Opening Weekend at Bristol!

Oh geez, here we are already at Friday. I thought this week would craaaawl past me like so much slimy snails with the speed and quickness of watching grass grow. But it didn't. It sped by so much that I kept saying to myself, "I gotta write that fibro blog soon..." and now... FRIDAY! The day before the second weekend!

Well, opening weekend found me alone at faire. Christine was busily and happily slaving away as the unpaid intern for the stage managers. She's totally legit too, dude, seriously. She's got a walkie-talkie with a headset. Now, being "alone" at faire is ridiculous. Even the quietest, shyest little demure flower isn't alone at faire. You're surrounded by friends. Friends you've known a while, friends you've just met, friends you haven't met yet. And it is awesome.

But I digress... this is my fibro blog and that's what I'm here to talk about. This week, I was in an exquisite amount of pain. But the shocker is that it was not from the fibrofuckingmyalgia. That's right. My weekend activities- which sent me up and down that blasted hill several times- did NOT cause a flareup of epic proportions which would have made me whiny and whingy and all-around annoying.

No.

This pain was from my feet. I already have tendinitis in my feet. I've suffered with it for just a smidge over twenty years. While I was pregnant with my second child (the boy, Jason), my arches started falling. And here we are, he's 20 1/2 years old and my arches are still falling. I have no idea why they're on the world's longest controlled fall and when they'll land, but they hurt like a motherfucker when they flare up. Honestly, they hurt all the time. Right now, sitting at this desk typing to you, they're sore because they're on the floor and have some weight on them.

So, along with the tendinitis, there's some bursitis, and plantar faciitis, and bone spurs (which is kind of what the plantar faciitis is, but I have bone spurs throughout my entire feet, not just the plantar kind). And, in cahoots with the fibro, I have neuropathy. Across the top of my right foot, I get this painful burning/numb feeling. And that "numb" thing is totally a misnomer. There is nothing "numb" with this pain. I used to refer to this feeling as "a red-hot railroad spike being hammered between the bones to the first and second toe". And all along, it was neuropathy. If you have carpal tunnel pain, you're familiar with how neuropathy feels and works. Now notch that bastard up to eleven and join me in a bitchfest of how these things suck so badly that they'd be in a terrible movie about "doing" a particular city with a girl named Debbie.

On Tuesday, I had to wedge my neuropathic foot (I just made that word up) into a boot and go back to the faire. Why? To deliver a Chihuahua puppy to a jouster. What? Jousters don't have Chihuahua puppies? Yes they do. I can name two right now. And one of them has two Chihuahuas. And then on Thursday, I had the opportunity to go see an act I usually only see at the faire. The Suitcase Shakespeare Company came to our local library to put on a free show for the kids and I went to photograph it for them (170 photos for a half hour show and a half hour demonstration and Q & A session).

My feet caused me to have a flareup on Sunday. I had a mild fibro or a severe foot thing flareup that caused me to walk away from the joust. Yeah. That's how bad it was... I actually put my camera away and walked away from the joust so I could sit down in the shade. I thought maybe I had dehydrated myself but I'd been drinking water and Gatorade in tandem all day. (and I had lunch). I sat in Shakespeare's Meadow and rested, taking photos of the Fantastikals as they did their awesome things around me. Forty-five minutes later, I was back in fighting shape and managed to stand at the entire final joust.

So, there you have it. I survived opening weekend and came away with around 1100 photos for my efforts. Linky-link-linkety-link-link-link to my faire photos. It took me four days to go through all the photos. I've only uploaded a select few, hence the "only" 153 photos in that link. (Most of them are on my Facebook though). In my mildly whiny lamentations about the pain on my Facebook status, I learned that one of my newer faire family does work in the field of whiny-chronic-pain-issues. (I find it hilarious and awesome that my faire friends- who dress up as either historical or fictional flamboyant and hilarious characters have jobs that are the opposite of their fun faire personas).

And, in adorably cute news, here's a photo of a jouster with his puppy.