FINALLY!!!  MY DISABILITY WAS APPROVED!  I feel like dancing the jig, (if I could without hurting myself.)  I cannot believe it!  Approved!  The very first thing I did was fall on my knees thanking the Lord for His goodness!  I mean, literally, the very first thing I did.  Now, I have hope.  I mean, sure, $864 a month is no gold mine, but at least it is some income which is more than I have had since October of last year.  I won't be living high on the old hog but at least I won't be living on the streets or in my car.  Thank you, Jesus!

Now, I can focus on helping others more and really make a difference.  Since I was able to win my case the first time, without struggling through an appeal proccess, maybe by telling people on the site and forum just how I was able to do it, someone else will be helped to win their case too.  I haven't written alot about the disability process in the forum because I was mired in it and most of the info I wrote about disability was here in the blog where I poured my heart out about the fact that I so desperately needed help and there was none to be found.  Now, that my case has been approved, I feel as if I actually have something that I can offer that would be helpful, so if you use the site and forum, be sure and check for updates in that area.

Approved!  I just cannot believe it!

Well, there is other news and I am not sure if I have mentioned it here or not but there is a new feature on the site and forum, a comic strip called, "Fibro Fanny".  It is all original content written by yours truly, involving characters that I create and is based on the life of "Fibro Fanny", who has fibromyalgia.  I hope that you all will find it an intersting read...sometimes funny and sometimes not, but always true to the point about what it is like to live with FM.  I hope that those of you who have FM will be able to relate to her character and see a little of yourself in her struggles.

Well, that's it for today.  I have to get some things accomplished today, like the ordeal of getting ready, going to the store, etc.  Thanks for all of the prayers...I know they were heard.  I really appreciate everyone's thoughts and continued support as this has been a trying time for me.  Hopfully now, things will get better.

Take care.  Visit the site and forum and click those links!  I still need all of the support I can get to keep that site up and every sponsored link that is clicked on helps to do that! 

...Until next time...T.

 Hello everyone!  Yes, it's me...back again and I have to say that while things are no different, I am still fighting and still hanging in there.  I have been really busy lately, working on another site that sells NASCAR items.  It is almost ready to fine tune and crank up.  There is a link to it on the Awareness Shopping page on the Fibromyalgia site for those of you who would like a sneek peek, and everything that is there works for those of you who want to shop.  There is still some work to do yet though.

I also have found, while researching another project, a place where I can actually create my own comic strip!  It is really a blast and I have created a character named "Fibro Fanny".  The strip is about her daily life and the challenges she faces because she has FM/CFS.  I hope it will be entertaining and enlightening and that you all can find a little bit of yourselves in her.  This blog will not allow me to embed objects so I can just put a link to it here, but she is featured in her own page in the website HERE and also in the forum, so be sure and check her out!

                                      Read "Fibro Fanny", the comic strip!

In other news...SSA says they have made a decision and I will be notified my mail so everyone please pray that it arrives soon and with a positvie decision in my favor. 

The very first Newsletter for the forum went out day before yesterday.  The response has been good and I hope it was enjoyed by all.  As the forum grows, there will be more to write about as activities increase.  Ya'll remember that you are the members and you are the ones who will make it what it becomes.  It's now in your hands.

Well, gotta jet for now.  Please continue to support the site and the forum.  We are helping people and the more we grow, the more we will help.  That is what it is all about people.

Take care and May God Bless!

Tammy Elaine

Well, after months of struggling I have to say I have finally met someone who understands...a new friend who was kind enough to reply to my post on a message board.  I hate to say that unfortunately, she has FM and apparently suffers similiar symptoms and pain levels.  Gosh, don't you hate to meet someone under those circumstances?  Regardless, talking with her has helped me greatly over the past few days and has given me a small shred of hope that just maybe I will get through this.  I will be the first to admit that I have traveled to a dark place because of all the struggling.  Although none of that has changed just by meeting a new friend, I don't feel so alone in my struggles anymore at least and it gives me one positive thing in my life. 

I hope to start working on the site again soon and update it like I always did before.  At least until I am evicted or whatever happens.  I cannot worry myself to death anymore over it and apparently cannot control it.  What happens will happen.  If the site takes off then great.   If it doesn't then too bad.  I will be able to say that I did my best whatever happens and didn't give up.  There has to be something to say for that, right?

