Finding My Strengths

FMS no longer has to stand for Fibromyalgia Syndrome, instead it will mean Finding My Strengths. I am not a medical expert, but a personal expert, living with Fibromyalgia for the past eleven and a half years, (that’s almost half my life!).

I want to write, not to share my day-to-day pain, but to offer some insights and encouragement that living with Fibro is not always easy, but doable, and enjoyable.

I am a few months shy of my twenty-fifth birthday, and I can honestly say that each day I become more and more happy. Living with Fibromyalgia has made me a strong person and I know I can do anything I set heart and mind to. I have no idea how I developed Fibro, and at age thirteen I don’t think any teenager (or anyone, for that matter) should have to experience the intensity of pain and a sudden life change I was thrown in to.

Here is some background on when my new life journey began: I was in seventh grade and it was back-to-school night. My Pops and I were walking class to class and I told each teacher that I would not be going to school tomorrow (Friday) because I had an ear infection and I would be going to the doctors. The next morning my mom and I went to the doctors and expressed concern that this ear infection was not like most. I was given antibiotics and left. That afternoon, my right eye began to twitch and that's when my life changed. My mom and I returned to the doctor's office on Monday to find out that the right side of my face went paralyzed and I was rushed to the hospital for an MRI. I was diagnosed with Bell's Palsy and thankfully it only lasted a week and a half. Long story short, tons of pain had emerged (and I can remember having intense headaches since the fourth grade) but the pain went widespread to my whole body. I was pulled from school, put on twenty-three pills a day, and couldn't walk straight or tell you my name if my life depended on it.

Three months went by, two MRI's (I had to do another because I had braces and the first one didn't work because of the metal in my mouth, so I had to get my braces off, get another MRI and had my braces put back on), a nerve block surgery (I woke up during the procedure and experienced the worst pain of my life, and gained chest pain), getting blood tests every other day and I was finally diagnosed with Fibro after many doctors telling me the pain was in my head and making up pain for "attention", or possibly having Lupus.

As a child, (but I matured quickly after the diagnoses), I was always the center of attention. I loved making people laugh and would do anything goofy to do so. When I was placed on the medications, I became a zombie and did not like the person I had become. Without telling anyone, I chose to stop taking medication, and my fun-loving personality came back. My mom became suspicious, and on our way into a doctor's office, she said, "I need to know the truth. Are you taking your medicine?" "No," I answered.

I was Finding My Strengths. Even at a young age, I realized that this was not the life I wanted to live. To this day, I do not take medicine and for the lack of a better phrase, I embrace the pain. I would rather (learn to) control my pain than having the pain and medications control me.

Each day, week, month, year, I experience different amounts of pain and I welcome the challenge. If I let the pain get the best of me, I would not have just participated and finished my first 5k. 2009 started out and continues to be one of the best years of my life. It's only been eleven and a half years, and I have a lot more years yet to come as I continue Finding My Strengths (FMS).