Eric had ME for 20 years (diagnosed as CFS because doctors did not know better). He died at 46. He had almost no life that was normal in those 20 years, as he could not work or socialize and was mostly housebound. He was a kind, thoughtful, very funny, highly intelligent man who had been a machinist, an occupation that was almost a calling to him. He wanted nothing more than to be well and be able to work again and have a pre-ME life.<\/p>\n
Eric had severe gut problems, pathological fatigue, post-exertional crashes, sleep problems, cardiac irregularities; sensitivities to heat, cold, light, noise, and chemical smells; plus other symptoms. His life was a living hell.<\/p>\n
Here is an excerpt of something Eric wrote for The CFIDS (now Solve ME\/CFS Initiative) Chronicle in 2008. He found some solace in becoming very good at ham radio.<\/p>\n
\u201cTravel the world without leaving home for $50 or less! By Eric M.<\/p>\n
\u201cHome bound, couch bound, and possibly even if you\u2019re largely bed ridden, if you\u2019re able to hold a conversation you can talk to people from around the world. These are nice people, many of whom are also disabled who are looking to chat with you. OK, so what the heck am I talking about? Well, it\u2019s most often referred to as amateur radio. Yes, I know that reading may be hard for you and therefore you need to choose your material carefully, but you may really be able to benefit from this and I\u2019ll try to keep it short. Plus you\u2019ll really be surprised like I was.<\/p>\n
\u201cOK, if you are still with me I\u2019ll hit you with the biggest surprise right now-YOU DON\u201dT NEED A RADIO! If you have a computer, almost any computer, you can talk, not type, to people all over the country and the world using an inexpensive headset that plugs into the USB port on the computer. It\u2019s free and it\u2019s called Echolink and it has lists of all the states, including the different places in those states, and lots of countries that you can choose to talk to. You can learn about it at http:\/\/echolink.org\/ but it\u2019s only available to \u201cham\u201d radio operators. Bummer, huh? Well maybe not.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe truth of the matter is that it\u2019s much easier to get an amateur radio license today than it used to be. There is even an entire organization called handi-hams whose sole purpose is to help disabled people get their licenses; check out http:\/\/handiham.org\/. The Technician Class, which is today\u2019s entry level class, requires no knowledge of Morse code at all and only the completion of a single 35 multiple choice question test of which you only need 26 questions to be correct to pass.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is an old amateur radio saying that says \u201cThere is no such thing as a fellow ham who\u2019s a stranger. He or she is simply a friend you haven\u2019t met yet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Humans of ME\/CFS Eric had ME for 20 years (diagnosed as CFS because doctors did not know better). He died at 46. He had almost no life that was normal in those 20 years, as he could not work or socialize and was mostly housebound. He was a kind, thoughtful, very funny, highly intelligent man […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":252,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/eric.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}