Still no word on the disability case.  I wrote Kay Bailey-Hutchison's office again, asking for someone to contact DDS again on my behalf, but haven't received a reply.  You know, you can only beg and plead to so many for so long before it gets the best of you.  They say they have made a decision and it is being reviewed before notification, so I have done all I can...time to let it go and face whatever they decide.  Either way, the world isn't going to stop turning.  If I have learned anything it is that.

If you have FM and are reading this I hope that I can do a better job of being more positive in the future in an effort to help in any way I can.  And if you have FM then you can certainly empathize with how I feel.  Yes, it had me down on the mat with a three count and I had lost my fight.  I cannot say that I have my fight back but I am really trying to dig out of this hole.  I really am.

Please pray for me and that the disability case is won.  That alone would help me so much.  Visit the site, refer it to your friends and if you want to participate on some level, God knows, your input would be greatly appreciated!  All comments are welcome.

Best to all and God Bless.

Tammy Elaine

The Ultimate Fibromyalgia Resource Center

 

I need to say that it has been some time since my last entry as I recently found myself in a place where I needed to step back from the site and blog for a while.   I took some time to reflect on my situation and evaluate just what I hoped to accomplish, both for the site and for myself and found both lacking miserably. 

The truth is that when I first started the site I wanted desperately to help others like myself, who were sick and needed help.  What I failed to realize is that someone who themselves desperately needs help is the last person anyone would turn to when they need it.  Although I wasn't as sick as I am now when I started it, I suppose the only one I was fooling was myself.  The site languishes as do I and I almost took it down completely the other day just because I needed the monthly fee I send Yahoo to keep it up in my budget.  I didn't cancel it though, out of hope that just one person will be helped by it. 

I do realize; however, that I am in no position to help anyone right now as I cannot even help myself.  I struggled to maintain a positive attitude until the very end but my situation became so lost that it was impossible and I apologize to anyone reading this who expected more. 

The awful truth is that I too am lost as to what to do.  In January when I left my husband it never occurred to me that in less than a year I wouldn't be able to work any longer, that I would have no income to support myself, or that there would be no place to turn for help.  Afterall, I had managed for years to work while sick and didn't realize that  it would get this bad.  I had always just "sucked it up and did what I had to do" and never considered that I wouldn't be able to continue to do so, especially if my very survival depended on it.  I was wrong.  It did get worse and I wasn't able to just "suck it up".  Worst of all, I underestimated greatly the avenues of assistance available to me.  I always thought that I would qualify for some kind of assistance from somewhere...the state, the government...someone.  I was wrong.  My case will probably be denied as Allsup has done a terrible job of representing me.  I am told that the case has been decided on and is in review before notifying me.  I am not optimistic of the outcome.

So, I will not be dedicating every waking moment to the site for now as I have to figure out what I am going to do.  Since I cannot pay my bills and can get no help, despite writing every government agency I can think of begging for it, no help is coming.  I have lost my dignity and my self worth, am out of meds with no money to refill them and in all actuallity am living on borrowed time so I give up.

I hope that anyone reading this finds the help they need and if you learn anything from my situtation, it is that you can't rely on anyone to help you, regardless of how sick you are or how desperately you need help.  Don't be naive and believe that help will come from somewhere because it doesn't always.   Some of us just become a disposable part of society.  Regardless of how much we submit to this world in our youthful and healthy parts of our lives, we still become disposable should we for some reason not be able to contribute any longer, despite all good intentions, etc.  For some this comes with age.  for some it comes with illness.  Regardless, it comes.  Denial doesn't stop it.  Eventually we all must face it, some just sooner than others.

I pray that someday I find my way back to the living and once again have something worthwhile to contribute.  Meanwhile, I wish you all the best in your search.

Tammy Elaine

 

After spending over an hours yesterday attempting to add html into this blog unsuccessfully, today I am just going to write.  Yesterday it kept telling me that it couldn't add my entry and then I would rewrite it with the html, preview it all and then post it only to be told it couldn't do it, so today there will be no attempt at flashy stuff.  Sorry.

