It seems that if you mention ME/CFS to enough people, they start coming out of the proverbial woodwork with stories of friends and relatives who have it or have had it, or who are currently suffering from it. It's people you've known for years and would have never suspected.
In the past three months, my family and I have discovered that we know four people who have been formally diagnosed with ME/CFS. In some cases, we're talking about close family friends or in-laws, and we never had a clue. Just in the last week, we've learned of two. (By the way, three of the four made full recoveries at between 1.5 and 2 years after diagnosis). It's even more surprising when you consider that we really don't mention ME/CFS to many people. It makes me wonder how many other people we know who have been affected by ME/CFS, but who we won't discover until the topic somehow comes up in conversation.
I very rarely allow myself to have "why me" type of thoughts, but I'll admit that they float in and out of my head occasionally (maybe once a week, if we're being honest.) So I need to remember this post the next time I have those thoughts. Because, the "why me" line of thinking is predicated on a feeling one's circumstance is statistically improbable. But if all of these other people I know have had it, maybe it's not so improbable after all. That's the way I choose to look at it anyway...
No comments:
Post a Comment