Information Overload: Where Do I Begin?

All of us who have been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia have felt like a dummy at one point or another, in my case I still do; sometimes more than others but there is always a place to start. My story begins with a horrible car accident back in 2004 that has clearly become the bookmark to my path down Fibro lane. Up until this point in my life I was a happy mother of two young girls, working full time in a career I loved and had always been physically active - in fact I was a firefighter for the USFS all through college.

Then BAM! My world was turned upside down and inside out with a treasure trove of  unexplained illness and pain. I religiously met with my physician to discuss why I felt so tired, sick and just plain bad all the time. His response, "You are just recovering form the accident, this too shall pass". Well, a year later, countless Dr. visits and an undisclosed amount of increased pain medication I was still no better then when I was hit by that truck a year earlier. There was one thing the Dr. was right about, when he said, 'this too shall pass' I don't think either one of us assumed it would be massive blood clots or Deep Vein Thrombosis that had been building up in my legs that had then moved onward and upward causing a massive pulmonary embolism. I was diagnosed by sheer necessity, after driving down the highway with my children in the backseat of my car when I just stopped breathing. My lungs had become so consumed with clots that I had lost a large amount of lung function, leaving nothing but literally the oxygen from the blood in my lungs to keep me going long enough to get to the hospital.

Well, isn't that just dandy right? This was the beginning of the end of my old life. I will leave the rest of my personal health discoveries for another time, but my point, is that we all have a bookmark. I had started a daily journal just after my accident about the way I felt each day and noted if something unusual popped up, possibly from a food I ate or an activity I had done. It all sounds mundane I will admit, but I still keep this journal even after all these years so I can keep track of not only my progress but so I can be aware of any changes I may feel the need to discuss at my next Dr.'s visit.

Everyones experience and "bookmark" will be different, this just happens to be mine. I think it is important for each of us to know when and how this disease decided to trigger in our lives in order for us to come to some sort of understanding. Undoubtedly you will go through a sort of grieving process, I sure did. Sadness, Anger, Fear, S%^*! (I had more than one of those), until we get to understanding. Not closure, but understanding. This is where we can start to make the right decisions about our bodies, the disease we have and how best to manage it.

We can talk ourselves into anything and with the countless information out there you could talk yourself crazy! So don't, start with the things you do know - yourself! Write it down, make notes of questions to ask your Dr. and remember, "This too shall pass", from one Fibro fighter to another and then another.

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