the sampling started to worry that I was not looking well and was not getting back to camp before dusk after doing a solitary day. Yep, it got to the point that I had to admit I was crook, thankfully I managed to finish that mapping program and then I just had the 6 hour horse ride back to town, my butt has not stopped reminding me since…

Heading off to Cerro Diablo, 1998
Trudging the Hills of Nicaragua

Getting sick


Back in the Nicaraguan capital Managua I seemed to go downhill, a 50m walk was beyond me, the fever and pain was as bad as ever and I started to have problems concentrating. I saw the doctor, had a battery of blood tests, many of which where sent to the USA for full work up, but all the results came back with “Lo siento Senior, Pero your results, they are all normal!”, in the end he dosed me with an antibiotic cocktail for Lyme Disease with a shrug of the shoulders and a few more “Lo sientos” thrown in. He figured I had 20 of the 26 listed symptoms so that was close enough. I figured a Christmas break out of the tropics would be a good break, just what I needed to shake off whatever it was, so I flew to Vancouver, Canada!

I even managed to convince myself that the chilly air and snow set me on the path to improve (yep snowed that Christmas in Vancouver, my first white Christmas). Vain hope as it turned out, back in Nicaragua I was as incapacitated as before. There was no point continuing with the contract in the state I was in, so the company cancelled my contract and I jumped on a plane and headed back to Australia.

Upon my return I was offered a PhD project by my old Uni, right up my alley – structural controls on mineralisation. Give me a couple of months to get better while I do the Literature Review, I’ll be all good to go once the field work starts, helps to be positive!

These symptoms just won’t bugger off


I never did get better, the muscle aches progressively got worse – a throbbing ache, like I just woke up after a seriously heavy duty workout the day before. If the pain was constant you could live with it but it would get worse then fade to the background (we’ll sort of I think some days I just handled it better than others). Then there was the sand in my hip joints, like someone had a dagger in my hip joints, twisting the joint open and poring sand into the gap – the pain when I walked was a constant grind, literally – there was no cartilage left in my hip joints. I took up swimming again as running was out of the question and the support from the water meant I could get some exercise. That lasted a while until even that became a chore.  The arthritis in my hands, elbows, knees, ankles and back left we with hands that did not work properly, and a back that didn’t want to bend. The fever would come on at weird times, and only the bright warm tropical sunlight (of all things) stopped it – this was weird as it is my malaria test – when I get a fever and go into the sun if the fever stops it is malaria, if not it is probably just a flu. This test has never let me down – except in this situation! I definitely did not have malaria.

Of course, doctor after doctor, test after test came back with the words still ringing from my Spanish doctor back in Nicaragua “Los siento Senior, but we can find nothing wrong!” My blood is good, the scans and X-rays of my hips show perfectly healthy cartilage, the fever has no temperature. Then you start to hear that one term no one who is very sick wants to hear “perhaps it is psychosomatic? Perhaps you should talk to a psychologist, shrink, head doctor etc etc”. I had one tell me that they think the symptoms are caused by depression – you dickhead, live years through this and tell me you don’t get depressed, it ain’t the other way round! Well, they do say the first person that should see a shrink is a shrink…

Ring a ring a Rosie – why do I keep falling down?


Doctor after doctor, specialist after specialist, drug after drug, a long slow spiral down slope. Specialists in ancient disease, specialists in tropical disease, Chinese doctors (“dis very bad, I not seen dis since China!”), acupuncture, Chinese herbs, drugs that make white walls colourful, drugs not to be taken without anti depressants, drugs not to be taken with alcohol (yeah nah sorry guys – alcohol is the only drug that kills the pain, for a while at least!). I was even offered some of the “best god damn joints this side of heaven!” – didn’t work either… of course you can’t take all this crap without consequences, my gut started to have issues, bloating, reflux, heart burn. Whilst the childhood rhyme Ring a ring a Rosie might be about the Black Death, the “we all fall down” end for me was the black dog. Like so many others unable to find relief or diagnosis depression descended and dropped the curtain. Alcohol killed the pain so I drank, too much I am sure which certainly didn’t help my state of mind. At least I never tried anything harder than those couple of “God’s own” but ultimately useless joints. So one day I found myself staring into the abyss, no way out of this pain but one, surely any way out ain’t going to hurt anymore than what I was already going through.

