Sunday January 13, 2008
Living with Pain
After dealing with pain her entire life, Sharon Tarwater was finally diagnosed with fibromyalgia about six or seven years ago. She was also recently diagnosed with breast cancer. (Photo by Gail Crutchfield)
Moving, music helps Tarwater deal with fibromyalgia
By GAIL CRUTCHFIELD
Community News Editor
WEAR'S VALLEY - Sharon Tarwater said there hasn't been a day in her life without pain. The wife and mother of two suffers from fibromyalgia which, according to WebMD.com, is a nonlife-threatening, chronic disorder of the muscles and related soft tissue, including ligaments and tendons.
Tarwater describes it as arthritis of the muscles rather than arthritis of the joints, like the rheumatoid arthritis her father has.
For Sharon Tarwater, her husband Kevin and their two children, it means adjusting their lives to prevent undo strain or additional physical stress in hers. That means Kevin and the kids, when they're home from college, do the laundry and the cleaning. It's not that Sharon Tarwater can't do those things or doesn't want to, it's that by the next day, she's in so much pain she can't get out of bed.
Tarwater's fibromyalgia wasn't diagnosed until six or seven years ago, her husband said.
As a child, she said the pain wasn't that bad. There were some things she knew she couldn't do, like lay on the floor. The pain didn't really escalate until she had her first child. At that time, doctors thought she might have a tumor on her spine. She figured it was rheumatoid arthritis.
At one point on the road to the eventual diagnosis, Tarwater said she was told she had the HLAB27 gene - the rheumatoid gene.
"I told them it needed a name," she said of her doctors. Whatever it was called, Tarwater said she eventually could tell the physicians what she needed.
At one point, her shoulders locked up after she worked on a loom to make crafts. Calling her doctor's office, she told the nurse she would need a cortisone shot and was told her she could make the appointment, but might not get the shot. She got the shot, which is painful in itself since it's put directly into the bone.
After the diagnosis, Tarwater learned the disease often lies dormant until triggered. She believes a car accident shortly before her first child was born triggered the disease. As it progressed, Tarwater said her rheumatoid doctor could no longer relieve the pain, and transferred her case to a pain center in Knoxville. Now the center provides her the pain medication she needs.
Still, there are other steps she sometimes needs to take, including the use of the tens unit, a cell-phoned size device that provides electrical shocks to her muscles.
"I'm still in pain, but my mind doesn't know it," Tarwater said of the results of the device.
Exercise also helps. The WebMD Web site indicates most fibromyalgia patients are in more pain when they are at rest than when active. That makes it difficult to sleep.
She usually goes to bed around 11 p.m. or midnight, but by 2 a.m. she's up. That's when she gets on the treadmill for about an hour and a half, walking about three miles until her pain meds kick in and she's able to go back to sleep.
The next morning she'll go to work as a teacher's assistant at Pigeon Forge Primary School. Every 30 minutes, she switches classrooms. In almost every classroom, she uses a desk chair bought at yard sales and flea markets. She said she's always on the lookout for comfortable chairs and furniture.
When she returns home from school each day, Tarwater usually takes a nap. If she doesn't she can expect to feel some pain the next day.
One thing that helps keep her mind off the pain is singing. She's been singing since age 5, but didn't start singing professionally until 2004.
The fibromyalgia also affects her memory. She must re-memorize song lyrics all the time, she said, because she simply can't remember them, especially if it's been a while since she's sung them. She has an easier time remembering songs that have a story to them.
In March, Tarwater will help open the Smoke On the Mountain shows at Showplace Theater - but first she has another hurdle to clear.
Shortly before Christmas, Tarwater was diagnosed with breast cancer. Having lost an aunt and a grandmother to the disease, she's decided to have a double mastectomy. She said her doctors are hopeful that will be the extent of her treatment. They've also agreed to allow her pain treatment specialists to monitor and treat her pain, given her special circumstances.
"This will be hard," she said. But if she deals with this as well as she's dealt with her fibromyalgia, she should come through with flying colors.
n gcrutchfield@themountainpress.com
