On Fibromylagia Awareness Day I wanted to do something special at the college I attended, but I didn't have the energy. This quarter I have 2 online classes, I don't think the extra energy to attend the classroom is in me right now.

I called the local newspaper on Friday May 9th, The Post Bulletin, and asked if they were publishing anything for Fibromylagia AwarenessDay and the Gentlemen that answered said "yes he thought Jeff from the health dept was running something." I said thank you and hung up. I thought about this a bit more and decided it was a bit more personable to me and I wanted to say more.

I called back to the editorial dept. and started rambling on (like I have been known to do to who ever answer the phone-like they know who I am-), and this new gentlemen expalined to me he wasn't the first person.I felt so silly like always.

This second person ended up being Jeff from the health dept. There was going to be a small add in the paper on Fibromylagia and there was going to be speakers up at the Capital. However, he was going to interview a family that he was going to run an article on at a later date and asked me if I wanted to be interviewed as well, I accepted. Well we ended up talking the phone for over an hour.

Jeff asked some basic questions such as when you say you hurt all over, what do you mean? or Do you think some doctors don't believe that fibro even exist ?  I spoke of the emotional part of fibro with him, feeling alone and isolated most of the time. I declined the family photo unlike the other "family" he will be interviewing. I am alone in my struggle with no support and this is why I declined the family photo. My son reminded me not to long ago that it has been quite a few years now that I haven't felt good. He didn't remember when I last felt good. I about started to cry because he was half saying it as a smartass and half as concern so both ways I wanted to cry.

I got into more depth with this reporter and explained to him how chronic fatigue and fibro were connected to each other and he had to refrase me. "So you think Chrinic Fatigue and Fibromylagia are related", I said "very much so if not one in the same". I got into detail about how the medical community needs to recognize CFS just as much as fibro and if you go to the Center for Disease Control they actually launched a national campaign in 2006 for doctors to start recognizeing CFS and on their web site doctors can continue their education and receive college credits 

http://www.cdc.gov/cfs/

another site that is a basic site to explain your immune system is

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761575681/Immune_System.html

I think if my immune system would have been better perpared and not so run down, I wouldn't be in the shape that I am in right now. I do want to thank God for the opportunity to try and understand my situation and ask him for his guidence because I use to, and still do, want the answers yesterday to what am I suspose to do. One day at a time is hard.

 Anyways I did my share of awareness and I have a feeling it isn't going to stop here for this town that I live in, at least not for me. Maybe it won't be an everyday thing, but before Jeff at the Post Bulletin, I was creating waves around this town with this clinic that so many look up to, and we should for many things. My mother had a massive stroke with her whole left side down. Now less than 1 year later she is back at home and is driving-how awsome is that! However, research money is not being spent in all the right directions.

I fly to Seattle to the www.fibroandfatigue.com  now with great hopes. My primary care is aware of this and is ok with this as well. The problem is I need to get organized as a person to get my supplements and other things together. Right now I can hardly organize myself with daily living let alone anything else. I just cannot understand what happened to me almost overnight....I was slipping for quite a while though but almost overnight I became so inmobile and out of sorts.

I am sick and it pisses me off. I don't have to be sick. I am certainly paying enough doctors enough money not to be sick. I have bipolar II disorder and now I have hyperthyroidism and the symptoms are basically, with some exceptions, the same. I have been researching thyroid disease since 2000 when I developed an enlarged thyroid, I mean huge, while taking lithium for BPII. Even after the Dx on lithium my thyroid never returned to a normal size. I have been scanned with radioiodine four times, had three ultrasounds but no one could find a test that came out any thing but normal. So I have walked around for eight years with the neck of a line backer until my blood tests finally showed something abnormal.

I had a hyper active thyroid so toxic the whole radiology department came to see me. They gave me I 131 radioiodine to kill the active thyroid tissue. The largest dose they've ever given to anyone! The thing is everyone expected me to be really really sick, and I wasn't. I told all my doctors, when asked, that I felt great. Not ok, not fine but GREAT. My only symptoms were intolerance to heat and a rapid heart rate. Beta blockers controlled the later and the sweat is still pouring off my head.

When I was initially diagnosed by my family doctor she referred me to my endocrinologist and he couldn't see me for three months. I admitted myself to a psych hospital so my pdoc could treat and monitor me because I couldn't wait three months.

That was last July and I am still waiting for a viable treatment. Last month my endo doc said I was hypothyroid. This month he said "it looks as if your are hyperthyroid", and made an appt to see me in three months and prescribed no meds.

Good doctors are so hard to find. I am stuck with the only endo doc that takes my insurance and I live in a major city. I went through this with my psych docs and I just feel like here we go again. I think the American health care system the AMA and med schools suck at what they do. Family doctors dabble in psych, endo, ob gyn, oncology, etc. and they basically have little to no training in these areas. You go to a specialist and they play the drug of the month club or the "this has worked for forty years" deal. Most people trust their family doc for comprehensive care and don't realize what a risk they could be taking. I know I did it. I didn't know any better. But learning these lessons the hard way is too much for me.

I am tired of fighting for every little advance in my treatment. I want real answers and viable treatment and I don't want to wait anymore!!!