TNG, or The next generation, Matt the oldest center, missing his brother Jason…..Patrick next in age, and the up and coming Dr. Bennet to you mam! Yes Sir Dr. Bennet. To the right the 4th person and most recent to graduate from UCI. Jill started the trend, Matt followed, then Patrick and now Alex. loving this!

Terry San Cartier of Terry and Karen McCorkel, with his ever present “gotta have chips” and wine, true Terry. Jill an up and coming photographer with her camera and fun attitude, and Karen of T & K. She always has a smile on her face at parties as she loves them as much as I do!

A closer photo of Jerry in the Bennets hammock. We just put ours up and he spends ample time in it on the weekends too. Listened to some great tunes on Jill’s ipod in it’s dock. This gf rocks let me tell you! love it sister! And Steve, Jills other half, always a dry comedian with a look to follow. Hang on to your plates and drinks peoples he’s worse than the best resturant host, always clearing the table…I’m NOT done Steve! luv it…

Matt hanging in the kitchen with his girl, Ms Yuki, Jerry in the hammock, had to add a 2nd photo of my sweetie cause I luv him!

Taken by our one and only awesome graduated from UCI, our own offical photographer, Matt. I hired him to take our photo as I knew I had to have the best, and I wasn’t dissapointed. Had to have a photo of the 3 couples before T & K move away….

Matt also took photos for Patrick Bennet for his badge while in medical school. I remember when Patrick was just a young’en and Matt helped care for him. He always loved it when Patrick came over to play.

Jill had a fun craft project for the girls, glow in the dark flower wreaths. All 3 of us had fun making them and wearing them. Thanks so much Jill.

The fireworks were awesome as always, and much thanks goes out to our long time and wonderful friends the Hernandez family for providing a “special” parking place on a street where there weren’t any.

A great band played prior to the fireworks, good music always makes you feel young at heart. A good 4th for everyone!!

It started quite some time ago when I began experiencing the unpleasant side effects of one of the newer drugs I was taking to treat the disease. I kept in close contact with my doctor and eventually changed from this new SNRI (serontonin-neropinephrine reuptake inhibitor) to another anti-depressant commonly use to treat Fibromyalgia. When the side effects of this new medication began taking its toll on me, my rheumatologist and I decided together to see how my Fibromyalgia would react without the aid of any medication, something I hadn’t done in years.

Going off these drugs must be done slowly, stepping down week by week until you are off of them. Even though I’ve been treating my disease with these medications for some time I would still have flare ups, some of them for what I knew at that time, to be fairly bad. By the second and third week stepping off this last medication I could tell the changes that were happening to my pressure and trigger points was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. The hardest hit ones were in my calves and thighs, although my arms and shoulders were also experiencing extreme pain, tenderness and muscle weakness. And yet I honestly kept thinking it would get better, that I just needed to rest more. When I could no longer stand or walk because of the pain and weakness I figured it was time to call the doctor to make an appointment and had my awesome husband Jerry take time off work to drive me in.

I have been with this rheumatologist for a long time, trust her completely and was happy with our next plan of attack. Rest, change of medications, for both my fibromyalgia and my rheumatoid arthritis and a short course of steroids followed by a checkup. Oh and patience. Plenty of that. I am very fortunate I don’t have to work outside the home. Like I said before I am grateful and thankful for my awesome husband, without him I could not focus on my health. I am going to get better, it may take me longer than I like, but I am focused on that positive outcome.

For those of you who are skeptic about my course of treatment or who believe in alternative therapies, or even have a whole different idea of how one should go about treating this or any other kind of illness I will just say this. To each their own. I have tried many other kinds of treatments. I do not believe in using pain pills alone as treatment for my conditions. There are many theories on how to treat this disease, please do not judge me.

For some additional home massage treatment I use the items shown in the photo above. The hand held massager is one I’ve had for years, it is a Homedics brand and has several variable speeds. I have tried several other brands over the years yet keep coming back to this heavy duty massager as my favorite.

The tennis ball may seem like a impossible massage tool but placed inside a sock it can become very useful. Hang on to either end of the sock, lean up against the wall with the ball against your back on a pressure point and dig deep. Sweet relief!

The S Hook Massager can be found on line or at your local Mother’s Market. While not cheap, they work really well at quick release work on your pressure points. Excessive digging with this tool will only aggravate your pressure points so do be careful.

The large dense white massage roll is an excellent way to work on your back while getting an arm workout at the same time. They are also good for IT Band massage or glute massage. These rolls can be purchased on line or at a larger local medical supply in your area. Instructions on how to use them can be found on line.

I hope that by sharing some of my story you can better understand what it is like to live with this frustrating and silent illness, Fibromyalgia. Coupled with several arthritis’s, and Sjogren’s Syndrome it can be challenging at times. What you see is not always all there is. Be kind and patient, take time to look beneath the surface and I believe we will all be better for it.

Beth and Steve’s daughter recently bought a house in Long Beach, a darling older home with lots of vintage charm. Sara and her boyfriend Dave along with kitty Lui are in the process of making it home, tackling project after project all while both working and Dave going to school. They must be young because just watching them do all this at once wore me out in the brief time I was there!

While at Sara’s, she allowed us to interrupt her painting of the kitchen cabinets long enough to clean her charming vintage chandelier. We didnt’ think to take a before photo of this awesome multi-gemed light, but as you can from the after pictures WOW!

Sunday was the yearly Pumpkin Carving Party held by Beth and Steve’s youngest son Luke and wife Diana. 13 pumpkins in all were carved, candy and food was in abundance and a good time was had by many. My pumpkin is the lady’s face to the left of the spider with web. It won the catergory “WTF” or “What The Face”. Beth was the judge. She arrives after all the carving is done so she doesn’t know who carved what. I just have one question….how does a Master Genealogist qualify as a Pumpkin judge? (Does it sound like I disagree with winning the WTF category-you’ll never know!)

Click on this link to view a video Jerry took last night of Yuki working hard at walking on her own. The video is posted on his youtube account, user name: sfwengineer. Yuki is doing even better today. She hasn’t used the red wagon at all, instead she is running all over the house, following me everywhere! I have some video that I’ll upload when time permits to show how well she’s doing! We’re so excited!