FIBROMYALGIA

“How the Journey Began”

I would like to start this story by letting you know there is always a story behind the story.  Therefore, giving some background on me and letting you get to know who I am and what I believe would be very appropriate.  I was raised to believe that you never give up on yourself or succumb to what life is dishing out, no matter what the cost.  I was raised never to quit, no matter what the situation was or what it was about.  At times this seemed to be a stumbling block that always hindered me; however, I found when my crisis came this became a virtue.  You see I discovered that is what life is all about -- never quitting or giving up.  I thank my father for that virtue.  I watched a man who had to quit school at the age of 14 to raise a family and go through his life not quitting on himself or life.  He has worked hard all of his life to provide for his family, and even when life slapped him around, he always rose out of the situation and defeated the odds.  As the story continues, you will see how this character trait played a large part in recovering from my crisis.

            I have always been the nurturing type of person that always brought home all of the stray animals in the neighborhood and took care of them.  So I guess taking care of things has always been within me.  Little did I know that when I brought home that puppy to take care of, I was preparing for a larger task down the road.  In high school, I became a candy striper, which is a volunteer job at a hospital helping patients with their meals and odd jobs for the nurses.  I loved that job even though I did not get paid.  Years later I became a nurses’ aid in an OB delivery unit at a hospital, and I got the chance to watch life come into the world night after night.  It was the most wonderful experience of my life at that time.  Being a part of the beginning of life had an impact on me that will stay with me forever.  It was at that time I was offered the opportunity to go to college and earn my LPN license, and the hospital would pay for it with a commitment to them.  I did not take that opportunity at that time, and I have always regretted that decision.  It was not until many years later when my family and I had moved to Florida that I took that opportunity through the encouragement of my wonderful husband.  It was from this time forward that I feel God was preparing me for a bigger job than I could ever imagine.  It was several years later after we had moved back to Indiana that I returned to college and received by RN degree preparing myself for the next step in the job that awaited me.  My first job was working in a cardiac unit at a hospital.  This reminded me of the experience of seeing new life come into the world, except now I was watching new life being given through heart transplants and open heart surgeries that were remarkable.  I saw life being given back when I felt their lives were gone.  The medical field has been a remarkable experience for me. 

            As a nurse, the training and education you give each patient is like teaching a child.  You teach them right from wrong, and you teach them there are ways you think and ways you do not think.  In essence, you mold that child to become a certain way based on what you were taught to believe.  The basis behind good nursing is to treat a patient as if that patient were you, and believe me, at times that was very hard to do.  I was also taught that I was the patient advocate, and I was the only thing standing between the patient and the doctor.  Most of the time, I knew the patient better than the doctor did.  I was also taught to go to bat for the patient when I felt the treatment or care plan given was not the correct path to take.  Meeting the needs of each patient was vital to their recovery process, and I took that very serious.  As a nurse, I was also taught how to give medications, along with being trained to identify side effects of drugs and how to treat them.  Through all of the book knowledge I received, this knowledge became the only way to think in matters of good healthcare.  I guess what I am trying to say is that my eyes had not been opened yet as to how God intended our bodies to be treated in the big picture.  It is from here that my real journey began and the path God had laid out for me was about to take form.