My room-mate had a coughing spell that made him sick in the middle of the night last night, which woke me up and then I couldn't go back to sleep for two hours so now I am sleepless, tired and stiff...again.  On top of that the doctor called EARLY to confirm the rescheduled canceled appointment from last week for tomorrow, so I didn't get to sleep in.  (Once I am awake, I am awake - that is all there is to it.)  Sigh.  God, I wish that disability would come through.  I don't know why I keep hoping that it will though...most cases are denied anyway. 

I've been thinking about really trying to work on getting support for more research...just don't know how to go about it.  If I could get just one "Star" to pay attention...just one.  I have written Montel, Oprah, Dr. Phil, the local news stations here in Dallas and  of course, Kay-Bailey Hutchison, my state representative - all to no avail.  I just don't know what it is going to take to get someone's attention!  (And they wonder why people go "Postal".)  I bet if I pulled a gun out in the middle of her office Mrs. Hutchison and the rest of the world would notice!  Yeah, that sounds a bit radical and I don't plan on doing it, but it demonstrates the level of frustration I feel for the lack of support I am getting.  It is a shame that there is so much excess in this country and  yet people suffer so much.  The House and Senate have spent the SS surplus a dozen times over and as far as I am concerned THERE IS NO SURPLUS AS LONG AS ONE CITIZEN OF THIS COUNTRY SUFFERS AND IS DENIED SSDI!!!!!!

Notice I said specifically, "CITIZEN", not immigrant, not illegal alien...and I don't care how many kids they have!  The parties have started running ads here in Texas because the voting here has begun.  Texas is especially important for Hillary...she needs to win here bad.  So yesterday I am watching tv and this ad supporting her campaign runs...it was enough to make me nauseous!  If I hear one more candidate claim that they have supported legislation to help provide insurance for all uninsured children I am going to scream!  UH, hello you idiots, there ARE NO uninsured children in this country.  Federal and state programs mandate medicaid for all children, including the sneaky little illegal immigrant bastards that aren't even entitled to it, so I don't want to hear that crap anymore.  You want to run an ad that will get my attention?  Say that you are going to help those of us who are disabled get the damn insurance we have paid into our whole freakin' working lives and not have to wait and fight for three years to get it.  Then, you will have a chance at my vote!  I live in a state that pays to more illegals than they do natural citizens so I am not buying your lies.  I remember when I first had to quit work in October of 07', how I thought I could qualify for aid of some kind and literally counted on it to survive.  I didn't qualify for one program, not one!  And that is with having ZERO income.  ZERO!  Since I have no children in the home I don't qualify for TANF, AFDC, Food Stamps, SSI, nothing!  How can a person with ZERO income NOT Qualify for help?????  Yet I sat in the Food Stamp office for four hours and watched illegal after illegal walk away smiling, their card in hand and three-five little illegal immigrants in tow.  (And people wonder why I am so frustrated!)  And I didn't even discuss all of the whites I saw there with so many children they couldn't possibly afford them walk away with a card.  I am sitting there alone, asking for help for just myself and was refused.  The message: Either be an illegal immigrant with children, or a citizen having more children than you can support and you can get help.  You either have to be breaking the law or too stupid to use birth control to get aid.  To hell with those of us who worked our whole adult lives, raised our kids, even served our country and then just had the poor luck of getting sick.  To hell with us!  Yeah, Hillary...keep on running those ads.  Texas NEEDS you.

Ok, that's enough of the soapbox for today.  I just wish someone would listen!

Tomorrow is the big doctor's visit where I get to ask my doctor why he didn't do anything to support my disability claim, why he let my case sit in Austin for 25 days waiting for records requested from his office without sending them and why he didn't write a report and only sent in the minimal amount of information.  I already know the answers...he is a busy man, his staff overlooked the request, bla bla bla...I could give a rats ass.  The man charges me $220 for an office visit, $10 per prescription that he writes, will only give me an appointment every two months and fails to support my claim in any pro-active manner!  I need a new doctor.  I need alot of things.

Well, folks.  Go and have a great day!  The world goes on, despite cries for help and there is no room for a pity pot.  So grin and suffer your way through it.  If we can't pay the rent at the first of the month no one is going to miss a beat over it...no sense in worrying about it because it just makes the pain worse.  Just try to accomplish something in everyday that passes for the good.  The rest you can do nothing about.

Take care and May God Bless you with a pain-free day!