At this point I realised where I was and that I had to do something. So I rang for help, I was desperate and there was only one thing to do, I called up the University medical help and crisis centre (“Don’t suffer alone, call us and we will help you!”). I said I was suicidal and desperately needed to talk to someone. “Sorry, all our councillors are busy, we can fit you in next week!” was the response, “Sorry dude”, I said “Probably won’t be around next week to attend the appointment!” Talk about a kick in the teeth, probably the best thing that could have happened in hindsight, wonderful thing hindsight – if only we could get it earlier when it is actually needed. I was now 2 years into my illness journey. It was at this point the mining company sponsor of the PhD pulled the pin on my project. I would like to say they stuck with me through think and thin, despite my illness I met all my hurdles yet still I was out on my butt (they dropped the ground my PhD was on shortly after – call me a cynic but I can’t help seeing ulterior motives…). So I had no job, no money and bad health, wonderful. I did have a great girlfriend who stuck by me and saw me out the other side, she has even married me though I am not sure why. I guess she figured the “In sickness” part was out of the way and looked forward to the “in health” bit – Christ so did I!

Glad I can’t stay in bed – years of back aches avoided


I am lucky in a way, I have what some people might think a curse (my wife certainly does – sorry dear 😊), that is I cannot stay in bed or I get a sore back! I must get up as soon as I wake up. All through this journey I had suffered terrible chronic fatigue but being unable to stay in bed I had to get up and go about my day, then, if needed I’d have a sleep later to get through the day. According to my doctor this greatly reduced the time I suffered the chronic fatigue, by getting up and moving I was able to keep moving rather than spend 4 years of lethargy in bed. In a way this get up and get on with it way also helped me when I hit the bottom where the only way out of the hole is up. The drugs didn’t work, the doctors didn’t work, even the shrinks weren’t there to help me when I was staring down the barrel of ending it. The only thing that worked was alcohol and that was something I had to learn to manage with care lest I fall over the edge into alcoholism. The old field rule of “2 beers per man per night” I learnt on my first field job out of Uni became my basis, 2 beers knocked the edge off the pain but 3 beers was the slippery slope I used as a sounding board – whoops, onto my third – time to reset!

Pissed at getting the boot from my PhD studies, unable to work and looking for something to do I decided a career change was in the winds so I started a photography degree (this bloody illness can’t last for ever, can it??). Alas this was just a diversion, geology was what I enjoyed and as a scientist my artistic streak frankly sucked. I was envious at what my fellow photographers could churn out with a couple of lines of text and a germ of an idea. Spectacular photo essays and fine art photographs that left anything I tried to pull together look decidedly third rate. No, whilst I enjoy photography I just didn’t have the knack. Not to mention the illness started to put the breaks on here as well, a directive to “take the camera and wander around town, shoot a photo essay on XYZ” was beyond me.

The disability shooting gallery – their eyes were dull, their heads were flat, they had no brains at all!


Too sick to work or study, and with good evidence that my illness was related to my work in Nicaragua (I even have a diary that documents my slide) I figured workers comp was a shoe in. Turns out that because I signed on to a full time PhD thesis when I returned I was considered to be back into “full time work” and there would not be any compo coming my way! Swallowing my pride, I shuffled down to the nearest Centrelink office and applied for a disability pension. That was an interesting process, applying for assistance when there was “nothing wrong with me”. Here started one of the most degrading episodes of the story and one I would not wish on anyone. Every fortnight I would shuffle down to the Centrelink office, stand in line with the pensioners for an hour – difficult to do when 5 minutes is about the maximum standing time possible but all the old veterans and widows around me ensured I would not let them see my pain when many of them went through and were still going through far worse. I would submit my form stating I was still sick and shuffle out again. Can’t say this episode improved my view of Centrelink workers any. They were unhelpful, rude, obnoxious and reminded me of the gilded youths sitting along the barber’s wall in Banjo Patterson’s The Man from Ironbark “their eyes were dull, their heads were flat, they had no brains at all” – I am sure most of them would not even know who AB Paterson was! All that pain and humiliation to get a pension barely sufficient to survive on and a long ways below the poverty line at that!

