HOME |
|
Garden
Tour |
|
Totems |
|
Fairy
Garden |
|
Archways |
|
Birds |
|
Bird
Stations |
|
Backyard
Bird List |
|
Flowers |
|
Main Pond |
|
Corner
Pond |
|
Waterfall |
|
Bathtub
Pond |
|
Angel
Statues |
|
St. Francis |
|
Variety of Statues |
|
Odds &
Ends |
|
Wildlife |
|
Words
of
Wisdom |
|
Jokes....
Some Contain Mature Content!! |
|
New York
City Trip |
|
| |
FM
Articles & Letters...... |
|
|
I wrote this to Washington today for the Arthritis Act. I
hope you will join me too in writing what Washington needs to
hear!
I have
Fibromyalgia Syndrome, which falls under the Arthritis
Foundation. Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS) is a common
condition affecting at least 3.7 million Americans, if not more.
FMS causes scattered pain, lack of energy, poor sleep and myriad
of other signs and symptoms. Because symptoms of many
diseases cause similar complaints, diagnosis is difficult.
Often many weeks, months or years will go by before the person
with FMS or the doctor recognizes what is wrong. During
this time the results of an examination by the doctor are
normal, as are routine studies like blood tests, urinalysis and
X-rays. But reassurances that nothing is wrong provide
little relief from pain, and the patient and doctor become
equally frustrated that the symptoms refuse to go away. A
patient worries that a serious illness remains unrevealed,
adding to the patient's anxiety. The key so far has been
the active participation and take charge attitude by the person
with FMS. There is a real need for more awareness among
our health care professionals about FMS.
I have
aching, burning, shooting pain from my muscles, fatigue and
disturbed sleep. My neck hurts, my shoulders, my arms down into
my hands and so does my lower back, hips, knees and feet from
pain due to FMS. I can't remember the last time I have
woke up refreshed from sleep. I have terrible headaches,
irritable bowel syndrome, irritable bladder, morning stiffness,
and memory problems. I now have numbness from the elbows
down into my hands most nights. I have sensory loss, and
now ocular impairment. I have been treated in the past for
non-cardiac chest pain which simulate cardiac disorder and often
have abnormal smooth muscle tone in muscles surrounding the
bronchi of the lungs which caused severe life threatening
pneumonia on three occasions. The list could go on, but
the bottom line, I can't work, I can't hold a job.
It
takes two incomes in the Bush Administration to raise two child
in today's economy and actually have food on the table. I
can't do that any more, all the burden goes to my 56 year old
husband who has lost so many jobs due to down sizing, companies
going under, including Enron, and lay offs, plus age
discrimination, that can't be proven in this country's courts,
due to the current laws and enforcement. Mr. Bush wants to
raise Social Security Retirement age higher and higher, yet
employers want to lay off workers by the time they hit their
50th birthdays. They don't want them or their families
causing their insurance rates to rise due to illness brought on
by age. They want to hire young people, for less pay, who
are willing to work 80 hour work weeks to keep their jobs and
let their children raise themselves, of course, unless you are
rich like movie stars and President Bush and have lost sight
what it is really like to be a real normal person living the
every day life in this country.
FMS
hits all ages, women and men. My daughter who is 16 years
old has now been diagnosed with FMS. It's a death sentence
of pain and illness for the rest of her life unless something is
done. She lives with that fear on a day to day basis
watching me suffer and feeling her own aches and pains.
You think I am kidding, you think I am blowing things out of
proportion, I am making a mound out of a mole hill. I am
NOT! FMS is a serious illness, so serious in fact that
with more and more health care professionals learning to
diagnosing this illness, you, are someone in your family will
have this or have had this and has never really been
explained.
There
are no real treatment protocols for FMS and most FMS suffers can
NOT manage their pain with Advil, Alveve, or Tylenol as the
Arthritis Foundation suggest. Nor by just taking
antidepressants. They suggest exercise, but most FMS
patient are in such great pain and without funds and the lack of
places with 92 degree pools to exercise in that most give up.
I know, I have been on several support groups for years
listening to people talk of this very issue and many more.
We can do gentle stretching of muscles all day and every day,
but I can tell you, I will be in pain while stretching, after
stretching and the next hour and the next day, week, and year.
This is a year in and year out illness with no hope of escape.
You can rest and relax all day, all week and all year, but the
pain does not go away nor the need for you to function and work
to suppose your family.
I
have attended education classes on this illness and have done
extensive research and so far have found very little help in
actually making headway into this illness. You can have
all the healthy habits in this world and this illness will not
go away. I have been there and tried that, I have taken
just about every supplement known to man and just about every
medication the doctors can dish out and still I suffer, and my
daughter suffers. Just going to high school and sitting
through classes is very hard, missing school days due to pain
and headaches is hard to keep her grades strong for a strong
future and the ability to enter college or later the work force.
