After the National Fibromyalgia Association (NFA) Coping Seminar, in Seattle, I sat down with Lynn Matallana for an interview. She is the founder and president of the NFA. I first asked her what the process of going to 37 doctors, prior to having fibromyalgia considered as a diagnosis, was like. She said because she had so many symptoms, she did not have a specific direction nor know which type of doctor to see. “The problems just became more and more involved as more and more people tried to help.” At one point she was told she had lupus and only had two months to live! Looking back, she wishes she had really listened to her body because she would have realized her first problem was pain, thus she would’ve gone to a pain specialist.

“I wanted my life back! I had such a great life before. I was just determined to figure out how to make that happen.” Matallana thinks that many people with fibromyalgia are fairly adaptive and think they just have to deal with the pain they are feeling. She explained her personality is just not like that and that if she wants something she goes after it! When I asked her if she ever thought about throwing in the towel she admitted that she had thought of it. “What really helped was having friends and family tell me that they believed I could get my life back,” she shared. Courage and motivation came from her friends and family telling her that she had a lot more to do in her life. She was driven by the fact she always felt, from the time she was a child, that there was destined to accomplish something important. She recounted a tragic story that motivated her to make a difference. “Of the first six aspiring writers, I met online that had fibromyalgia, three of them committed suicide in the first year. And I realized at that point, the ramifications of this illness and what it could do.”

This entry only covers the beginning of my interview, more will be coming soon!

Lynne Matallana*

*Photo Credit: Image from www.fmaware.org