On the CBS
Sunday Morning program this last Sunday, they featured Louie Zamperini, a World War II veteran,
whose life story was told by Laura Hillenbrand in her new book Unbroken.
If you haven’t watched the interview, you should. Here’s the link: CBS
Sunday Morning.
Many of you
know that I suffer like Laura (and I don’t use the term suffer lightly) with
Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome (CFIDS). She was my inspiration to
finally becoming published.
Laura is
bed-ridden and home-bound. Unbroken took her seven years to
write, she conducted all of her interviews over the phone, and she never met Louie
until recently.
During the interview, Louie confided that he gave Laura one
of his Purple Heart medals. He stated that he suffered several years during the
War but what Laura has suffered for the last thirty years, and continues to
suffer, is much worse.
I can’t
express to you how validating that was to hear from someone of his caliber. In
a society where more people suffer with CFIDS than those with Multiple Sclerosis,
lung cancer and AIDS put together, it’s hard to understand why even doctors are
still skeptical and mistreat CFIDS patients.
Had I been
properly diagnosed, I may not be as ill today.(1) Getting treatment
within the first year is critical and can reduce symptoms and improve recovery.
I went seven years and through about twenty doctors before my diagnosis. Seven
years!
My story
began with an incompetent doctor who did blood work on me and determined at the
age of seventeen that I had a venereal disease or Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE). Not believing me
or my mother that I didn’t have a venereal disease, he injected me with an
extremely high dose of antibiotics.(2)
To
that point in my life, I had been extremely healthy and hardly ever sick. After
that, I became extremely ill: my skin
crawled, I continually got sick, I started having seizures. I wouldn’t find out
until nine years later that I was allergic to penicillin.
I continued
with college and then a job, struggling with severe fatigue, weakness,
cognitive issues, constant illnesses and swollen glands. I knew every restroom
stop from one end of the valley to the next. Many years later, my sister would
take her daughters on a road trip of every place she’d had to stop for me to
vomit along the side of the road while we were travelling to and from college.
Despite
falling asleep on the job from such severe exhaustion, doctors would run
standard CBC blood tests and find nothing wrong. I’d hear the standard lose
weight answer and “Don’t worry, Be Happy” mantra from a popular song at the
time.
After
continuing to gain excessive weight, I finally gave in and went to a weight-loss
specialist who put me on a liquid diet. I lost very little weight. The doctor
assumed I was cheating and was lying about it. Neither was the case.
One day, he
called me on the phone at work and told me I needed to come to his office
immediately. Once there, he told me I had abnormal liver enzyme test results. I
later found out that many of the other patients who were on the liquid diet had
been diagnosed with the same liver issues. I now have Non-Alcoholic
Steatohepatitis (cirrhosis of the liver).
My problems
didn’t end there.
See next
week for the second part of: Never
Before Revealed.
Cindy A.
Christiansen
Sweet
Romance, Comedy, Suspense…and Dogs!
Fly into a
good book today at: www.dragonflyromance.com
(1)
Two men also contracted CFIDS at my work. They were diagnosed within the
first year, took medical leave, and partially recovered (enough to return to
work).
(2)
Doctors in the future would call
me a liar. SLE is diagnosed with an arthritis panel, not with a venereal
disease panel. I promptly show them my documented medical records and they are
surprised.
