M.E.

One day 12 years ago I woke up feeling as if I had run into a brick wall. I was lying in bed and found I could barely move. My mind was in a fuzz and I struggled to speak. What had happened?

Like some illnesses it had crept up on me. I had flown back from a trustee meeting of the Thorn/EMI pension trust; a billion and a half million pound fund, that I was thoroughly enjoying being a member of and started with a bit of a cough.

After a few days I visited my doctor who was also a friend as well. He thought I had bad bronchitis and should refrain from playing football. That was a bad thing as I had been running the club for 15 years. I had to have time off work; another annoying thing as I was a senior union official with my company and on the negotiating committee. I spent at least three days a week travelling round my region stretching from Lincolnshire, Yorkshire to Birmingham North Wales and all places in-between.

Instead of getting better I was feeling worse and not able to concentrate. I had to stop playing chess and reading I couldn’t watch television and could not remember what I had seen.

Then I started having chest pains. Another trip to the hospital to check my heart. It was there and working fine.

By now I was visiting my doctor weekly with numerous unspecific symptoms and I had decided I was dying from some unknown illness. All the checks they did on me came back normal; not very reassuring when you are racked with pains in your joints and muscles plus all my other symptoms leaving me feeling dilapidated and depleted.

Fortunately my Doctor had been playing football with me up to my illness and knew how healthy I had been. My father-in-law said I was the fittest person he had ever known.

At that time I was also involved with my local church as a communion steward, property steward and the churches thriving amateur dramatic society. I did not have time to be ill.

Then I hit the wall. I was bedridden for three months and then started to feel a little better and after about another three months I decided that I would go back to work. Having all this time off was ridiculous; I would get better naturally as you always do.

At work I managed to hang on for nearly six months before I collapsed and I ended up in bed for nearly a year with no one knowing what was wrong with me.

It was in this time that I had what seemed like a battery of tests. Something was obviously wrong and without the persistence of my doctor who knew me and realised I was not looking for an easy time off work and wasn’t a mental case that I survived.

Eventually we found a specialist who finally diagnosed me with ME. It was a relief to actually put a name to what I was suffering with. I did not have a terminal illness that was not being found by all the tests.

There was only one trouble; there was no treatment. They didn’t know what it was caused by, where it came from and if it would go. In fact most doctors did not believe it was an illness at all. If I wasn’t ill what the hell were all the things that were happening to me?

I gave work one more try but even on light duties and everyone being helpful it was a waste of time. I was an electronics engineer but I could not follow a circuit or even think what was wrong or work a computer I kept forgetting everything. I could not decide on anything not even if to have tea or coffee so repairing electronic equipment was out of the question.

I took to my bed again and was pensioned off from work due to ill health. The next few years were a blur. I existed with the support of my wife and children. My symptoms were treated and I was able to start to sleep through some of the night and not wake up covered by sweat.

It took me a number of years to start to manage my illness. I visited a reflexologist who helped me over the worst of my symptoms and I slowly began to learn to survive the world.

Now I manage my health closely. I am more aware of my body and what it can and can’t do. I now have to get workmen to do all the do-it –yourself jobs I use to do. I watch football rather than play. Have given up chess as I can’t see more than one move ahead, frustrating as I played for Stockport chess club for some time.

I joined a creative writing group and am now going out in the community and slowly rejoining the world.

                                                                ME  by Cliff Hope

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