On the outside, our family appears quite regular...a Mom, and her 5 children. Looks are deceiving. about 6 months after Fallon was diagnosed with CFS, I asked her specialist to look at one of my other daughters; 13 yr old Dakota Skye.

For quite some time, Dakota had complained of soreness, and always being tired, in fact every morning, she would awaken with the same statement "I never got to sleep"

After an extremely bad bout of flu in the Fall of 2002, one that affected every person in the household, Dakota never seemed to recover. I recall, so many times going to our family MD, or walk-in clinics, and asking them why she couldn't shake the flu. Do something....anything.

After useless antibiotics... "just in case", it seemed we were going in circles. After Fallon was diagnosed and I was going over paper after paper from the Doctors on CFS, did it occur to me, that Dakota fit so many of the criteria. I thought there was no way that 2 children from the same family could have the same non-contagious condition.

I had promised Dakota that the specialist would do nothing painful to her, I was wrong...she was in tears after the pressure point test, and Dakota was torn between sobbing and voicing her anger with me for lying to her. I didn't really realize the amount of pain she was in until then.

At age 13 Dakota was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia.

It is very hard to see your child in pain, or crying in exhaustion though they slept all night.....

As I write this, another daughter is getting on the lengthy list for testing.....

For children afflicted with CFS, or FM, their world revolves around pain, exhaustion, school and home life, specialists, treatments, and medications.........and your world revolves around theirs.