YouTube keeps insisting on saying I'm 43. I'm actually 39, but whatever. I guess I look good for 43, then.

I'm happily married, and live in northern California, about 12 miles from the ocean.

My husband and I met while surfing in Santa Cruz ten years ago. We're longboarders.

We're both ocean people... some folks just have a love affair with the ocean. There are those that like to look at the ocean, and those that like to be in the ocean. We both just love being in the water, and our son seems to have salt water in his veins as well. He just loves being in the ocean. At age six, he's already turning out to be a surprisingly good little surfer. He's 39 pounds of fearless dynamite out there, charging waves, getting tumbled in the surf, cut by the fin of his board, and, yet, still, climbing back on his board time and time again. He's definitely caught the surfing bug.

(And, no, we didn't force the sport on him just because we like to surf. The only thing we insisted he do is learn how to swim. Other than that, we let him try whatever sports he wanted. So, he tried various sports camps and league teams, playing soccer, basketball, baseball, and doing martial ends. In the end, he announced that while those other things were fun, he wanted to be in the ocean.)

Our brother-in-law, Lawrence, nicknamed us the "surfercouple" when we got engaged. The name stuck, so we got the domain rights, and use it for our family website, (surfercouple.com.)

A friend from church once said to me: "If you didn't have fibromyalgia, you'd be leading a perfect life."

He's right. I lead an awesome life, and I'm very, very fortunate. I adore my husband, my son, and the life we lead together. I like the town we live in, the school my son attends, and our circle of friends.

The only thing that has ever thrown a wrench in the whole works is having fibromyalgia.

Fibromyalgia sucks. There's no other way to put it. I didn't know I had the disease until after my pregnancy, but I'd had signs of it for many years. Migraines. Back pains. Severe "growing pains" at times in my childhood. (It shouldn't hurt to grow.)

Yes, it was the pregnancy that truly forced me to face the reality that something was wrong with me. It wasn't just "headaches." Wasn't just "sore muscles." Wasn't just "stress." Something was WRONG. I just didn't know what.

Unfortunately, neither did any of the doctors. This was six years ago, and neither my GP, my OB-GYN, my neurologist, or my chiropractor knew anything about fibromyalgia. if they did, it sure would have saved me from plunging into some of the worst years of my life. But, every one of them missed the classic warning symptoms...

Severe fatigue. Headaches. Back pain. IBS. Bloating. Fluid retention. Malaise. Pain that is cyclical, and moves around to different areas of the body. Difficulty sleeping. Difficulty waking. Non-restorative sleep. Stiff muscles, particularly in the upper back, neck and shoulders area.

The symptoms didn't go away after my son was born. They continued to get worse and worse.

The number one cause of death for people with fibromyalgia is suicide. It is a reality you can only understand if you have the disease, or live with someone who does.

Thanks to networking with others online, my health is vastly improved from what it was four years ago. Some days, I am almost symptom-free. (Almost.)

Each of us that gets well, has an obligation to help others get well. So, I am sharing what I have learned. Good luck to you on your journey. - Diana