How Do You Handle a New Diagnosis?

It has been such a long time since I have written a new post.  The past two months haven't been so good.  I have had a change in migraine pattern.  The slick fox that is migraine disease migrated to new areas previously unaffected.  I am now having night migraines.  Sleep is impossible because the pain keeps waking me up.  By the time morning rolls around my head feels like a ton of bricks has been dropped on it.  I now feel the pain up to the top of my head and the occipital nerves are tender to the touch.  When I put pressure on them the pain in the front increases.  The migraines began to breakthrough the neurostimulator as if they are trying to overpower the electrical pulses.  Some attacks are worsened when it's turned on so I suffer through them with ineffective pain medications that barely touch the pain and lots of ice packs.

That is only the beginning.  The frequency in which I would have fibromyalgia flareups has increased exponentially.  The pain is unbearable.  Most times my legs feel like punching
bags because the pain is pounding up and down both legs, sometimes for an hour straight. My joints hurt 24/7 and I started having jaw pain which makes my teeth hurt so bad that I can brush my teeth or chew.  I now get fevers 4-6 days a week around early evening to late night.  They range from 99.3 to 99.9.  I am also severely fatigued and endure sharp chest pains when I breathe (it's hurting right now as I'm typing this; as well as my right ankle).  I occasionally get edema of the legs, ankles and feet and my hands swell up from time to time.  I am shedding a lot of hair.  After brushing my hair I can pull out a handful of it from the brush.

The worst part is the constant pain, burning and stiffness in my wrists, hands and fingers.  I just found out the other day that I have carpal tunnel syndrome and need to wear braces on my hands at night while I sleep to keep them straight.  I also get numbness in my fingers and my feet, especially when sitting or sleeping.  I now get very dry eyes and burning.  This happens mostly during the day, however, when I lay down to go to sleep my eyes tear up so much I look like I'm crying.  The insomnia is driving me insane.  Between the migraines and body pain I can never get a full night's sleep.  Lack of sleep is intensifying the fibro fog and migraine brain; unable to concentrate or remember things.  It all feels like too much; too many things going on at once.

Tuesday I had an appointment with my rheumatologist about everything that has been going on for the past two to three weeks.  She said that there could be a variety of reasons to why I'm having these symptoms.  So she had me get chest X-rays, blood drawn and do a urinalysis.  My fear is that it's lupus.  A few members of my family had lupus so my first reaction was "It must be lupus".  It could very well not be the case and be nothing at all and just an extremely severe flare up or it could be something completely different.  It's going to take three days before I find out what's going on.  Today is day two and the suspense is killing me.  It's all that I think about.  I'm praying for some good news because I really won't be able to handle getting diagnosed with something else.  I already have too many as it is.