Tag: Personal Experience

Clean Eating: Blueberry Lavender Smoothie

A healthy outside starts from the inside.

I haven’t done one of these posts for awhile, but since yesterday was the first day of summer, #TheLongestDay #NationalSmoothieDay and #InternationalDayofYoga I thought I would add this recipe. Many of my favorite things rolled into one day. (Note: I did not include National Selfie Day, as that is not one of my favorites!😂)

Smoothies are my go-to breakfast and sometimes lunch. I even make them when I am traveling, although not quite this colorful.

You can find my other favorite recipes here. But here’s the blue that makes you feel good…and tastes good too! 💙💜💙💜

Continue reading “Clean Eating: Blueberry Lavender Smoothie”

Winter Round-Up

Spring is here, but there is still some winter in the air!

Technically it is spring, although with the cold front that arrived in Texas yesterday, it doesn’t feel like it. (We even had a fire last night.) But as it has been lately, I am a day late and a dollar short…. I just chalk it up to my crazy life these days.

In the months since posting my Fall Round-Up, a lot has changed for me. My mother had a stroke and my father entered hospice care, so there’s new stressors and changes going on with my family. I have been making monthly trips to Portland to help care for them. In between trips, I celebrated my 26th wedding anniversary by getting seven epidural steroid injections in my back for three bulging discs. (Ouch!) All the while dealing with family, fibromyalgia, a full-time job, and trying to keep up this blog. I do the best I can and I don’t beat myself up for what I can’t do.

Grace, not perfection. ~ Emily Ley

❤

The holidays are long over and I am looking ahead to warmer days, spring flowers, and sunshine. But there is definitely still some winter in the air! In case you missed something, here is a round-up of my posts for the past few months – some on Fibromyalgia and others to inspire you to live your best life!

Continue reading “Winter Round-Up”

Diagnosing Chronic Pain

“Doctors don’t know what causes fibromyalgia, but it most likely involves a variety of factors working together.”

Here are some ugly truths: Women and men experience pain differently. Doctors are less likely to treat women’s pain. Health issues that disproportionately affect women are not studied as much as those affecting men. It can take women multiple visits and sometimes years to diagnose their medical issues and chronic illnesses. And when painful conditions like Endometriosis and Fibromyalgia don’t have a simple test for diagnosing, those visits and months and years can prove both emotionally and physically draining when you’re already in pain and still having to fight for a diagnosis.

Continue reading “Diagnosing Chronic Pain”

The Many Forms of Pain

Pain takes all forms, affects all people, and does not discriminate.

I started writing this post long before Lena Dunham announced she wanted to be the “face of fibromyalgia.” Knowing little about her other than what I read in this article, I don’t really have a connection to her and don’t view her as my advocate. There are many other faces of fibromyalgia and forms of pain that deserve attention as well.

Pain takes all forms, affects all people, and does not discriminate between male or female, young or old, rich or poor, famous or not-so-famous. It can affect anyone. And everyone.

These days I feel people associate pain or chronic pain with the “opioid epidemic” we hear so much about in our daily news. It has reached such a pinnacle that Michael Bloomberg announced a $50 million donation to help fight it. But let’s not stereotype all of those suffering in pain with a drug problem that is gripping the nation. Continue reading “The Many Forms of Pain”

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