This is the story of how three blogs came to be. After years of navigating health, tech, and life’s unpredictable moments, I created these spaces to explore creativity, digital interests, and the occasional off-topic thought. Welcome to the world of Creative Fibro!

I had my first symptoms of Fibromyalgia in the later half of 2015 and was diagnosed in 2016. Before this I had only heard of one other person with the condition. In the early days I was looking for information from both experts and others who had experience of living with it. A lot of the medical information was very vague and I found a small group of people talking about it.

As I have always enjoyed writing I thought this would be a great reason to start a blog. As other (out of the house) hobbies fell away, my enjoyment of creative crafts became more important. This was the beginning of Living Creatively with Fibro.

Creative Fibro’s Digital World stemmed from my love of gadgets, apps and all things tech. There are many tech bloggers out there, but they don’t all have the experience of living with a chronic illness and the brain fog this can bring about. So I decided to start talking about tech to the people like me.

Then there was those subjects that popped into my mind that I wanted to talk about. They didn’t really fit anywhere else, so Creative Fibro Off Topic was born. Because, well, the name is on the tin!

This blog is focussed around these two key topics. The categories you will find are: Fibromyalgia, Fibro alongside (other conditions), Spoonie Lifestyle, Creativity, Cardmaking, Adult Colouring, Diamond Painting and Organisation.

This tech based blog has the Categories: Tech, Apps, Websites, Productivity, Digital Organisation, PKM, Genealogy, Blogging and Content Creation. All these online activities are written from the perspective of someone living with a chronic illness.

Although Off Topic is for spontaneous thoughts, alongside the practical Uncategorised category, there are loose Categories of Sport, (mild) Politics, Personality, and Life.

I am here to show you how you can not just survive but thrive when living with Fibromyalgia.

Fibromyalgia may eat away at my body, but I refuse to give it my mind!

I have been happily married to Michael, who is the most supporting husband someone with a chronic illness could want, since 2015. Horrible timing right. In 2015 I went through a promotion at a job I loved, marriage to my soul mate, to developing Fibromyalgia which over a couple of years killed our dream of children. But we make the best of things and enjoy what we can.

I did my BA (Hons.) in Arts Education where I studied: The History of Education, Drama and Cultural studies. I then did a Primary PGCE and spent a while as a supply teacher. Next I became a civil servant and worked my way up to the job I loved, helping people back into the work place and giving them the skills they needed to succeed, still teaching, but for adults.

Away from the work place I was a member of a church choir and had performed in the parish stage group productions since I was seven. Not to mention revisiting childhood tap dance lessons in my early 40s! The love of performance that led me to study for the Arts Education Degree. I also designed and ran a community genealogy website, which I handed over to my capable assistant when as my job developed.

I was always busy, but scarcely ever in a stressful way, I just embraced all that life could throw at me.

Now I spend time on my hobbies when I am well enough, I spend 90% of my life in pyjamas and when I do go out, maybe every couple of months – trust me a trip to a supermarket is exciting these days – I wear clothes as soft as pyjamas. As for a social life, Do you remember Michael J Fox’s character in The American President? Well that’s me these days, consider every plan as provisional until you hear from me. I’ll know when the Fibro tells me where we’re at.

I hope to get to know you on social media. Visit the home page to choose which of the blogs you’d like to visit. Or maybe check out them all. Happy reading.