BBC Sport: Channel swimmer Beth French on jellyfish, living with ME and her autistic son

Andy

Andy

Retired committee member
Beth French calls herself the "proverbial water baby".

Water was her refuge as a child, the only way of making the pain of her ME disappear. A bucket, a stream, a river or the sea, it didn't matter - so long as there was water.

As a teenager, French felt her body had failed her after being diagnosed with the condition, also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Yet in the 20-plus years since, it's proven anything but a let down. It's fitting that being in water is the very reason for that.
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But French has battled, and conquered, challenges all her life. At the age of 10 she was struck down with a then-mystery illness that would plague her adolescence.

"I woke up one day and I couldn't get out of bed," she says. "It felt like molten lava had been poured through my veins."

Lengthy spells of these "slumps", sometimes lasting three months, marred French's teenage years - a period in which she lost faith in her body with self-harm and bulimia with anorexic episodes following.

She became a wheelchair user for a year at 17 before a retrospective diagnosis of ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) was finally made.
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Swimming became French's saviour, and for a decade she was asymptomatic. That was until an "adrenal surge" during an encounter with a shark triggered her immune system, and since then she has not been "in perfect health".

But at last, she knows what is her trigger - "emotional, hormonal and psychological stress", something she now has the tools to cope with after ordaining as a Buddhist nun in Thailand and studying "intensive forms of meditation".
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/swimming/49083125
 
Swimming is much too aerobic for me to be able to handle. I can do floating and very slow short swims, but otherwise it’s a no-go. Like cycling or jogging....
I used to do triathlons before I got sick.
Now I get cramps in my abdomen just with keeping upright in a car.
 
I saw that and wondered about posting it. I thought I probably could not be trusted.

But at last, she knows what is her trigger - "emotional, hormonal and psychological stress", something she now has the tools to cope with after ordaining as a Buddhist nun in Thailand and studying "intensive forms of meditation".

Nothing about PEM then. Her diagnosis may have been correct, but, if so, the sub-group to which she belongs is not a large one.

Good of the BBC to spread the message.
 
NelliePledge said:
Oh that’s it then we all need scaring witless by a shark and we’re going to be fine...........
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To be fair she attributes that encounter with triggering a downturn in her health.
That was until an "adrenal surge" during an encounter with a shark triggered her immune system, and since then she has not been "in perfect health".
Click to expand...

What prompted me to post it was that the article uses ME prominently, and that it talks about finding a way to cope with her trigger, not with the illness itself, although I accept that will probably be too nuanced for the average, non-pwME, reader.

Should anybody want to then they can listen to the original interview here, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07hlqq5
 
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