Not Celebrating Today

Part of our ongoing series on life with CFS.

Thirteen years ago, I walked into a brick wall. Actually, I was walking happily next to the wall when it gathered itself up and jumped on me.

Thirteen years ago, I went to work with a sore throat. By mid-morning, I could barely swallow. When I left work that afternoon, the sore throat had mushroomed into fever, dizziness, headache, weakness and aches so bad that it felt like being hit with a baseball bat. I took home a briefcase full of work, but I spent the next three days sleeping. I don’t even remember if I left my apartment. The following Monday, I went to my doctor. He said I had a virus and to call him in two weeks if I didn’t feel better.

That was thirteen years ago. That was the day CFS moved in to my life.

This blog is about coping with CFS. Noricum and I created Travels with Swatchy so that I could symbolically accompany friends and family on the adventures that CFS has taken from me. But for me personally, October 6th is not about coping and it is certainly not about celebrating. Today I try to remember what I felt like on October 5, 1994: my last day as a healthy person.