After a further 2 years of this degrading episode I was at my wits end. Sick of being broke, constantly ill and sneered at by people who probably failed high school in order to pass the “get a job at Centrelink” exam I decided I needed to start working again, but what prey tell could I do??

I can’t walk, I can’t stand and I can’t bloody sit, what use am I?


Turns out there is not a lot you can do when in that situation. I was fortunate that I maintained my connection through the Geology department at the University and was able to complete a Graduate Diploma in GIS through a combined Earth Science / Geography department stitch up. In the process of which I met the wonderful Chrissy Maguire who had a geologist contracting company called Gnomic. Whilst I was in no state to be one of her Gnomes and kick rocks she kindly employed me as a casual and I went into her garage office with the other Office Gnomes and entered prospective CV’s into the database. Boy that was an education – I had not realised how much people lie on their Resumé! Some people were blatant to the point of bravery (or stupidity). “I graduated from University 4 years ago, have done 3 years as a mine geologist on a mine, 5 years as a field geologist in exploration and spent the last 2 years as a Senior Geologist at company XYZ…” – hmmm, that went it to the bullshit pile along with a surprising number of others! Toiling away like this gave my confidence a boost which made the pain bearable and when a position came up I figured I could handle I asked Chrissy if I could put my hand up. Next thing I know I am off and working full time again. Was I better – no but I had the confidence to get into it and you know what before I knew it the fever was gone, the fatigue had retreated and the pain was still there, front and centre! “Suck it up princess – you are working again!”

When you are on the bottom the only way forward is up…


The contracting gig was a good one, the short(ish) term nature of the work meant that any contract only lasted a month to a year and if it all got too much I simply did not extend/renew the contract. That made life easy and meant that on a day by day process I started suppressing the pain and stepping up to life (with the aid of a few beers at night – now anyone who knows me understands why I hate dry camps!!). One contract led to another and each time I tested my boundaries and when I went too far I pulled back and tried again. Soon I was brave enough to take the plunge and apply for a full time job – in Perth. So my ever patient fiancé (at this point) and I packed up the Nissan Pisstrol and drove across the top end to commence work in Perth as a GIS and Database Geologist at Universal Resources with Peter Ingram, Maurie Hoyle and Leon Reisgys. Seven years into my journey and while the pain just would not let up life was looking better. It was now mining boom time and Geologists were rare as hens teeth, life was busy and I think that took my mind away from my health issues. I was determined not to let this get on top of me and certainly determined not to let those around me know how much of an effort coming in to work was. “Ron can you jump on a plane and do a 2 week stint in Cloncurry?”, sure can. “Ron we need you on the ground in Namibia for 3 weeks!”, no problem. “Ron we need to organise this wedding!”, yep onto it. “Ron, I am pregnant!”, say what… Life has a habit of doing that to you, piling on the pressure till you blink and Christmas rolls around again. Six years we were in Perth, 2004 till 2010, 3 jobs, 2 kids, 2 dogs, a house, a small consulting company (which sort of fizzled due to the 2008 crash whipping away my forward bookings) and one serious bout of swine flu were all piled into those six years. I was down to my last mortgage payment when along came Harmony with a Resource Geologist position and after a year an offer for a transfer back east closer to our family came up. After weighing up the pro’s and con’s (many pro’s and just a couple of con’s) we bundled our little family up and I hobbled back to the east coast.

Oh… and I still hurt like a bitch…

Leon Reisgys and the Marenica U deposit "Discovery Hole" in Namibia - no forest for miles!

A progressive decline, a stiffening back and a rapidly approaching tunnel – frigging potholes!


