ME\/CFS has totally changed my life. Previously, I was fit and very active. In my teens, I was a dancer and singer before marrying and having three children in quick succession. I was used to doing regular exercise and running as well as managing three teenagers, three dogs, two cats, and my husband. I was also active in church life and was about to start a fitness class for the ladies at the church. Then I caught a virus.<\/p>\n
I could barely move. I struggled to get back to normal. I\u2019d always been very independent, but a relapse stopped that. Now I couldn\u2019t do anything I used to do. Even walking, I appeared drunk. Gradually, I found that being upright was difficult. My head felt like a cannonball, so hard to hold up.<\/p>\n
I began to find thinking difficult, concentration impossible. Anything I read meant little or nothing and was soon forgotten. Watching quiz shows on tv became impossible because by the end of a question I\u2019d already forgotten the start of it. Yet only a few years earlier I\u2019d taught myself navigation from a library book and safely navigated us on a holiday to the Channel Islands! My already difficult marriage had ended and my new partner eventually found my increasing mood swings and lack of energy to do anything difficult to cope with and left.<\/p>\n
Since then I\u2019ve lived alone, becoming more and more of a recluse, only seeing a doctor when absolutely necessary, and rarely going anywhere else. Day-to-day it\u2019s like being on a planet with far too much gravity and little oxygen. I struggle to breathe, to move, to think. I live on the internet which is where I now have friends and contacts. I read books I know I\u2019ve read before, but have absolutely no memory of. Which saves buying new ones. Always the silver lining.<\/p>\n
To most people, it wouldn\u2019t seem to be much of a life: stuck indoors, alone, and unable to even keep the place tidy or clean. It doesn\u2019t seem much of a life to me either. But, you get used to it over time. And I\u2019ve had time. It was August 1985 when I first became ill. I\u2019ve had over thirty years of watching all I was and all I knew disappear. I can\u2019t walk far. I certainly can\u2019t dance. And singing? Even talking is exhausting. But I don\u2019t feel sorry for myself, not often anyway. I know there are others worse than me, who are tube-fed in bed with no tolerance for light or noise.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been taking supplements for years and my brain is somewhat improved now. But energy gets less and less, every action takes days or weeks to recover from. I\u2019m still alive, if not kicking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Humans of ME\/CFS ME\/CFS has totally changed my life. Previously, I was fit and very active. In my teens, I was a dancer and singer before marrying and having three children in quick succession. I was used to doing regular exercise and running as well as managing three teenagers, three dogs, two cats, and my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":718,"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\/christine_s.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726"}],"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=726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}