Ladies,

So great to finally have googled the proper search words. I am so sincerely relieved, sad, excited, angry and grateful to have found you. I can relate to every word you have all said.

I have always enjoyed being a personal trainer and after about 7 years, I had to wear splints on my knees, hands and fingers. I learned how to do military push ups on my knuckles. Then I saw so many hand specialists as the pain grew to ominous proportions. One hand surgeon drew fluid from two ganglion cysts in my right wrist and sent me immediately to a Rheumatologist. This was the start of it, yet a huge relief as the Enbrel injections cured me (AND my hideous psoriasis) almost 95%. I continued personal training but started to loathe my early morning appointments. The fatigue and sense of depression and loss of peppiness poured itself into a cup of coffee, and even then – I was not up for getting out the door least to mention motivating a client to work hard, physical. My mental capacity to motivate started to diminish. No more morning appointments. I just felt too sick in the morning. Then the depression set in after my first year of being diagnosed: you would think that since I come from a medical family, one of my six other siblings would know what RA is. My mother, a registered nurse STILL does not know what I have. Last year, I also developed skin cancer and had surgery on my chest. No more sun worshipping days. Those friends I had hung out with on the beach day in and day out chose the ozone depletion death call as I began having intense nerve pain in my right foot. During this time, I was getting Remicade infusions on the oncology unit of the hospital to see if my RA was the cause of my now crippling pain in my foot. I was so stressed out from the pain and depressing that I woke up with Shingles! It went from my right back all the way down to my fingers. I continued to train and workout. It was the dead of heat and I had to wear long sleeves and cover up this deformity, all while limping and going from one doctor to the next. Twelve different opinions, then finally an ultrasound confirmed THREE Morton’s neuromas in my right foot. I had surgery on April 17th and was told I would probably be driving within two to three weeks. It is July 7th and I only got off of my crutches 10 days ago. My physical therapist (yes – I had to beg for a PT script from my Foot Surgeon who questioned why I would even do this). Om my third post surgical visit, I not only had developed a hematoma, but also was diagnosed with RSD or Complex Regional Pain Syndrome which is a neurological disorder resulting from injury on in my case, specifically from neuroma excision. My foot looked so grotesque that I thought a bus had run over it.

I have also had two polypectomies, a hysterectomy and a finger that had to be re-attached from a traumatic accident. All of this my lovely readers is behind me, except this chronic auto immune disease and joint erosions in my feet which may lead me to God knows where. I have developed my own Pilates program and people think I am still a personal trainer. In fact, I am in better shape now than before.

Homebound, I started making jewelry and now I am raising a lot of money for cancer, domestic abuse and paralyzed citizens. My jewelry is far more detailed than that of my website and I put my love in to it for I am so grateful to have found a new <>?

I want to use this as a therapy tool for women in shelters, children with learning disabilities and for fundraising. This is a gift that God gave me perhaps in all of the suffering. Or maybe it is a gift I gave myself for believing that “yeah, I could make a necklace like that, only better”! Well I did, and showed it to a so called famous motivational speaker at her seminar and she devastated me. Her comment on this necklace was that it was personal and unique. I sank into an even greater depression and I think it was around that time that I got really angry. I had to pick myself up the next day for a trunk show that had a horrible turn out only, the wealthiest woman wanted to buy this same necklace off of my neck, and in future shows – I could have sold it but kept it as my totem.

Now, post surgery – in the stages of just being able to walk a block or two and drive a few miles after months of home bound captivity – I want to SCREAM at every single friend I have completely lost, I mean EVERYONE, ladies. Yes, maybe I have a couple of friends who I am still in touch with (now I am shaking so hard I can hardly write) but let me tell you about LEE: I had to go to the ER 2 weeks ago with the RSD shooting pains and I could hardly breathe on the phone. She said that she was too busy on her son’s play date. I need to get some water……ok…I am back. She was too quick to hang up as I sarcastically said, “oh, how dare I would think you could take the time to drive me there – how selfish of me.”

Then Joannie: I nursed her back to health for three months after her knee replacement surgery. Helped her to the bathroom, cooked, shopped, cleaned, brought flowers, wrote cards and it only BEGINS there. She did not even CALL me after my surgery.

This list is too long and I have never been so alone in my entire life. My husband has been wonderful but HE has to have a life and go out on the weekends with my daughter. How much can he see me cry every day? How can I handle this outrageous loss and strong feelings of abandonment which started when my mom that the house in my young teens? She has never been with me since. A day visit or an overnight visit here or there until her mental illness affected my daughter as she was then old enough to feel abandoned by Grandma Edith.

I cry, my sisters. I cry, cry, cry and I KNOW I am a physically fit, determined, cool, strong, one legged military push up bioch – with talent – so much creativity. Yet I cry, and cry and cry and look every day for emails, phone messages. I cry so much that I start to laugh! Like yesterday, my Russian friend invites me over for coffee and then blows me off. I mean, WOW! This was the first invitation in a WHILE. Then Barbara – who lives three doors down from me – never cooked a thing after surgery, and has to make a date to sit on her porch and have tea one week in advance. Enough. It is time to go to YouTube and watch <> because this is hilarious.

I am with all of you and Loolwa – thank you for being in this world. Tonight you have made one very lonely, pissed off and physically challenged person have a reason to wake up in the morning and start over. To move my body, challenge and work through the pain, continue my art and move forward knowing that perhaps for a long time, the only friend I have is ME.

Thank you Loolwa, from the bottom of my heart.

Thank you everyone else who has shared their stories.

Lizzy Wald