This last week I had the pleasure of interviewing one of our members, Nancy Boicourt. Nancy has been a member of the group since its inception three and a half years ago. During that time I have seen her almost completely disabled, and more recently I see her thriving. That is what caused me to want to interview her.

I want to preface this interview with letting you know that we discussed a lot about God, Jesus, and the power of Faith. If this is a subject that you are uncomfortable with, you might want to stop reading now. I will say that I suffered religious abuse in the past and have done a lot in the last couple of years to heal from that. This conversation with Nancy aided that healing process for me.

Nancy wanted to be very clear that this is her path to healing, and she does not expect that it is everyone's path; and she absolutely doesn't want to push her ideas on anyone else. However, her message is one of such miracles and hope that I felt it was worth sharing.

A little background...

Nancy will be 44 years old on June 1st. She is married to a wonderfully supportive man and has two daughters - one still living at home (in high school) and one who is married and lives in Idaho with children of her own. Nancy lives in Hillsboro, Oregon.

It was about 16 years ago, right after the birth of her youngest daughter, that Nancy first became ill with fibromyalgia. It was the birth that triggered the fibro for her. While she was never diagnosed with ME/CFS, it was strongly suspected that she also had that condition.

About 7 years ago, Nancy was able bodied, but having lots of symptoms of fibromyalgia although it hadn't been diagnosed yet. Working as an interior designer and artist, Nancy was painting murals on her church walls. As she worked with the paints and chemicals, she became more and more ill with ever- increasing pain levels. She now understands that it was MCS (multiple chemical sensitivities) that were causing her body to react to the chemicals in the paint.

Shortly after this, her dad died, which sent her into a deep depression and grieving that further eroded her health. This is when the fibromyalgia was finally diagnosed.

A further assault on her physical condition was when a drunk driver hit the car she and her husband were traveling in. This caused Nancy's condition to seriously worsen for the next two years. 

She began to see a naturopath and, just as she was finally feeling a bit better, she was the passenger in a car that was again in an accident, seriously sending her health south once more.

At her worst, about a year ago, Nancy was on 26 medications! She had collected so many diagnoses that they literally filled an 8.5 x 11-inch paper, and she was doing very poorly.