I wonder if she has a future. She is 16 and takes Tramadol,
hydrocodone for break through pain, she is on antidepressant,
muscle relaxants, sleep medication and going to physical therapy
twice a week, as long as I can pay for it and the insurance
company does not say enough!
I have
tried acupuncture and acupressure, massage, biofeedback at
Baylor Hospital, meditation and guided imagery. And, I can
tell you for a fact that when I have a major flare of this
illness nothing works other than going to bed with 325 mg of
Percocet as many as four times a day. I can be in bed for
days, weeks and even months. The longest flare was for 6
months.
I have
seen many doctors from rheumatologist, general practitioners,
psychiatrists, chiropractors, nurse practitioners, occupational
therapists, and physical therapists and more to no real avail!
I have
use my humor, sense of purpose, sense of control, social
support, and positive self-image only to have this FMS still cut
me down. FMS has effected my sex life, my marriage, and my
life to the point of no return. I don't want this for my
daughter, my child, my future hope in tomorrow wasted away due
to FMS. I don't want the cycle of pain, reduced activity,
deconditioning, fatigue, depression, and stress to haunt her for
the rest of her life. What parent would want this for
their child or for themselves for that matter! You can
have all the proper body mechanics and still you will have pain
from FMS. You can develop energy saving techniques and you will
still have pain from FMS. You can stand on your head and
ask God to take you and, if he doesn't, you still have pain from
FMS. You lose your ability to make an income and you lose
your ability to manage FMS. You have grief for the former
self because you have suffered a loss, you grieve for your old
life, your family grieves, they want the old you back.
Some family members can never except FMS, they can never
acknowledge FMS and if they try they often spiral into
depression right along with the patient.
No FMS
patient can take enough of every day stress out of their lives
with little income to handle stress and emotional challenges
that most well people can manage. If you lack financial
funds, jobs and health care no one can manage FMS. NO ONE!
Mr.
Bush, where are the jobs that are needed in OUR country.
Why are US companies taking our jobs away from Americans to
third world countries, so that they can just make more money to
line their greedy pockets to help you pay to stay in office.
Do you really care about the American people? Our men and
women are dying in a senseless war and we pour billions of
dollars into third world countries, but do little at home to
make sure that we have good jobs, health care, and retirement
for today or for the future. We are supposed to be the
greatest country in this world, what happened? Your
children are born with silver spoons in their mouths, they don't
have to worry. But, my children and the bulk of children
in this country are NOT! I hate to say this Mr. President,
but you have blinders on, you know the kind that you put on a
plow horse. You do know about plow horses, right?
Senator
Hutchison, Senator Cornyn and Senator Hall what are your plans
for the Arthritis Prevention, Control and Cure Act? Will
you let my daughter's life fall through a crack, will you be
their to pick up her broken heart, will you be their to hold her
hand when she suffers such pain she can barley breath or talk.
Who will be there to make sure she has health care, a job, a
life without pain and suffering beyond what any cancer patient
suffers with day in and day out, year in and year out, until one
picks up a gun and ends it or dies a slow painful death from
having FMS with NO hope in sight for proper treatment,
medication or cure.
How
would you like to walk in my shoes and suffer with FMS and watch
your child suffer with no hope in sight in their life time.
That's what my mother has had to do with me and now her
granddaughter. When will this all end? I need your
help. I'd love to get in front of congress and state my
case. Pay for me to fly to Washington, my hotel and food
expense, help me lobby for FMS, but wait, I most likely will be
too ill to travel that day, the stress of traveling or speaking
in front of the house would cause me the pain and the flare from
hell. I can not do this illness on $928 dollars a month
from Social Security income and neither can my daughter.
What
does it really take to get people in Washington to hear the
people, after all I pay taxes, your salaries, your health care,
your retirement. You don't retire on what social security
offers any way. What about me? Where is my job, my
health care, my hope for the future, my retirement, where are my
golden years, what happens to my child after I am dead. My
mother wonders the same things about her daughter and now her
granddaughter. I know I am not rich and I really don't
matter to you, but I should! Please help support this bill
and other questions that I have asked. Please do not send
me a form letter telling me how you may or may not support this
bill, please just do your job and care and support this bill and
the concerns of the very people who placed you in office hoping
for a brighter tomorrow for their children. Good jobs,
good health care and retirement for the golden years.
Not
everyone gets to go to The University of Texas of Harvard nor
will have learned to invest in the stock market, mutual's, or
the bond market. What happens if and when it crashes like
it did in the 30s, and not so long ago when people lost all
their life savings. I guess I should learn to pull a
rabbit out of my hat. But, please don't let my daughter
down and not vote for this bill, YOU are all that she has.
Submitted
by.....Freda |
|
|
|
|