It was time. The moment of truth. I had only been waiting five years to find out if I truly had Lupus or if it was just my imagination. I mean, how does someone suffer pain literally every day of their life and not one doctor has an answer for it?

As a woman, and a mother, I tend to self-diagnose myself to keep me from going to the doctor. I don't know about you, but going to the doctor means that something will be found wrong. If I just focused on everything else but me, I would be alright. Put the illness behind me. If I didn't know…it wasn't there.

When the doctor. came in and told me that he had good news, I felt ridiculous for wasting the time and money to go the doctor. See? I never should have gone, that was money I could have used for football or cheerleading or the big sleepover they had been asking me if they could have. So when the doctor said I didn't have Lupus, I smiled and thanked him. Just as I was gathering my purse to leave and was grinning from ear to ear, he patted my arm and told me that I had a disease known as Fibromyalgia and I would have it for the rest of my life.

The shock was so harsh for me that reality had yet to kick in and I smiled at him and asked him what pill did I have to take to fix all of this? That was when he put his hand on mine and said "I don't think you understand. There is no pill to solve this. There is no cure."

So, I got home and explained to my family what my results were and then I went through life ignoring my illness. The more I ignored it, the sicker I got. I tried to continue going to work daily, tried to maintain my home, and a healthy relationship with both my husband and children and ended up making myself, and those around me completely miserable.

I got sicker the harder I pushed.

It was only after countless arguments of "I'm fine, I'm fine." That it dawned on me that maybe I wasn't ok? Maybe I'm not that tough supermom I have always "imagined" myself to be?

We as women often attempt to take on so many roles that we often forget the one important one of all, being true to ourselves. I didn't want my illness to play a factor as to why things weren't getting done. I felt that if I stopped and accepted my illness, then I was giving in to it. The truth of the matter is I am not really giving in. I'm accepting myself as being ill which makes my relationships around me, mentally physically and emotionally, more stable.

The next time you feel your body speaking to you, stop ignoring it, hoping it will just disappear. Unfortunately, life isn't like a sitcom. You can't just write the illness out of the script.

Tags & Keywords : Fibromyalgia, doctor, illness, mothers, parents, marriage, wives