I have suffered from CFS for nearly eight years. I was in my early 50s, with a successful career in IT and a rewarding life. That all changed after a bout of what I thought was the flu \u2013 I was left with constant headaches, fatigue, balance problems and brain fog. I went from a classic Type A, always on the go from early morning to late night, seven days a week, to barely being able to get up and shower in the mornings, laying down most of the day and, for the first time since childhood, taking naps during the day. It took me years to try to accept that I was seriously ill and unlikely to get better. I still do not completely accept it today.<\/p>\n
I became depressed after we lost everything we had worked for all our lives. When I hit bottom, I was watching Stephen King\u2019s \u201cThe Shawshank Redemption\u201d and a line I\u2019d heard and read many times before spoke to me with new meaning: \u201cI guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying.\u201d I realized that while my previous life might be over, I still had the rest of my life to live, if I chose to get busy living. Over the next three years, I wrote two novels dealing with a fictional character whom I put through the same hell of CFS that I\u2019d gone through. While my books were published, they certainly aren\u2019t best sellers. However, I discovered the important thing was that writing the novels had helped me through my own darkness and, like the hero of my books, I was beginning to come to terms with my illness and the severe limitations it has placed on my life.<\/p>\n
Today, I am able to function on a limited basis if I manage my daily activities. I have good days and bad days and when I forget that I can\u2019t do everything I used to do, I have a number of bad days in a row. Unlike some CFS sufferers, I am surrounded by a loving spouse and family, who understand my illness (often better than I do) and give me tremendous support. That said, there\u2019s not a day goes by that I don\u2019t miss my old life. I try to remind myself every day that I\u2019m more fortunate than many CFS sufferers \u2013 most days I\u2019m able to shower and do limited chores around the house. But that\u2019s cold comfort. I still find myself occasionally wishing I had a \u201creal disease\u201d. It\u2019s not that I want to die or be worse off than I am. It\u2019s just the old \u201cbut you don\u2019t look sick\u201d attitude that becomes so exhausting. Ultimately, I view my CFS as another challenge to be faced. When I get overwhelmed, I try to remember another quote: \u201cI know God won’t give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish he didn’t trust me so much.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Humans of ME\/CFS I have suffered from CFS for nearly eight years. I was in my early 50s, with a successful career in IT and a rewarding life. That all changed after a bout of what I thought was the flu \u2013 I was left with constant headaches, fatigue, balance problems and brain fog. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":610,"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\/james_j.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628"}],"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=628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}