Crossroads

As we celebrate the 1 year anniversary of this here blog I am realizing a lot has changed. There are quite a few things that need to be addressed, and adjusted to fit this change. I started out as a novice writer and experienced Fibro patient that read my personal blog out loud to my husband. He told me it was good and I should publish it. Now my husband is a very proud man, and would not encourage me to fall flat on my face publicly, so I took his word for it and publish it I did. Folks liked it, and things kept rolling and going. And the state of affairs, the reality Fibromyalgia patients live in, smacked me around the boxing ring really hard. For I put names and faces and typed words to these patients who's heart and soul were pouring out in such despair, panic, defeat. And in sharing with them, meeting them,  getting to know them, I realized they were going through the exact same living hell I had been through! I was not the only one! It was a revelation. A horrible one, but a revelation none the less. And as we got bigger, and the days rolled on, blog on top of blog, more of my heart and soul poured out into my computer. And on the screen of this machine I found my purpose. My passion. My plight. 

See I consider myself to be fortunate. My husband did not leave me because I was sick, as oh so many do. And we had enough credit to our names I could seek some alternative treatments, for modern medicine is a mess when it comes to Fibromyalgia! After about four years of wanting to throw myself off an orange bridge we left cold wet San Francisco and moved to sunny hot Arizona. I started to feel a lot better, and have somehow, fighting with more blood, sweat and tears than I knew one woman could have, started living life again. There is no shame in being fortunate in life, I recently told my friend. The only shame lies in doing nothing with it. So that brings me to The Fibromyalgia Crusade. I started that campaign with a specific purpose, knowing I could not address all the ills Fibromyalgia inflicts on a person. My mission was to provide peer-patient support, knowledge, understanding, a little bit of validation and lots of information. And to empower each patient to take their power back, search for a doctor that will help them, avoid the mean naysayers in life and spread as much awareness as they possibly can. For with the masses, large numbers of people shouting about it, we could be heard and change could happen. 

So here I sit with a very successful first year under my belt. And about 400 published blogs where I have divulged more details about my life than I could imagine anyone would want to know. But we keep getting new people, and they are confused about me, because they weren't around in the beginning when I told all the nitt gritty details of how I fought the Fibro dragon and won. I can't imagine anyone would want to, or any Fibro patient is even capable of, sifting through and reading all those blogs, trying to figure out what in their life they can change to start to feel better, too. So once a week, starting with the beginning of the blog, I am going to take a good one, refine it, and re-publish it. I hope the new readers will find understanding, and my faithful friends from the beginning will be reminded of how far they have come. The Fibromyalgia Crusade is getting new products soon so we can sport our purple ribbon with pride, and take every precious opportunity we are given to talk about this illness called Fibromyalgia some have heard of but no one really understands. And I have started writing my book. Not another "this is how I got better and you can too" book. No, I am writing a book people that have never even heard of Fibromyalgia will want to read, but the impact of the understanding they walk away with will be astounding. So stay with us my friends, new, old and yet to come. We are changing as we grow. Refining, redefining. Getting stronger, bigger and better as we come through the struggle of our lives, together.

Thanks for joining,

Leah