At 17, I had my first Fibromyalgia flare. I missed about the last 6 weeks of my junior year of high school. It was awful. Then the pain just went away. After I graduated University, that was when the Fibro really started and never went away. Like so many of us, no one knew what was wrong with me. My mother took me to so many doctors. The last one we went to told my mom that I was emotionally disturbed. She was furious, so furious that she wrote a letter to the AMA.
After the disastrous last doctor appointment, my mom sat me down to have a chat as she calls it. She said we were on our own. Mom promised me that she would be with me all through it. She never broke that promise.
In March 2003, I got Vasculitis. It is actually because I got Vasculitis that I got diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. Most people who get Vasculitis, it is chronic and it doesn't go away. Me? I got lucky. With the exception of the daily headache, everything went away. This is what started the never-ending daily headache. I was having a few issues in December 2003, I didn't think it was vaculitis, but I wasn't sure so I made an appointment with a doctor at the Cleveland Clinic. Mom and I went down there the night before and stayed at one of the hotels on the Clinics Campus.
The next morning we went to the appointment at one of the hospitals, there are several. Unlike most doctor appointments, the doctors at the Cleveland Clinic encourages family members to go with the patient in the appointment. There is where I was officially was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. I cried. It had a name. I looked over to my mom and she was crying too. She said the same thing. It has name. On the way home mom again promised we would get through this together.
Because of the support she gave me, when the Alzheimer's began to get into the end stages, I was able to to keep her home with me until she passed away.
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