Canaries in the coalmine: Why Marcus Sedgwick is writing about Chronic Fatigue and illnesses we all need to understand better - 11 Sept 2019

[Sly Saint]

After author Marcus Sedgwick developed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, there were times he could not stand for more than a few minutes. He explains why he just had to write a book about a sickness that doctors sometimes ignore.
Imagine this:

You’re sick. Sicker, probably, that you have ever been in your life. You try to wait it out, but it’s not improving. You keep trying to work, but it’s obvious you can’t – you have aching joints; painful, stiff muscles; you can barely walk. You have diarrhoea, earache, fever. You are totally exhausted in a way that is hard to describe; like no tiredness you have ever known.

So, you give in and go to your doctor. She performs some routine blood tests and shortly you return to get the results. They are all negative. She leans slightly across the desk towards you and says: ‘What would you say, if I told you that this is all in your head?’

What happens from that point on is possibly something a little harder to imagine. Where will that one provocative question take you? What will happen? Who will help you and who will refuse to even try?

Fatigue and weakness
Unfortunately, I don’t have to imagine any of this, because six years ago, this exact scenario happened to me, after a working trip to Asia. I was rapidly given the (lack of) diagnosis that doctors call Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), or myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), and prescribed a course of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, to apparently fix whatever was wrong "in my head". You may not be surprised to learn that it didn’t work. Six years later, as the Salford bard put it, I am Still Ill.

full article here
https://www.booktrust.org.uk/news-a...d-illnesses-we-all-need-to-understand-better/

 

[Yessica]

Canaries in the coalmine: Why Marcus Sedgwick is writing about Chronic Fatigue and illnesses we all need to understand better

Oh not again (CF not CFS in the title).

He's writing about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, not Chronic Fatigue.

Can anyone write them please? I can't now. Perhaps tell them why, if you can.

I only perused the article, will read later. Looks good. Thank you Marcus!