M.E?

Sometimes I do worry that everything gets classed as ‘ME’.

I am prone to having swollen glands and tonsillitus-type symptoms. If I manage to build up enough energy to get to the doctors there is never any sign of anything wrong. It’s ‘just’ the M.E.

I was told to go back to my GP when any new symptoms arise. I might as well set up camp in the reception area of the surgery…

My poor body is so out of sorts. You see the adverts on the tele about what signs to look out for when people are having a stroke…we have all of those symptoms at one time or another. I saw a campaign recently about being aware of brain tumours. Again those symptoms are the same as ours, although for some of us they fluctuate. I confess to googling my symptoms in the very beginning. A description of MS sounded incredibly familiar. I have read of M.E sufferers likening their life with this illness to how they felt during chemotherapy for cancer. I read that one sufferer felt even worse with M.E than they had going through their treatment for cancer. I have read that some doctors have likened the suffering that M.E patients go through as very much like that of AIDs sufferers in the last few months of their life. It is not a competition; just something to think about.

Baring this in mind, I have friends who have graduated as doctors. Not one of them learnt about M.E during their five years at university. I have a friend who is training to be a mental health nurse. He has covered M.E more than once. M.E is not a mental health condition. It is supposed to be 2012…I am lost for words.

How is it that our condition is still so, so misunderstand and brushed aside?