Introductions - Jessica, fmslife

Hello, everyone! My name is Jessica, but some of my friends call me JessiBee and I'm also known as fmslife on Twitter.

I'm 39 years old and live with my 21-year old son, Christopher, and our 5 cats. I couldn't have any more children after Chris, so I decided to be a mother to rescued kitties instead. It looks like we're getting another kitten this evening. My BFF, Mitzi, calls me the crazy cat lady. She's probably right!

I started having severe migraines when I was 16. I remember having to stay home from school for three months because of one that was so severe, so debilitating, that I had to black out my bedroom windows and stay locked up for the duration. Shortly before that, I started exhibiting symptoms of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I had a lot of body pains, but it was chalked up to "growing pains" at the time.

When I was pregnant with Christopher, all I could do was sleep. My back and body hurt so much so I would pack pillows around me - at my back, between my legs, behind my legs, etc - just to find some comfort.

When Christopher was a year old, we moved out to Virginia with his father, my then-husband. We were far away from my family and I had no friends, thus nobody to turn to when he started abusing us. I won't go into that much on here.

One morning, at the age of 23, I was up and getting ready for work when, all of a sudden, I couldn't walk anymore. The pain I felt when I tried to move my legs was so intense that it is now what I use as an example of a 10 on the 10 scale when trying to gauge my pain level. I had never felt anything worse, though I have felt it a few to many times since.

My husband rushed me to the Naval Clinic (he was in the Navy), where I was x-rayed and diagnosed with Spondylolisthesis. Then I was given some motrin and told to go home and lay down. That is all.

After leaving my husband and Virginia behind in 1995, I came home and tried to find a civilian doctor who would help me with my back pain. I wen through many who many who accused me of malingering and one who even told me, "Everybody's back hurts!" I found the doctor I have now in 1997. When I told him my diagnosis, he told me his father has the same thing. I cried. Finally, someone understood! He helped me so much and sent me to an orthopedic surgeon who also took care of me. By 2003, I had reached my breaking point with the pain and opted for surgery to repair my spine. It was the best decision I had ever made (besides leaving my husband).

Between 2003 and 2007, I still had pains but the intensity had reduced from a 10 to a 3-5. I was going to the gym every weekday, had an active social life, finished my Bachelor's degree, and started on a Master of Arts in Education. Then, in 2007, I was rear-ended in a car accident and my life changed drastically.

The accident didn't dislodge any of the titanium holding my spine together (thankfully), but it did re-aggravate the area, cause scoliosis in my neck, and gave me a hematoma inside my T2 vertebrae.

Five months after the accident, and completely unrelated to it, my father died and I had a complete and total mental and emotional breakdown.

Since the accident and my father's death, there hasn't been a day that I haven't been in pain. In December 2007, I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia.

Though I could barely move and sitting up was excruciating for me, I tried to work through it. I worked 10 hour days, continued to work on my Master's degree, and came home every night bawling from the pain. The people at work "tried" to understand, but then they just started avoiding me. Like whatever I was going through was supposed to be temporary and I should have "snapped out of it by now." I was in intense physical, emotional, and psychological pain and they were all abandoning me because they wouldn't understand.

So, in February 2009, I stopped going. My doctor filled out my FMLA paperwork, I filed for Social Security, and I just never went back. How could I? They made me feel guilty about being sick and that just made my symptoms worse.

My SSDI was approved in July and I started receiving my benefits in September. Unfortunately, the benefits do not include Medicare. I am currently uninsured because the COBRA payments were too much each month.

So, that is my super-long story in a nutshell - a really big nutshell. This was too long to post as a comment, so I had to post it as a new entry.

I can't wait to get to know everybody better! You ladies have been my saving grace and I will always be thankful to have met all of you.

Love and hugs,

Jessica/JessiBee/fmslife