All about this blog and me

I have decided to start a blog. I have heard from people with chronic illness that blogging can be such a great thing. I want to use this blog not for sympathy but for understanding and trying to raise more awareness. I will be honest before I got sick I didn't have much understanding of people with chronic illness I didn't realize how much your life changes and how hurtful and isolating it can be. I didn't know what they went through day after day until now. So by now your probably wondering what my chronic illness is. I have been officially diagnosed with a very severe case of Fibromyalgia. I have other diagnoses also {Hashimoto 's, high blood pressure, myofasical pain, cervicogenic headache, chronic daily headache, raynuads syndrome,fatigue} unfortunately for me that list will keep growing as I have been told by doctors. I also have many doctor appointments I consider it a huge break when I don't have a doctor appointment for weeks! I see many different doctors and specialists. I have my family doctor, rheumatologist locally, and another rheumatologist at Cleveland Clinic, endocrinologist, dermatologist, gastroenterologist, nephrologist, cardiologist. The doctors I see just keep adding up also. It is a saying in the 'chronic illness world' that you are a part time patient and that's a job. I couldn't agree more with that statement. This list all grew within one year. I will give a little background on how I got here. In high school it was the beginning of my sophomore year I got diagnosed with hypothyroidism (Hashimoto's). Then at the end of my jr year- sr year I got a ovarian cyst that had to be surgically removed I never quite bounced back from that and that's kind of where everything started. Then next fall in 2013 my Dad very unexpectedly passed away and I found him. Then in 2014 I got h pylori and a bad case of gastritis. As you can see things just started "building up" as my doctors call it. Then in  2015 I would have days where I didn't feel good and would have to stay home and we never thought anything about that until now. Those were 'flare ups'. During Spring Break in 2016 I went snorkeling and because I was born with a cleft lip the snorkeling mask irritated the skin on my upper lip I got what started as impetigo and very quickly turned into facial cellulitis that wasn't responding to antibiotics. I then spent 6 and half days in the hospital trying to fight the cellulitis finally it healed. In the hospital is where all this pain started happening and it got much worse and hasn't stopped. My doctors explained to me that all those things are 'triggers' to waking up a chronic disease. I wish I could say they have me all figured out but that's not true. It can take 5-6 years to diagnose an autoimmune disease is what they have told me. They know something else is going on but can't quite diagnose me yet so its just a waiting game. The reason this blog is called Invisible is because many autoimmune diseases/ chronic illness are invisible meaning we look good, we look fine, except we are far from fine. We are in wheelchairs, we take many medications, we can't sleep... the list goes on and on. I will talk about some of that more in later posts. And my website name is abby4110.. the 41:10 is a verse that I repeat a lot and has been helpful a lot of my life. So I will leave you with that. "So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." Isaiah 41:10.