Fibromyalgia & Chronic Pain LIFE Spring 2015, Issue 11 | Page 18

For a few hours I was NORMAL.
It felt fantastic! In staging
there are a few hours to ride
and visit with friends and take
pictures. The real joy begins on
the parade route. In formation
along the street I always take
notice of the smiles on the faces
of the children and the waves
and smiles of the elderly as we
parade by. One of my favorite
comments was about Filly from
a little girl who exclaimed:
“That’s Black Beauty, that horse
is famous!” She obviously has a
great love for the character and
horses, just as I did at her age.

by
Robynn
Dinse

Robynn and Filly at
Mustang Western Days Parade

Normal for a Day
Having fibromyalgia and other disabling conditions, I’ve found that my
idea of “normal” is not what it was
before my diagnosis. But thanks to
some wonderful friends and a horse
named Filly, every once in a while I
get to be normal for a day.
For those of us with fibromyalgia
and other chronic pain issues, we
have discovered that our “normal”
is no longer the everyday routine
we once knew and perhaps took
for granted. I think it’s safe to say
that we would all go back to the
time when we didn’t have to “think”
about getting up or how it would feel
once we were up. Would we still be
able to forge ahead? Would we need
a short rest? Or would that shower
be the last straw and put us down in
bed for the rest of the morning? It’s

18  Fibromyalgia & Chronic Pain

Life

a lot like gambling: you never know
until you roll that dice.
After my diagnosis of FM in 2004
at the age of 36, I realized that I
would never be the kind of “normal” that I had been as a working
mother of three. Burning the candle at both ends was no longer an
option. Every time I tried, it ended
up badly. I became more discouraged. At my husband’s encouragement I decided to look into a dream
I had always had … to own and ride
my own horse. We all need something to look forward to, a goal or
a passion that we enjoy so much
that we don’t care how much pain
we are in or how exhausted our
bodies might be. For me it was my
horse Filly and a wonderful team
of women known as the Canadian
Valley Rangerettes from Mustang,
Oklahoma.

Sp r i n g 2 0 1 5

Riding along the street I
thought back over the years to
the very first parade when I was
a terrified first-timer on a borrowed horse named Socks. The
heat was almost unbearable. I
was so light headed and nauseated I almost didn’t go through
with it. I always wanted to
have a horse of my own, dress
up in the beautiful outfits that
sparkled in the sun, and ride
in parades. When I was asked
to ride in that first parade
with the Rangerettes, I was SO
overjoyed! At the last minute I
made it past the nausea and dizziness and rode with the team.
I’m so glad I did. It changed
the course of my life! During
these pa &FW2