Imagine this….. waking up and feeling so exhausted you can’t possibly have slept, it takes every fibre of your being just to swing your legs round to sit on the edge of the bed, you stand and your legs feel like lead, your kids ask for cornflakes for breakfast but they may as well asked you to perform a mathematical miracle because your brain just doesn’t compute and every sound they make is amplified x 100.
There are an estimated 150,000 people in this country alone who wake up with these very real symptoms everyday. Doesn’t sound much fun does it? And these are only a few of the symptoms!
You got lazy lately, I wish I could just sit around all day, your no fun anymore, why don’t you want to come out you never come out anymore, you just sit at home claiming benefits so you don’t have to work. Oh how I wish these were actually true! All of which have been said to me in the last 8 years and that’s because people are uneducated and ignorant to the truth so I am here to share with you my very personal story of how my M.E started and the journey it has taken.
My name is Kate I was 25 and ironically working as a carer ironic because it wouldn’t be to long before I would need to be cared for myself. I was working hard and looking after my two wonderful girls one of which has learning difficulties and traits of autism, so life was busy and I was an active person I loved doing charity walks and just being social.
Then one day I felt unwell just under the weather nothing to bad so I carried on, days later I was feeling worse so I reluctantly went to see the Dr, I was told I had a virus, go home and rest and that was it in fact unbelievably this happened on a fortnightly basis for the next year! .
My symptoms got worse I was feeling flu like no energy at all, exhausted like I had just ran a marathon but I couldn’t shake it, I developed IBS, I was aching all over, severe headaches, short term memory loss and poor concentration. It was taking over my life, my children were now suffering because I was forgetting appointments and working was near to impossible, I had had enough.
I was back sitting in front of the Dr only this time I wasn’t moving until I got the answers I so desperately needed . That’s when my world crumbled, the beginning of the end and the beginning of a new life I wasn’t prepared for. I was diagnosed with M.E there was no treatment and as I had had it for so long it was probable it wasn’t going to go.
So no, I wasn’t being lazy I have an actual illness but unfortunately you can’t see it and this is why people were and are so quick to judge.
And that is where I leave it for now because M.E is exhausting and I am unable to concentrate for very long.
Thanks for reading part 1
Kate
