Fibromyalgia.

It’s a tough word to pronounce and it’s a tough medical condition to deal with.

The Mayo Clinic describes fibromyalgia (FM) as a chronic condition characterized by widespread pain in the muscles, ligaments and tendons as well as fatigue and multiple tender points on the body.

A person with FM suffers from sleep disturbances, headaches and heightened sensitivity to touch, noise and light.

Now throw in the fact that you are an athlete that competes in two demanding sports while suffering from FM — oh, and you were diagnosed with breast cancer.

Lompoc High School’s Paty Martinez has had one heck of a year. The senior has excelled in tennis as the school’s number one singles player for three years and has been an outstanding second baseman on the Braves’ softball team for all four of her years at Lompoc.

She has dealt with FM for awhile and during the 2007 tennis season, she found a lump during a routine breast self-exam.

Advertisement

“I felt a lump, so we went to the doctor and found out it was a form of breast cancer,” Martinez explained during a break in a tennis match last week. “So we planned the surgery, but we found it so soon the doctor said we were OK.”

Martinez did not have to undergo any chemotherapy or radiation because they had found the lump in its infancy and the surgeon was able to remove it all.

“When we found out — she was in surgery three weeks later,” said her mother Magdalena Bryant. “So I didn’t have time to really react.”

Bryant, known to everybody as “Nana,” said that she was shocked and scared, knowing that cancer does run in her family.

When she found out, “Being a parent, of course I cried — I didn’t want to lose her,” Bryant said. “That’s the first thing you think of, ‘Oh my God, she’s going to die,’ but once we started going to the doctor, he said we had caught it in time.”

Terrible thoughts crossed Martinez’s mind at first as well.

“I was scared that it already spread, and we couldn’t be able to do anything about it,” she said.

Martinez went through the process basically alone with her family at first.

“I didn’t want to tell anyone because I didn’t want the pity and have everybody asking me all of the time how I was,” she explained. “I kept it to myself until the Relay For Life (in May). That’s when everybody found out.”

Right after the surgery last season, Martinez did tell her tennis teammates.

“Last year when she had the surgery, she told the girls and they rallied around her and that helped,” said Lompoc tennis coach Loretta Jensen.

The cancer crisis seems to be over for now but there is always a chance for it to re-occur, which is why Martinez visits her doctor quite often.

“We will have a biopsy on the lumps on my back periodically to check for the return of cancer or for a cyst, but right now things are clear,” she explained.

The lumps are part of her more on-going condition with the FM. And while the symptoms do slow her down, she will not let them stop her.

“I just can’t stay home, stay in my bed and feel sorry for myself,” Martinez said. “So I’m always out here, keeping myself entertained and keeping up with school.

“I love sports — it keeps me in shape — and I think that is what helps me keep going and it keeps me healthier.”

Exercise, proper diet and plenty of sleep all help alleviate her discomfort and even with a sunny personality and easy going manner, Martinez still goes through bouts of depression and pain.

“That’s the part that nobody sees,” explained her mother. “When we get home we are rubbing her muscles, she’s laying there and she’s hurting.

“She gets to the point where she wakes up at night crying because she hurts so bad. But she always has a positive attitude — she is a lot stronger than me.”

Jensen has been able to deal with Martinez and her situation.

“I can always tell when she comes out to practice how she’s feeling by her movement and if she starts yawning,” Jensen said. “But she surprises me — Paty got some big wins that really moved us up in the standings.

“She’s a darn good athlete, and she’s one of the top players on this team.”

She surprises her mother as well. Bryant suffers from anemia, which Martinez must deal with as well.

“She gets tired a lot,” Bryant said. “But she manages to get up every day and go.”

Martinez does have to go through a lot to keep playing, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I have to make sure I take a lot of vitamins and my iron pills to keep me going during the day,” Martinez said. “I take energy drinks and a lot of Starbucks — I’m not supposed to, but I’m a kid and I forget.”

Martinez loved softball — a sport she has played since she was four years old and hope to keep playing in college.

“I just like to get dirty,” she said. “I hate coming out of a game clean.”

FM is a condition that will never go away, but with a proper health regimen and great support from her mom, her father Jeff, 10-year old sister Isabelle, friends, teammates and coaches, Paty Martinez will do just fine.

November 9, 2008