Education Helps Her Increase Awareness
Thursday, July 5, 2007
By: Melissa Olivadoti

Reprinted from FMOnline

I was diagnosed with primary juvenile FM at 18—and that’s when I started my pledge to be active and be aware. While in college, I was determined to learn more through research and increase the knowledge base of FM through my honors thesis.

Later I became a research assistant with the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center at the University of Michigan, where I met researchers who have dedicated their careers to helping patients like me learn more about their condition. After many talks with those at the center, I realized that, while I had a condition that would give me good and bad days, I could still maximize the good and minimize the bad while striving toward my goals.

I was empowered and encouraged to seek my Ph.D. degree in neuroscience despite challenges my body would face. I made myself a promise to respect my body, but not let it stop me from my goals.

With a good nutritional and activity program, I have been able to surmount the hurdles of graduate life while feeling the personal triumph of being in a small community that faces more challenges than most would care to have, and many will never know.