Acceptance has begun.

You may know me from growing up together. Or maybe you know me from more recent times. Perhaps you don't know me at all and have just stumbled on my blog by chance, maybe by the fact that we have something in common. Either way, there may be things you don't know about me, because I am still trying to figure it out myself. Each day that I wake up, starts off with a big question mark running through my mind. What is it going to be like today? Will I feel my age for once? Or will I continue down the painful path of feeling 70 before I'm even 30? Before I even make my first move in the morning,I start to dread what will become of it. Will I hurt today? Some days I fumble out of bed, find my way downstairs to my first cup of coffee, and the day begins without a hitch. And then some days, I practically fall back asleep while drinking my second cup of coffee, struggle to simply make it through an average day, only to collapse into my bed again.

A few years ago one of my doctors said to me, "I don't want to say you have fibromyalgia before I know you really do, because so many people shape their lives around having it." I appreciated that comment at the time..... There was no way I was going to become one of those people. I just wanted answers. If fibromyalgia was what I had, I would be happy with the diagnoses and able to move on with life. --- or would I? Well, 5 years later after many, many doctors and second opinions, they all agree that for now, I have fibromyalgia.

I was a brand new mom, my baby girl was only 7 months old. I had my issues, but things that were passing. I had surgery two months before for a large ovarian cyst that had twisted my fallopian tubes. Right before my surgery, we bought and moved into our first home. One month after my surgery, my husband was diagnosed with a brain cyst after a scary visit to the ER. So I suppose one could say, I experienced some of life's most stressful events, all within a few short months.I have tried to re-live those few months over and over again in my head, questioning what exactly put my body over the edge. Was it the surgery or the medications used? Was it the fact that I recently had a baby and was dealing with obviously messed up hormones? Was it the extreme stress I felt when I wasn't sure of my husbands future? But even after all those questions are asked, there is nothing I could do to change the past. If I could go back in time, I couldn't avoid the surgery that I desperately needed, I couldn't change the fact that my husband had an unknown arachnoid brain cyst likely from childhood, and I definitely would never change having our first child, or buying our simple little home where we still raising our little girls.
So clearly stuck in the past, I needed to move forward. But moving forward, meant accepting what they say I have, and figuring out how to live with it. With that being said, acceptance has been a difficult journey for me........but figuring out how to live a normal life is a ongoing process.

Now a mom of two and still under 30, on my difficult days happiness comes slowly. Bitter at times, looking behind at who I use to be, leaves me weak when looking forward. And that is what I struggle with on a day to day basis. Just trying to be normal. Just trying to feel good. Trying to stay positive. Pretending to feel good for my family, for my husband who worries, and for my girls who should have a normal 29 year old mother.

This is the attempt to not let fibromyalgia define who I am as a person.
I am not the disease, I am so much more than that. I can do this.