It was the 1980s, fibromyalgia was relatively unknown, and Chris was in her first marriage when she was diagnosed. “At that point in time, I was a stay-at-home mom. I had a toddler and a baby, and I babysat at home. It was a very stressful time.”
Her husband’s company was sold requiring him to take a large pay cut. On top of that, their daughter, the baby, was very ill with asthma and breathing problems. “My husband didn’t handle that very well. She was my full responsibility. It just became a very stressful situation for me. It was like it was my fault she was sick. Then I got very very sick with the flu.”
Despite her illness, her husband continued to work every day. Chris was expected to care for the two little ones. “I kept going and going and going. I ended up with viral meningitis.”
After that, Chris never seemed to stop aching and the headaches wouldn’t go away. “I went to a doctor in Farmington
Chris was too busy to pay much attention to this diagnosis. “You don’t have time to take care of yourself, so you just keep going.”
She kept going for five years. During this time, her husband even accompanied her to the doctor, but he never believed anything was wrong with Chris because she kept going.
For five years, Chris ran on autopilot. Her husband eventually changed jobs, but he hurt his back and had to have surgery. Chris had to pick up some of the slack and work too. “So for five years he would go to work. He would come home, and I would go to work. We had one vehicle, and that became hard because my daughter just wanted nothing to do with him. He hadn’t helped when she was a baby. She didn’t like staying with him. Looking back, I really don’t remember a lot of it.”
January 2, 1989 gave Chris a reason to start piloting her life again. “I had talked to him about getting counseling, trying to make the marriage work, but he decided domestic violence was the way to go and put me in the hospital. I never turned around and looked back.”
I asked Chris who had called the ambulance? “He (husband) finally did about two and a half hours later, after I couldn’t move. The kids were in the house but it was 2 o’clock in the morning.”
No charges were filed, “because back then it was different and his mother had the kids. We lived next door to his parents.”
Most of the damage occurred to Chris’s right side. At first the doctors thought her husband might have ruptured her kidneys. Because the right side was injured so badly, she still has problems with that side of her body to this day.
Chris worried constantly about her children and left the hospital as soon as she could. “His (husband’s) mother had the kids. I wanted to just get home and get my kids. I wanted to get my kids away from him.”
Once Chris was discharged, her parents took her to their house and then they retrieved the children. “That’s when I called the lawyer, and she came to my mom and dad’s house. We filed the order of protection, and then I filed for divorce. I was still under 24-hour care even after I left the hospital.”
Chris spent a month healing before returning to work. Although she still wasn’t ready, she had to keep going. “I had to take care of my kids. I made it through that. I got a full time job.”
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