Nancy's Nightly Newsletter  #1

"What is FMS???? Well, if we knew the answer to that one, I wouldn't be here writing to you and so my first response to that question is ''It's a friend maker.'' Let's face it, without it, what are the chances that you and I would have met in our lifetime? Slim and none probably. So that's at least one small plus to this.

''It's a Life changer''- well there's no doubt about that as far as I'm concerned. But is it all bad? No. Some of the changes that are required have very good benefits. Such as doing less and enjoying it more because you are suddenly aware of everything you do. Consequently you really see and hear things that you never did before because our lives are so cram packed full of business. So in changing our life forever, it also highlights the good things we sometimes miss. Down side of this is of course we also have to give up some of the things we once liked to do and are now too physically demanding to accomplish. But even that has it's upside if you look for it. Not being able to race from one project to another at breakneck speed does allow some time to smell the roses along the slower route. This is a good thing both physically and emotionally. Did the stars ever look as pretty to you when you were able to be dancing or skating or sledding as they look when the only physical activity you can endure at the moment is to look at the stars. Now we all know they are beautiful to look at and on stolen moments have enjoyed gazing at them, but that is not the same as studying them for a half hour or so because your body will absolutely not move and in frustration you gaze up at the stars and initially ask, Why me, in anger only to have them shine their brilliance at you until you find yourself in thankful awe that you are still capable ofseeing them even through all the frustration of a body that no longer does everything you think it should do. That's enjoying the beauty of the night sky.

FMS is a ''disease/condition/syndrome'' or what ever label you want to call it. It is not a figment of the imagination of a hormonally unbalanced female craving attention. It is real. It is different in how it manifests itself in different people. It is chronic, It is, at this point in time and space, of an unknown cause and no known cure. Damn. That's a lot for one individual to accept. Nobody wants to be that far out of control of their own body. It's scary, it's maddening, it's painful, it's devastating, it's everything most of us never wanted life to be.

Can we pretend it isn't there and ignore it? No it will get worse and continue to get worse until it is heard and appropriate measures are taken to arrest it. Even then there are no guarantees that it will not get worse. These are the cold brutal truths we are supposed to grasp and live with in a society which judges illness by how many broken bones or how many stitches it takes to receive validation that we are ill. Something is very wrong with this picture.

Why did this happen to me? well the answer is why not me. Am I so unusual or above all mankind that I should be exempt from this kind of a disease? Of course not. We are no different than any other human being on the planet. Why is this all starting to show up now? Is this the ''in'' disease for the new millennium? Second question-maybe. First question- as medical science continues to ''cure'' more and more diseases known to mankind, there is one disease we all have to endure. Death. No way around that one. No vaccine, fountain of youth or herbal concoction will cure or prevent that one known disease. So how do we get to death these days? Accidents account for some, natural disasters, floods,famine, etc account for some more, but the vast majority of mankind dies as the result of a disease of some kind.

So what's my point? Well, how many times have you had pneumonia, influenza, measles, whooping cough, high blood pressure, chicken pox, tuberculosis, polio and on and on? Again you ask, what's my point? Well, I'll tell you my point. As our society continues to cure more and more diseases, we still have to come to that final one called death. Look at how many people in your own families and back one generation died of the above mentioned diseases or something similar? Then look at how many of those diseases are still a threat to our bodies today. Now you may ask, what does this have to do with FMS? I think it is the natural order of things that in order to die, you must either be killed, be involved in some kind of an accident or die of some kind of a disease. So the more cures we come up with, the more new diseases and disorders or conditions or whatever you want to call them happen to cause people to eventually die. Now don't get the idea that I think FMS can kill you. I don't. But at the same time if we try to pretend that it is not a life altering condition, it will add to some complication that will cause our body to die. So the only life threatening part of this is not taking it seriously and pretending it doesn't exist. It does. On a bad day all of us knows it exists whether anybody else can see it or not. But it's the few good days in our lives that we try to kid ourselves into believing that we will ever be our ''old'' selves again. Maybe, just maybe, if we quit trying to regain the lost and look toward the spiritual power that put us all on the face of the earth in the first place to find the new us, we will find that the new me is a better, more understanding, more patient, more tolerant, more loving, more appreciative, and in general a better person than we were before.

So to close this first edition, let me say to all of us.Look past the disease and accept it's limitations and find the new and quite possibly better part of us that is still able to laugh, love and enjoy so much of life and be thankful that we do have each other to help us through the tough times. All of you are truly the people you always have been in your hearts, now it's just time to let more of that wonderfulness out for others to enjoy.

Heartfelt hugs to some of the most wonderful people I have never met.

Nancy"