"MEET YOUR PAGE OWNER" - "Beth"
Hello, my dear fibro family!! After a 4-year absence, life has finally settled down a bit, and I'm able to refocus my energy to this project again. It's so wonderful to be back and see some old friends and many new friends who probably don't know me. Here's my Bio in case you're curious; a little lengthy, but I'm old!! lol
I'm 60 years old, disabled, and living in beautiful Saint Augustine, Florida. I moved here October of 2013 after losing my home due to this illness and not being able to work since 2011. I grew up in NYC, moved to Colorado at 17, then off to southern California when I was 22, then back to NY when I was 39, and finally headed south to Florida when I was 44. I've been a single mom for over 30 years. My beautiful daughter is 33 and my handsome son is 31. They’re are the loves of my life and the reason I am still here today. I love living close to the ocean which is my sanctuary, and have noticed an improvement in my overall sense of well being since living here. Like most of you, the road to a diagnosis was long and frustrating. I first became very ill in 2011, although looking back I believe I've had this "thing" inside me for many, many years. After being hospitalized for 5 days in April of 2011, and undergoing a lengthy battery of tests, my then GP told me they could find nothing wrong with me. I woke up one morning feeling like I had the flu, and within a week I'd lost partial muscle function on the left side of my body. After being bedridden for a month, the flu eventually disappeared, muscle function returned, and I was back to work. There were many days, however, that I felt like I had the flu, my body ached, and my anxiety was through the roof. Exactly one year later, the symptoms all returned with a major vengeance, and my new GP suspected MS. After 4 more hospital stays, several ER trips, and more tests, I was told my condition was "functional", and the attending physician called in a psychiatrist and psychologist to evaluate me. Now I was labeled as depressed - the semi-paralysis in my legs and all other symptoms were "all in my head." Several members of my family and some of my friends were beginning to think I was losing it. My brother and his wife were convinced I was a "drug seeker" and attempted to convince my family members of such. Only my son, daughter, and mother knew there was something very wrong since they saw me on a daily basis. I went from running my own business while attending college full-time to be an RN, maintaining a 3.9 GPA, volunteering at my kid's high school as Booster Club President, operating the concession stands at home football and baseball games, planning fundraising events, travelling, being an avid gardener, maintaining a 4-bedroom home, and the million other activities I loved to juggle, to being bedridden, frustrated, in tears most days, and extremely depressed. It wasn't until I found a new GP who thought "outside of the box" and promised me he'd figure out what was wrong with me...and he did. What was once "all in my head" turned out to be Fibromyalgia, CFS, Sjogren's Syndrome, Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, severe multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome, Interstitial Cystitis, arthritis, DDD, bulging lumbar discs, Levator Ani syndrome, bone spurs, osteopenia, an anxiety disorder, depression, and severe allodynia and parasthesias from the Fibro. My hopes of finishing my RN degree were down the toilet. I felt like I had no purpose in life, but continued to take online medical-related courses (battling the fibro fog) and research everything I could find out about all of my illnesses. A week before my SS disability hearing in May of 2013, I decided that the only way I was going to be able to help people and regain a purpose in life was to start an online support group. I knew there had to be millions of people out there who probably fought the same battle I did, were considering suicide, and whose lives were turned upside down, too. Helping all of you has also helped me. I became completely immersed in Dear Fibromyalgia, working on my laptop from bed from the moment I woke up until the wee hours of the morning for 4 years. I'm slowly getting back into the groove, doing this alone, and hope to open up the page to receiving messages soon. So, that's my story in a nutshell. I hope I'm able to continue to run Dear Fibromyalgia until the day I can finally post that a cure's been discovered, and we can all go back to living our old lives...and spending much less time on Facebook. Wishing you all peace, love, healing light, courage, strength, and hope. Namaste ~ Beth
The information in this website is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Please always consult with your physician on matters concerning your medical care and treatment. PLEASE BE AWARE THAT ALL GRAPHICS CREATED BY DEAR FIBROMYALGIA REQUIRE PRIOR WRITTEN AUTHORIZATION FOR USE ON ANY PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS, VIDEOS, ETC.. ALTERING OUR GRAPHICS IN ANY WAY IS CONSIDERED A COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT AND WILL BE REPORTED TO FACEBOOK. THANK YOU. PAGE POSTING RULES:
1. NO SELLING. Please don't post comments with regards to any product that either you're selling or a friend is selling. Your post will be deleted and you will be banned from commenting on our page.
2, FUNDRAISING. The only fundraising posts allowed are for products sold specifically to raise money for a Fibromyalgia 501c3 charitable organization. We will not post any GoFundMe fundraisers.
3. PAGE SHARING. If you are a page owner/administrator or a Blogger, it's FB etiquette to privately message a page owner requesting to share your page or blog post on their page. It's impolite to post a comment under a post inviting people to join your group. We will gladly share your page or blog with our group if we find it relevant or helpful to our followers.
4. RUDENESS. Not tolerated. Period. If you don't have something positive, supportive or helpful to post, then don't. This goes for responses to our group's questions or posts made by Dear Fibromyalgia.
5. PRODUCT RECOMMENDATIONS. You can post a recommendation for a product or supplement ONLY if it is available through a major retailer, Amazon.com, etc. If it's a product sold through a multi-level-marketing company, your post will be deleted and you risk being banned from the page. For instance, if you post "My friend sells Plexus and it's made me feel great! Feel free to message me for information" - your comment will be deleted and you may be blocked from commenting on our page. If you find that you can no longer post comments, that's because you've been blocked, and you can write to me if you'd like us to consider an appeal.
6. QUESTIONS. If you post a question for our group directly to our page, we will re-post your question onto our page wall as soon as we have a time slot open. The post subject will include your first name only. This is a public page, so we don't include your full names for privacy purposes.
7. GENERAL COMMENTS. If you post a general comment, a 'vent', or advice directly to our page, we may or may not re-post it onto our page wall. All posts are re-posted at our discretion. There are only so many open time slots during the day as we don't want to flood your FB newsfeeds.
8. PROFANITIES. We've got our page's profanity filter set to 'high', so if you type a profanity, your comment will be automatically hidden and we have to manually 'unhide' it. So, for instance, if you want to use the "F" word, type it like "F**k' or something like that. ;)
Those are some of the more important page posting rules. Thanks so much for your understanding and adherence to these rules. We continue to strive to make Dear Fibromyalgia a safe and pleasant community for everyone!
