Humans of ME/CFS

I can’t say I had an easy, stress-free childhood, but I knew I was loved. I was an only child at home with older parents. Mom had bad heart condition, and Dad was an alcoholic.

My mom died while I was still a teen. She was my world.

I managed to have a pretty normal life. Married and raised four beautiful kids.

Kids where grown. I came through a horrible divorce and some crazy relationships.

I was under a lot of stress, newly remarried. I was working a stressful job and living with my new husband and his teens, who were raised very differently than I raised my babies.

I was 50 years old when I found out I had fibromyalgia. Always waking up in pain.

A couple of years later, I caught the flu. I couldn’t get out of bed. I went downhill pretty fast from then on. Went to part-time work to no work. Went from going to parties, card games and lunches with friends to staying in bed. Hurting all over my body, especially my neck. And completely, utterly exhausted. I said to my doctor, I think I have CFS. He said Oh yes. And perhaps MS. Well, the MS never came, thankfully, but I was completely bedbound for three years.

When I found a pain doctor and also received some cortef for the exhaustion. It changed my life. I was out of bed to do miner chores.

I do not get any help from anyone around here. No one believes in CFS. But I do get help from my pain doctor for the fibromyalgia. She is about to retire, and I am so scared. What am I going to do without the help of pain pills and cortef? I can get out of bed with those. I can’t do a lot of things still, but I don’t want to go backwards. Here in Oregon, they have made pain medicine sound like it is evil. I know it saved my life. I would have ended my life if I would have had to go forever with that pain. I was becoming so extremely depressed and at the end of my rope. When I found my pain specialist and I read as much as I can and found out through the Solve ME/CFS Initiative and other groups that I am not alone, I feel less afraid.

I am 62 now. My husband still does much of the work and shopping. Sometimes I can go do a little bit of shopping, but I usually pay for it by being in bed for days afterwards.