We were now settled into our new home on the east coast for which we paid way beyond our budget but a kindly gentleman who over heard my heated discussion on the phone with my wife about how much above budget the house was offered me a wonderful piece of advice – “Just say yes dear and sign the cheque, else you will argue for weeks, not talk for a month and sign the bloody thing anyway – save yourself the bother” – smart man…

I had a good job with a multi-national and a happy family. What more could you want – well good health would be nice. Progressively I started to regress, the pain was worse, my hands started to ball up again, the sand in the hips just had to be doing damage by now, and every morning getting up required a serious level of focus and commitment all in order to roll over and fall out of bed (hey at least it got me moving!). Right when things were looking up that disability que was starting to look like a series possibility again. Unwilling to face that prospect (and with a mortgage that would turn the dead) I decided to give the doctors a go… again! Sucker for punishment I know. My local GP went through my symptoms and said they resembled a couple of his other clients and recommended I see a particular specialist friend of his. Willing to give anything a go I got him to set me up with an appointment, sitting in the waiting room was like being back in the disability que again – lots of veterans and widows again, all happy and smiling despite their issues and once again I felt they had the bad end of the bargain so smiled and talked and mentioned nothing.

“Take off your shirt and sit here.” said the doctor after reading the letter I brought with me from my GP. “Tell me does it hurt when I press here?”... ‘Fuck yeah’ I scream (internally of course, externally I squeak out a “Yes Sir”), “What about here?” ‘Fucking do that again and I’ll deck you’…”Yes sir”, “And here?”, ‘Oh you sadistic Prick’…”Yep there too”. “Good good” he said – good good – what sort of moron thinks inflicting pain is “good good!”, at this point I am thinking I might have to confront my GP about his friends! He then proceeds to tell me I have Fibromyalgia – “Fibro what?”. After the appointment I finally knew what the problem was and that after 13 years I finally had an answer. He then sat me down and set me straight. Told me that there was no cure, that I will probably have it for life, that the internet is full of quack cures that I will spend thousands on and that I may one day stumble onto something that might work – for me. His final piece of advice was and to borrow from Banjo again (ref Clancy of the Overflow) ‘Verbatim I will quote it’ – “Most people with this condition that I have seen give up on life and I manage them onto a pension where they wither away, with a young family and many years ahead of you I think you need to reset your normal. Your normality is now pain, it is a part of you. Accept that and get on with life, provide for that family of yours and live your life to the full.” Sort of translates as “toughen up princess” doesn’t it?

Enter martial arts – and a year of shear bloody torture


Throughout this process I got to thinking, when my pain was at its least, when my hands were working, when I was “in a good place” I was distracted and busy. I realised that it was not that the pain had gone away, rather that I was mentally better able to deal with it – as the doctor said, I reset my normal. When I saw that I also realised that dealing with it was – and dare I say it – “all in the mind”. I still had some anti-inflammatory pain killers (washed down with beer), and was going through a packet of quickeze a week due to the heart burn but when I mentally had something to do I coped better. That led me to thinking about my physical strength. As all who suffer from Fibro know – you do something it hurts, so you refrain from doing it again. To the point you fall into a spiralling trap of do something it hurts, do nothing, lose condition, try again, hurts more, do less, hurts more then do less till all of a sudden your strength is gone and you have no muscle mass left to even attempt anything. I figured if I start a fitness regime again, rebuild my fitness then perhaps I can reverse the symptoms. It took me a couple of years of trial and error, and failure after failure until I realised that going out and running 5 km, swimming 2 km or doing an hour in the Gym was not what my body required. Thinking back to when I was at my fittest I realised it was when I was studying the Karate style of Kyokushin, a hard, bare knuckle, full contact style of Karate that left me with broken fingers, a broken jaw, wearing glasses and shins that feel bumpy as hell from too many shin on shin contacts. Kyokushin as a style is full on and probably more than I could handle but a traditional style where I could work to my own pace might be a good idea. My eldest son had just started under Shihan Stephen Kelly at Kansai Karate in Brisbane, a member of the traditional Shito-ryu Shukokai Karatedo Union. I thought the calisthenics, fitness work and support might help me where my go hard or go home self training could not. So I hit Shihan Stephen up and discussed it him and thus started my new Karate journey. Was it easy, shit no, especially to start with. Every session left me stiff and sore – Christ, sometimes after hobbling to the toilet and preying I’d catch myself as I fell onto the seat I couldn’t get off again! I had to fall onto the floor, crawl over to the door jam and hall myself up back onto my feet. For the first year every morning after training my wife would ask me “why are you doing this to yourself?” but then for the first time in years my hands were starting to work again!

