I’m sorry this has to be my first introduction to this community, but I feel like its best if I tell my story. I need to get it off my chest and to get the opinions of others who’ve been in similar situations. I guess I’ll start this off by saying that regardless of the details, I’m stable, I’ll get by, but I know I need to get the ball rolling and find a way to alleviate my situation.
So june, six years ago next month, I woke up with pain in my shoulder. I was living at home at the time being 20 and still in college. I spoke to my mother and we both agreed I’d probably just slept funny and pulled a muscle. The pain continued on six months later, having no job and no insurance I went to a clinic to see someone, after a couple xrays and some tests, two or three appointments, they told me it was either all in my head or it was something I was doing, a pillow, a chair that was leaning something of that nature. So seeing I wasn’t going to get much of anywhere as I was, I started powering through college to get done. I took 6 classes one semester and 5 the next to be able to finish that last year. Luckily for me I was already pursing computer science and all of the higher level classes were only given online anyway. This is what allowed this to be possible.
Luckily graduating with honors provided me the leg up to get a job at a nearby call center, which provided the income and insurance I so desperately needed. So I started going to another dr that was recommended to me, and a chiropractor, and a neurologist, The thought at this time was that I had myofasical pain syndrome since the pain was centered in that one area. We tried injections with some success for about two weeks. We also tried two separate rounds of 3 months of physical therapy. I also moved out at this time due to the extra stress from living at home. All of this I accomplished in a year and a half. At that point I fell over, My job was public facing tech support and our pay and performance was determined solely by the people we helped and how we were able to help them. This was very stressful, and I held up as long as I could but my blood pressure was climbing higher with every dr appt, and I reached a point where I just couldn’t fight it anymore.
About 8 months into my living on my own my now fiancé came to live with me and is a huge help and an amazing pillar of support for me, I have no idea how I would have survived without him. He was still living with me when I left my job and I hunted for a job to no avail. Since we weren’t married my mother would only allow me to move back home by myself and I knew if I went back to that house I would only get worse. His parents allowed us to come and live with them in their guest bedroom which used to be his. That was about a year ago now. Luckily given this unique situation allowed me to receive a good bit of financial assistance, and through that I’ve been able to see a rheumatologist and was diagnosed with fibro as of march. We also found hypertension, sleep apnea and a couple of other things.
I recently tried to go back to work, Simple job just answering phones and directing calls, filing papers and doing administrative type work. This was the easiest, low impact thing I could find. I lasted one day, on day two after 13 hours of straight sleep I was still so tired I was just angry. I was tired to the point my body wanted to burn any social bridge in order to allow me to go back to sleep. I knew if I attempted to work like I was I would have been fired.
So here I am, almost 26, and after all my hard work I’m barely able to get up and down anymore. Around this past November the pain from my shoulder spread into my hip. Of course no physical “source” of the pain and as is typical there’s nothing medically wrong with me. (If I had a penny for every time that’s been said to me I’d be rich).
I’m here because as I keep progressing and continue to get worse, I’m more and more isolated. I’m lonely, I’m angry at being trapped after all my hard work to get out, I’m scared out of my mind as I’m unable to do anything but watch the bills pile up and I really don’t know too much of what to do.
It seems like my best option at this point is to attempt to look for an attorney and start the disability process before it gets any farther away from my work being valid. I know as young as I am this is going to be difficult to explain. It’s a sad thing explaining on paper that you’re having trouble getting up and down to go to the bathroom, that if you go and get groceries it takes you two days of sleeping and laying in bed to recover, but I don’t guess I have much of a choice anymore.
If any of you have any input it’d be appreciated. I’m just sitting here, researching and trying to figure out what to do.
