I’ve come to despise bed time. My body and my mind are at odds on this one. Most of the day my mind is screaming for sleep, yet my body fights nearly every moment of it. In the last few weeks, my unknown ailment has limited my sleep to a few restless hours each night. The few hours I can sleep I wake up frequently-even a dozen times each night. Before sunrise, I give up hope of falling back to sleep even though I don’t feel rested at all.

The pain that started in my wrists early this year has moved to my elbows, my back, my knees, and most recently my ankles. I wake up with my hands and wrists contorted into painful gripping positions. My upper back has searing hot pain which doesn’t allow me to stand straight until I have spent at least fifteen minutes in a scalding hot shower. My lower back is tense and feels as if it is bruised from some sort of blunt force trauma. My knees and my ankles waiver between constant aching pain and just a dull weakened feeling as I try to get from my bed side to the shower, merely a few steps away.

Once again I have a doctors appointment next week and I don’t have any hopes that I will get an answer as to what is going on. This will be appointment number 7 with doctor number 3. I’ve finally found a doctor I like so I’m really keeping my fingers crossed I will get some answers.