An Innocent Beginning
If someone had predicted I would one day stop being a writer, I would have said ‘Wrong!’ and walked away. Writing was more than how I made my living. It was how I maintained my balance when life pulled and pushed me in different directions. But that was before I became chronically ill. Before that illness and the stories about what it means to be ill imprisoned me.
It began so innocently. My husband and I caught a virus while on vacation. He got better. I didn’t. I crawled from bedroom to bathroom. Electrical currents ran down my arms and across my chest. A piercing headache took residence in my left eye while bone-crushing exhaustion cemented me to the bed.
The Slow Erosion of Self-Trust
One year later, I was diagnosed with multiple illnesses, including
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), a neuro-immune disorder, an ‘invisible’ chronic illness that’s difficult to diagnose and treat. It’s also surrounded by a cloud of skepticism. That explained why my debilitating symptoms had been met with quiet shrugs and raised eyebrows from my doctors: They didn’t believe me.
