I DID IT!!!!!!!

 

Back from China and my god what a challenging experience! It has to be the hardest thing I have ever done in my life and testing me physically and mentally.

Thank you to everyone for you kind donations. xxx

Thank you to Mrs Tinson for your kind donation.

 

 

Thank you for visiting my page............ This is my story.........

Hi my name is Elaine and I am a 46 year old mum of two children. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and ME in 2000 and more recently with Osteo.  Arthritis.

I first became unwell after my baby daughter was still born in 1993. The emotional pain of it all affected me badly and I became unwell rapidly. Fatigue and pain ravaged my body until I had two mild Trans Iscemic attacks in 1994 and then again in 1996. I still didn’t realise how unwell I had become and I fought against the symptoms in an attempt to lead what I thought was a normal life. In 1999 I had my final wake up call when I collapsed at work with a suspected heart attack. It was clear that my body was giving me a strong warning signal. I was far too stressed and it was time to listen to my body and stop ignoring my symptoms. Seven months of total bed rest followed and this had to be for me such a devastating blow to my life as I knew it.

My battle has been long and slow, over these last 16 years and my life has changed for the better. I have adapted how I do things and looked at ways to manage my condition to the best of my ability.

I attended a 6 week self management workshop which signalled the changes I was to make in my life during these years. I learnt new techniques to distract myself away from the chronic pain and fatigue I experienced. I set myself weekly goals and started very slowly to do a little exercise each week. I even learnt that I needed to relax more and give my body that air of peacefulness it fully deserved.

The workshop I attended is lead by volunteers who like me have arthritis or another long term painful condition and they knew exactly how I was felt, this was such a relief. I cannot express enough how much this workshop helped me regain my confidence and self belief. I started to believe that I could control my pain and not let the pain control me. It felt like I had actually won the lottery……not enough to change my life forever but it made a huge difference!!

I was so inspired by the volunteers who had taught me on the workshop that I decided to become a volunteer myself. I left work as I felt a draw to volunteer for Arthritis Care. After volunteering for a while, a vacancy to work for Arthritis Care came up and now I work as a Training Services Supervisor. I work 7 hours a week organising and running our two week Challenging Pain Workshops and many other arthritis awareness events and workshops.

As a Charity we rely on funding to run our workshops in the South of England and I feel passionate about the way people benefit from the workshops. I believe they can offer help on the road to a better way to live with chronic pain.

I want to give something back to Arthritis Care because it has given me a better quality of life. So I have set myself a rather challenging goal. I am going to walk the from the 11^th to 19^th September 2010. I want to raise at least £3,000 for our workshops in .

I have had great support from Andrew Parsons at South Dartmoor Leisure Centre in Ivybridge who is in charge of getting me fit enough to undertake this challenge. I started training on the 19 October 2009 and I now go to the gym three times a week and have regular updates with Andrew. I have a huge balance problem and have had several serious falls, so this is a really a big challenge for me! Yes, the fatigue is a problem but I have paced myself and gradually built up my endurance levels every week. I also have to lose weight as a lack of exercise and my medication have meant that I have put on 2 stones. I have already lost one stone since starting my new regime through changing my eating habits and extra gym sessions. I really am determined to prove to myself that I can reach my goal.

I have so many people supporting me, especially my two lovely children who are behind me 100%. I want them to be proud of their mum. They know I have faced many challenges in my life; this will be one of the biggest.

There are a few training videos to see how I am progressing towards my fitness to achieve this goal. Please have a look on www.youtube.com/user/elainecurno.

 

LUV Elaine :-)