How we got to where we are - Part 2

Picking up the story from the previous post.

Part Two

So the local clinic continued to refer me to other doctors.  We continued to struggle, but we made it through the semester and decided to spend the summer there.  Within two weeks, we knew I couldn't work.  We had found temp jobs, but Derek ended up working long, odd shifts to make enough money for us to just get by.  I felt lousy all the time, couldn't get out, and became very sedentary from the fatigue.  My nerves didn't settle down either.  I was really jumpy about noise, and although we now knew that nothing was wrong with my heart, I continued to have heart symptoms.  I didn't put it together until much later, but also, something always hurt.  I gained 60lbs in that first year (or so) of marriage and most of that over the summer.

We made plans to fly to Idaho and visit my parents that August.  My mom made an appointment for me to see our family doctor.  This doctor spent a good bit of time talking to both of us about what was going on.  He determined (as we had suspected) that I would not be able to continue in graduate school.  I was not disappointed immediately because I thought we'd sit out for a short time, I'd get well, and we'd go right back.  I knew we would be criticized for not finishing, but God's will doesn't always work in 2 year increments.  So Derek flew back to start packing, and my dad and I drove to meet him at our apartment a few days later.  

God had allowed it that my parent's rental house (right next door to their house) was vacant.  So we moved back to Idaho and right into a house next door to my parents.  Derek as repainting the interior of the house, and looking for a job when the 9/11 terrorist attacks happen.  I will remember that day my entire life.

Obviously, Derek found a job.  I continued to see my doctor after we moved back.  After testing my blood for everything possible, they found nothing.  I remember distinctly at one appointment my doctor said the word “fibromyalgia.”  I never heard it before and I thought he was speaking some strange doctor language.  He must have seen the confusion on my face because he reached over and tore a piece tissue paper from the exam table and wrote the word down for me.  I asked me if I had internet access, and I did, so he told me to start researching.  Although the medical community was starting to recognize fibromyalgia a lot more than they ever had before, there still wasn't a lot of information available.  

During this time, I would often see excellent Nurse Practitioner rather than my doctor.  Early on we were talking about pain and the NP asked me “Does the pain move around?”  I was flabbergasted!  What a crazy notion!  Why on earth would pain move around?  Was she checking to see if I was crazy?  Was I a hypochondriac?  Actually, I had never thought of that way (because that would be CRAZY!) but, yes, the pain did move around.  It was then that I began to realize all the pain and injuries I thought were unrelated, were actually fibromyalgia.  Although it would be a few years before I was  "officially" diagnosed, now we knew what we were facing.