What if… ..
your biggest fear about getting married wasn’t about fitting into your dress, or making sure all of the pew bows were tied properly, or that that you’d remember the choreographed dance steps to your first dance? I wish I could say that my mind was preoccupied with programs and favors and ribbons (oh my!) but unfortunately it wasn’t as simple… it was all about NOT being sick on my wedding day.

I was hesitant to write about this before the wedding, mainly because I wanted to avoid any sort of loyal attention to the subject. Certainly wishful thinking would come through on the big day as long as I kept happily not-thinking about the big “s” word happening… and I have a feeling that I’m not the only one out there to battle chronic illness and have the same thoughts floating in my head.

Just to clairfy, I, along with 3-6% of the US population, suffer from fibromyalgia. I was diagnosed 10 years ago when I was 17 when my athletic body melted into uncontrollable pain and spasms, and I’ve been fighting to ignore the pain everyday since then. My pain is mostly in my neck and upper back, and while everyday my muscles are rock hard and I’m constantly stretching and popping things, on bad days I can’t get out of bed as my pain migrates to other areas to inflict harm on new territory. Lots of other fun stuff comes along with the FMS, like tension migraines and IBS, but the suffering really comes from the day-to-day struggle to just keep moving and shrugging off the pain.

My personal history with chronic illness has shown that I always make it through the stressful events in my life, such as final exams, job interviews, performances, etc., but sadly I usually collapse into a heap hours later to awake from a fog days later. My big worry was that I would survive the actual wedding ceremony, but the second I started to let loose on the dance floor, I’d start to feel weak. Or perhaps I’d be fine all day but have a horrible honeymoon on account of the preceding weeks of stress. Let’s just say I had plenty to worry about, and there really wasn’t much I could do but have things around to make sure I was comfortable, relaxed and out of pain.

So I did my best to plan that things went well, everywhere from avoiding all caffeine all day long and making sure that I bought a wedding dress that sat on my rib cage and hips instead of draping on my neck and shoulders. And in the end…. I survived. In the follow-up to this post, I’ll go through of what I did to “set-up” for success… but for now, I just want to leave all of those worrisome brides with a glimmer of hope… that someone who wanted to be anything but her sick self during her wedding made it through with flying colors!

Perhaps the responses to this post will help realize that we’re not alone out there and that others are facing the same BIG issues… and I hope everyone has as much “healthy luck” as I did on my big day! So good luck to my fellow sickies out there… I’ll be personally cheering you on from the other side!