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Anna

16-year-old Anna tells us how life is as a teenager with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (M.E.).
Entry: 1

Meet Anna, our new diarist.

I suppose you want to know a bit about me? Well my name is Anna and I'm 16. I love Dick van Dyke, (in the non-romantic sense) and I L-O-V-E Noah Wyle (in the romantic sense). I have a dog called Kerry who, much like me, is a mish mash. Kerry is a cross between a German shepherd, Labrador and Collie; I am a cross between a hippie, a rock chic, and a tomboy. I also have a guinea pig called brownie (who incidentally is black) and a sister called Gemma.

From the confines of the internet it seems like I lead a normal teenage life, I talk about music, obsess about my doggie and have aspirations to become a nurse. When you dig a bit deeper youll find that my life is slightly different to my school friends. I am the same age as those in the sixth form, yet I haven't been to school for two-and-a-half years. I live in London yet haven't seen the capital for three years apart from stays in hospitals, and I am a keen tennis fan but haven't been able to walk or stand for two years. The reason for this is that I have Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (M.E.). 

M.E. is also known as chronic fatigue syndrome. The main symptom for most sufferers is an uncontrollable tiredness. Imagine waking up after a night clubbing; you are hungover, feel sick, have a throbbing headache and want to bury yourself under a duvet. Now imagine waking up like that everyday except the tiredness is multiplied by 10 and you are aching all over. This is how it is for me. The pain is relentless and I am so tired that breathing and stringing together a sentence is a challenge and by the end off the day all I can do is collapse.

"I was diagnosed with M.E. but I didn't know what this illness was, why I was so exhausted and why I couldn't do all the things my friends were doing."

I had just turned 13 when I first started to feel unwell. I had been away at a summer camp, and was recovering from a particularly bad bout of tonsillitis, but then it got worse. I started back at school trying to pretend that this niggling tiredness wasnt there and struggling to stay awake. I would go to bed early, be in a lot of pain and I developed asthma. In January 2001 after having a mixed diagnosis of post viral fatigue and glandular fever I was referred to a paediatrician. I decided to keep my illness a secret, hoping it would go away. I was wrong, in the following months I progressively got worse and by the time I saw the paediatrician on September 11, 2001 I could hardly walk and was spending half the time I was at school in the medical room sleeping.

I was diagnosed with M.E. but I didn't know what this illness was, why I was so exhausted and why I couldn't do all the things my friends were doing. By October I was unable to walk without crutches due to the weakness in my legs and I became very disheartened. My school didn't want to know me as I was not their A grade student anymore and was made to drop most of my subjects because I wasn't coping.

In the following months the paediatrician who diagnosed me referred me to a psychiatrist to talk about how the illness affected me. After six months of me getting progressively worse he decided I had a physical illness (surprise, surprise!) and referred me to yet another paediatrician. I was trying so hard to push myself that my body ended up giving up and in March 2002 I was confined to a wheelchair, two years later I still can't walk. At the moment I am (fingers crossed!) getting a bit better. The thing is that the improvement is so slow.


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