In 1993, while working as a child investigator in upstate\u00a0New York<\/strong>, I was rear-ended in my car while sitting at a traffic light. My front seat snapped off.\u00a0 I hit my knees on the dashboard, suffered a concussion, and whiplash. I expected a week or so of recovery, but never fully recovered and since then have never held a\u00a0full-time<\/strong>\u00a0job.\u00a0 I have been on permanent partial disability ever since. It took me 6 years to get a diagnosis.\u00a0I heard about a doctor in Maryland (well-known in this community) and sought him out, driving hundreds of miles to see him.<\/strong>\u00a0I was so desperate for an explanation. I was diagnosed with CFS and fibromyalgia.\u00a0 Previously, I had never been sick, was extremely active, raised\u00a0six children,<\/strong>\u00a0and always worked full time.<\/p>\n Fatigue has been my worst enemy. It feels like I am coming awake through pea soup\u00a0each morning<\/strong>\u00a0and takes me two hours to get moving. My metabolism has changed and I gain and lose weight unexpectedly.\u00a0All my joints ache and for many years, I had dreadful migraine headaches. Now, I just have a chronic everyday headache. I have serious gastrointestinal problems (IBS and GERD);\u00a0<\/strong>I am on medication and have been hospitalized for both conditions over the years. I also have\u00a0pre-existing allergies and sinus problems<\/strong>\u00a0which have worsened since then.<\/p>\n My condition is truly systemic.\u00a0 I have worked many jobs over the years, but have been unable to do anything administratively full time and have lost many thousands of dollars since being diagnosed. I had just remarried when I received this diagnosis and along with me being ill all these years, my new spouse had prostate problems that developed into cancer.\u00a0He had a triple bi-pass and a valve resection, diabetes, and progressing frontal lobe dementia from an auto accident that occurred 2 years before we married. There were numerous surgeries and illnesses during a 20-year period.<\/strong>\u00a0 I had been his caretaker for many years. My husband passed away 3 years ago.\u00a0 It seems, as I am advancing in age, my symptoms have worsened or I just cannot \u201cmanage\u201d them as well as I once used to.\u00a0I have had more hospitalizations. I am on more meds and more fatigued.<\/strong><\/p>\n I have almost completed a ‘book’ about\u00a0caring<\/strong>\u00a0for my husband, explaining how important it is to have support from others. I had little to none. In the book, I do talk about my diagnosis and refer to its strain on my ability to\u00a0\u201cbe a caregiver,\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0but it is not the focus of the story. I have somewhat downplayed it so as not to detract or distract the reader from the real story. Right now, I am reconsidering adding to it, as it is a good opportunity to bring\u00a0CFS<\/strong>\u00a0to the attention of those\u00a0who<\/strong>\u00a0might read it. The title will be \u201cSpaghetti with Raisins\u201d and it should be out in the\u00a0spring<\/strong>\u00a0of 2016. Thank you for this opportunity – it is healing!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Humans of ME\/CFS In 1993, while working as a child investigator in upstate\u00a0New York, I was rear-ended in my car while sitting at a traffic light. My front seat snapped off.\u00a0 I hit my knees on the dashboard, suffered a concussion, and whiplash. I expected a week or so of recovery, but never fully recovered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":478,"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\/ruth_a.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485"}],"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=485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}