My god, my hands work again!


Along with my working hands came increased muscle mass, returning strength and I started to rebuild my core muscles – geez when I crossed my arms I felt biceps again, could not remember the last time I felt biceps on my own arms! Suddenly that packet of quickeze was un-touched for weeks, then months and now I might have a couple of tablets a year. Those painkillers have now expired, half of them un-used. I started being the assistant coach for my sons AFL football team, I even started to do kickboxing together with my wife (cutesy of Martial Arts Queensland - good bunch!), we call it marriage counselling – amazing how her getting to belt me in a controlled and safe manner has done wonders for our relationship, OH and No – I do not condone violence of any sort unless it is in a controlled environment like on the Dojo floor, in the ring or on the mats! Just in case you were wondering…

Last year I managed to go the full 4hours 23 minutes of pain (the last 2 hours were a fog of cramps – as were the next 24 hours come to think of it!) and obtained my Shodan-Ho (black belt for the uniformed) which I confirmed to 1st Dan this year in front of Sensai Ishitobi, Sensai Mizoguchi (both over from Japan) and Sensai Stephen Kelly. Not bad for someone who only a few short years ago couldn’t get out of bed!

Sensai Mizoguchi  , Sensai Ishitobi and Sensai Kelly awarding me my 1st Dan


So am I cured – shit no! I miss so much as 2 weeks of training and my hands start to ball, the back starts to cramp and that sand starts to inch its way back into my hips. Head space is where it is at – as long as I maintain my training I maintain my fitness, as long as I maintain my fitness I have all them good hormones running through my system and the Fibro does not get much of a look in. 

Except Novembers – it always seems to come back during November and knock me for six. It’s when I have what is known in the Fibro community as a “turn” – so I apologise if I seem a little short tempered during November, miss a few more training sessions than I should or have trouble getting to work on time. If anyone out there knows how I can skip Novembers and go straight to December I am all ears!!

So what is the moral of this little story – go out there and take life by the horns is one, but more importantly if you suffer from Fibromyalgia I have no magic cure, no instant promise of relief and if you send me $20 bucks I got nothing to send back to you – which probably has the same amount of effect as some of the crap people do send out! But I do have an experience to share – take up a martial art of some description, or do Pilates if that is your thing (I have tried Yoga but it seemed to exacerbate the pain so I have left it alone but you could give it a go!). The ability to train to your own potential, push yourself at your own pace helps get you mobile again. Each grading is a little milestone that lets you know you are advancing towards a better health, a certificate and a new belt like a trophy to hang around your progressively thinning waist (OH and don’t expect to lose weight – I am heavier now that I ever was but it is muscle now, not soft jiggly bits). A martial arts Dojo is not like a Gym where you feel you have to keep up with the “fit crowd”, get to a point where you make Arnie look small or have the most snazzy “active wear” – you all wear the same set of funeral pyjamas that look just as swanky on everyone (yes the Gi represents what you were buried in, saves time on the battle fields of old!). You just work at your pace, do what you can do and slowly, ever so slowly you wake up to find not only do you have life by the horns but you are riding it all the way to the nearest rodeo!

Many thanks must go to my friends and family because without them we are nothing, Chrissy Maguire from Gnomic for giving me that first little leg up, my work colleagues over the years just for putting up with me, my Sensai’s (both my Karate instructors and my kickboxing instructors present and past - shout out to Phil...) for the motivation and support, my Dojo mates and training partners for allowing me to do what I have to do in order to be a productive member of society again – Sorry if my kicks and punches are just a tad too hard but hey I am doing it – Whoo hoo! Most importantly to my wife for dishing up healthy meals, her endless patience and the odd well placed kick – executed with exquisite timing and power if the occasional bruise on my butt is anything to go by! Oh - and the fridge is still always well stocked...


Finally, to all the people whose professions I have so profoundly insulted above and who may feel I used crass language, I unreservedly apologise – it is not personal, it’s just November…

Comments

  1. Thank god November's over. Keep punching buddy, you have rewired/reset your brain & mind wonderfully well!

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