About

Hi everyone! I am so happy to introduce myself and my adventure with you all!

Who am I?

For beginners, I am a transparent 45 year old woman, wife and mother of three living in the sunshine state in a city called Palm Coast. My name Tamara actually means palm tree in Hebrew. Go figure, born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio and now I’m surrounded by palm trees in Palm Coast. It wasn’t even my idea and boy do I get a kick out of that!

I am a follower.

I am a spiritual follower of Jesus Christ but not a religious woman. I love sharing God’s miracles and blessings with others and helping people break free from emotional and religious bondage to see the glorious goodness of God!

I am a survivor.

I have wrestled with this mystery illness called CFS/Fibromyalgia for close to twenty years now. I had a major episode in 2003 that forever altered the course of my life.

I woke up with a complete and total black out where I had apparently passed out on the bathroom floor. I looked in the mirror horrified to see that the left side of my face was droopy and my entire eye was blood-red. I had a severe headache, erratic and slurred speech and tremors in my hands and legs. I was couch-bound for three months and forced to use a cane to walk. I was in a massive amount of pain and scared to death.

After years of testing all that I had were some MRI’s that showed lesions on the brain and spine. Johns Hopkins M.S. center had ruled that the lesions were too small to be M.S. (thank God!) and that it was most likely CFS/Fibromyalgia. (CFS stands for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which for those of you that don’t know is more than just being tired lol). I was blessed enough back then to have a team of doctors that were doing cutting edge research and believed that Fibromyalgia was a real dis-order and not ‘all in the mind’.

Presently, at this stage in my life with CFS/Fibromyalgia, I now have a plethora of other dis-orders to accompany my main malady. I have osteoarthritis in my hands, knees and spine. I have IBS, GERD, and am hypothyroid. I wrestle with depression which is common and have anxiety issues to perfectly compliment the depression. There is more but like I always say, ‘isn’t that enough’?

I am an artist.

Prior to my life-sucking condition, I was a vibrant and active woman. I was once a survivalist back-packer with a dream to hike the Appalachian Trail. I served my county in the United States Air Force; I waas a go-getter and I was fiercely independent. I was a write and I was a painter.

Once I started showing symptoms I became full-time ill and lost my groovy self. I lost my fashion and adopted frumpy. I lost my friends and adopted solitude. Worst of all, I lost my art. I no longer painted or wrote in my journal. I had become a shell of the woman who I once was and slowly and painfully that vibrant light was beginning to dim.

I am an over-comer.

Fibromyalgia robbed me of so many of the joys of motherhood. Many days I barely had the energy to climb up from the couch and the guilt of not being a ‘good enough mother’ was robbing me of my joy.The emotional strain I was under in my marriage only added to the pain-both physically and emotionally. While my husband journeyed with his battle of addiction I became spiritually stronger but physically weaker and weaker. He wasn’t the support to me then that he is now and I didn’t have the space to grow. I was only shrinking further away from my true self and the depression was making deep roots in the inroads of my mind.

By the grace of God my husbands life-long journey with addiction ended and we all began our journey of healing and renewing our family bonds. I have a wonderful husband these days and 3 miraculous children ages 8, 6 and 3. Now that he is over two years free from that battle he is my partner once again and we are both better for the journey! Our love for each other is unshakeable and our children get to witness the joys and sorrows of true love first hand. True love is rarely easy but it is the most wonderfully growing gift of all! In spite of everything, I thank God that I never lost the dreamer in me. Yes, finally I am a dreamer. I held onto my dream and hope of getting my life back. Let me please repeat, because it is so important to me.

I am a dreamer.…and this year is the year that I will get freedom from Fibromyalgia.

This is my journey and I hope you will follow along with me and find freedom also as we both grow in God’s grace and goodness. Amen!