I can recall a night years ago when it first arrived.  In bed, I tossed and turned.  I would put my hands on pillows, postion them every way imagined, and hope the burning hell would leave them.  The tingling would begin.  The tingling would go into numbness and then swing into severe burning torture.  The pendulum of these symptoms would wax and wane within seconds back and forth.  No relief.  No pain med in the house to fix it.  Nothing. 

I recalled at the time a few weeks prior when I was at work and had all over aches like the flu.  I had thought at the time "Wow, I must be getting a virus".  I remember the Tylenol I took which had always fixed an body ache or little pain I had.  I remember the Ibuprofen, the Aleve and every med I took that day while trying to work and rid myself of the all over deep aching sensations.  It was all in vain a and to no avail in fixing the body aches which plagued me. 

Well, on the night of the stigma encounter, I could recall that for two weeks this burning had been present in the hands.  The burning had a package with it.  My entire body was in pain, I was so exhausted I could hardly walk.  I had an all over feeling that my body was rotting from the inside out.   I was so stiff I felt much like the character in "The Munsters" or the Tin Man on the "Wizard of Oz".  The night of the stigma's arrival, I decided to head to the local E.R. at three A.M. 

Out of bed I came.  I threw on whatever clothing was nearby.  It was Probably something a little sloppy.  I could little  effort with the pain I was experiencing. I had my hair tossled about, no make up, and the dark circles under the eyes which were constant but enhanced that night at three A.M.   Off to the E.R.  I was thinking all the while "Ok, let's get a steroid injection to decrease the swelling in the hands and then maybe the burning pain will subside and take the pressure off the nerves".  I had absolutely no thoughts of Morphine, Demerol, or any other narcotic med.  I knew that this pain in the hands was unlike anything that could be fixed with such a med.  However, the all over body aches could be.  I knew this.  But it was not my goal that night at three A.M.

I drove myself.  I got out of the car and shuffled slowly while tears fell down my cheeks like rain.  I was terribly afraid because I had been told by a doctor two days before that I had "something autoimmune".  He said it was "something" but he did not know what.   He mentioned the words lupus, rhuematoid arthritis, and fibromyalgia.  The tears constantly streaming down my face were not only from the pain, but rather from the uncertainty of the future.  With two children to raise, I had already missed two weeks of work over the monster who slammed into my life.  But little did I know I would have a third reason to cry by the time I left the E.R.