For The Second Year In A Row ......

The Fibro Frog was selected by Healthline.com as one of the best fibromyalgia blogs on the web for 2013!! I was honored last year to be included in their 21 best fibromyalgia blogs of 2012  ....and this year the bar was raised by only publishing the "16 Best Fibromyalgia Blogs Of 2013" instead of 21.  Also, most of the blogs that made the cut are authored by either Nationally known authors, published book authors, or both!  So for the few of us that doesn't fit into that catagory, it's a hugggeeee honor!  You can access the slideshow, by clicking the link above.  The email that Healthline sent me said that the blogs are not listed in any particular order within the slideshow.  That if someone is on slide 2 it doesn't mean that they thought it was the second best blog ...or if the blog is listed last, it doesn't mean that they think it's the "worst" of the 16.
For those of you that aren't familiar with Healthline, they started out in 1999, known as YourDoctor.com. The site was relaunched in 2005, as Healthline Networks. Healthline allows people to search and learn about health information on the web, and even has a symptom search and a provider search feature. It's used by publishers, advertisers, and health plans. Websites such as Yahoo Health use Healthline.com as their provider for members to use to search and learn about different conditions. As of February 2010, Healthline.com was the third most popular health site, falling behind WebMD and Everyday Health. They receive over 4.2 million monthly unique visitors, and have over 17 million pageviews per month!! Wow! Just think of the reach we're getting, to help bring awareness of Fibromyalgia to the public!! Last year, I sat in awe, trying to figure out how Healthline had even heard about and/or found The Fibro Frog, let alone that they'd included The Fibro Frog in their slideshow. This year, I still sit in awe, that The Fibro Frog would once again make the cut to be included. I'm not a Nationally known author. I've never published a book. I'm not someone famous. I'm just a person, ...a woman sitting at home at a small desk stuffed into the corner of her dining room, that's pissed off about being in pain every day of life, and has typed/backspaced/typed/backspaced/typed again about 14 or 15 times now already in this one post due to fibro fog not allowing her to get the words out of her head the way she wants. I'm just someone who is mad that a lot of health care workers, researchers, pharmaceutical companies, politicians, corporate big shots, and the general public aren't well enough educated on the real-life seriousness of Fibromyalgia. You have some doctors telling you it's all in your head (Oh, don't get me started on that rant tonight! -There's research and brain MRI's and lots of stuff that proves it isn't in our heads! You're a doctor, DO YOUR RESEARCH!!). You have private individuals that donate for private research that think it's all in our heads, or that it doesn't effect our quality of life enough to promote further research for a cure or a treatment plan. You have corporate big shots and bosses and unit managers that don't believe in it or care enough to help work with their employees to build accommodations within the workplace. You'd think that would be a top priority for corporate. It would help them retain employees and stop turn-over rates, and help them to get the most production out of their employees. That's mutually beneficial to both the company and the employee. I could certainly keep dragging this out, but I'm not telling most of you anything that you don't already know. That is who I am though. Just someone who's passionate about educating anyone and everyone that they possibly can, about the real life ramifications of living with Fibromyalgia and other chronic pain conditions. Hoping for change. Those of you who have been around The Fibro Frog for awhile, know that my motto is all about education. Without education, people won't truly know. If they don't know, they certainly can't understand or relate. If they don't really understand or relate, then we'll never have change. If we don't have change, we won't have more research in the area. If we don't have research, then we'll never have a cure, or a concrete universal treatment plan that works. I may sit here in pain, ...real, debilitating pain, every day for the rest of my life. What I won't do though, is sit here in pain every day for the rest of my life without doing every single thing I possibly can to help create change. I won't stop hoping for everyone ok, let's be realistic here, most everyone, to understand, and for a cure to be found. I won't stop hoping, that when I tell someone I have Fibromyalgia, that won't be met with "Oh really? So-and-so has it and they do just fine". Yeah, some people are lucky. To some people with Fibromyalgia, it may be nothing more than a slight annoyance. To others though, it can be completely debilitating and life-altering as the way they knew it before Fibromyalgia. Just like with the flu. Some may get it bad, and others may have a lighter case of it. I want to thank every single one of my readers. Without you, I may have given up more than one time on writing this blog. Heck, I think I may have given up on my hope more than one time. Without all of you, I wouldn't even be considered for things like the slideshow, 16 Best Fibromyalgia Blogs of 2013. If you're new to The Fibro Frog, coming from the Healthline slideshow, I'd like to welcome you! To see what all I've overcome despite and because of Fibromyalgia, take a look back to the very beginning of this blog, and read it through. Also, we have a huge facebook fan page that's still growing every day, that I'd like to invite you all to. We're all like one family over there, lending support to one another. You'll find us at Facebook.com/TheFibroFrog

Gentle Butterfly Hugs,
Amy