What Else Can I Say About ME?

Here we are at May 12th again.  Another Invisible Illness Day come to bring awareness to all the illnesses and diseases which are impolite enough to leave their sufferers still appearing to be well.  Of course, anyone more than casually acquainted with someone who has fibromyalgia, myalgic encephalomyelitis, chronic fatigue syndrome, complex regional pain disorder, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, Lyme, lupus and many, many more illnesses can attest to how debilitating they can be.  The facade of health they leave intact feels like salt in the wound; a confusion for those untouched by their cruel hand, a silent undermining force with us at every doctor’s appointment, a declaration that we are lying or greatly exaggerating our illness.

What else can I say about ME?  About all the other forgotten, ignored diseases swept under the rug of modern medicine?  Illnesses which embarrass our doctors with their constant reminder that we remain unhealed.  Sicknesses with confusing, confounding symptoms which can morph and change like the whim of a butterfly’s flight.  Maddening maladies which suck away our vitality, our joys, our passions, our lives as completely as any vampire.

I’ve written about ME extensively as it’s been an enormous part of my life for the last eight years.  How I have not had a single day since late May of 2008 that was free of pain or its constant, overwhelming exhaustion.  How it has progressively gotten worse each year.  How the government would like to pretend we invisibly ill don’t exist.  How grotesquely underfunded our research is, giving us the same amount of money for research as hayfever gets and less than 1/4 of what male pattern baldness receives.  You have heard me spout the facts and statistics.  You’ve heard me talk about my personal story and fight with ME.  What else can I say?

I can say this: I am not beaten.  I have not given up.

I am determined to get better.  I am committing myself to be well, even if I have it about through sheer mental will.  I will not give in to ME’s gloomy, hopeless future forecast of progressively worsening every year.  I am not accepting a future of the living death that is ME.

I don’t know exactly how I will get better, but I am going to.  As a sign of my determination, I changed my blog’s tagline for the first time since I started this blog years ago.  “Art, photography, life and why I always feel like shit,” felt perfectly appropriate at the time.  “Art, photography, life and how those are really all the same thing,” is much more appropriate now.  My identity is not Sarah-who-has-ME.  I am just Sarah.

As I wrote about in my last entry, my life has been pleasantly consumed recently by my spirituality.  I have strongly felt how focusing on fighting ME has been feeding it.  So now, I will ignore it as much as possible.  I do not mean that I will forget my body’s current limits, or not honor them.  Listening to my body and what it’s able to do is vital for my current and future wellbeing.  But I’ve realized that I can live within the confines of my case of ME while still not letting it reign in every area of my life, and that feel incredibly freeing.  This is the path I will pursue.

This also does not mean that I will not advocate for ME sufferers.  I still feel very strongly that the only way we will bring about change is by demanding it.  And we can only demand it if we know that it exists in the first place.  But I can also advocate without allowing ME to rule every part of my soul.

As May 12th approached, I wanted to create a new image for my Enchanted Sleep series, which is all about living with ME.  I asked Katie Johnson, frequent model and collaborator as well as dear friend, if she would help me bring some concepts to life and she gladly agreed to help.  Through a variety of factors, I wasn’t able to shoot these images until very recently, which meant I had a very short window to edit one up and release it for Invisible Illness Day, but I got it done!  Ideally, I would be releasing the whole short series we shot, but I am content with having just one to show you and help illustrate life with ME.  With that, please let me present my latest image to you, Living With The Tombstones.

Living With The Tombstones – © Sarah Allegra. Model: Katie Johnson. An image to help raise awareness about ME/CFS and other “invisible illnesses.”

I probably don’t have to explain the symbolism behind shooting this image in a graveyard.  ME (and many other invisible illnesses) truly can be a living, nightmarish death.  Even if you’re not one of the unfortunate souls cursed with severe ME, where any touch, light or sound cannot be tolerated, you die every day to the dreams and hopes you had when you were healthy.  You might discover new passions to pursue within ME’s confines, but do you ever truly forget what’s been taken from you?  If you do, I am not there yet.

I took the name “invisible illness” and interpreted it quite literally, editing out any part of Katie’s body which showed outside her long, princess-like dress.  And the mirrored mask felt like the perfect touch.  When people look at us, they rarely see us; they see their projections of who we are.  Often what they see says far more about them than us.  Some will look at me and, because I can occasionally manage to put on clothes, have Geoff drive and go with him to the grocery store, refuse to believe there could be anything physically wrong with me.  They don’t see the toll that those short, simple trips take on me.  They don’t know that grocery shopping is my ENTIRE plan for that day, probably several days.  How the lights and noise and bustle inside the stores give me migraines, panic attacks and leave me in bed for the rest of the weekend.  They don’t see the weight of my illness on Geoff and my family.  How if I see friends, they always have to come to me.  I so often feel like a dead-weight wife, daughter and friend.  The times I’m overwhelmed by the ME and can’t decide between crying and being too tired to cry.  How many pills I take every day to try and make it to the next day and not be consumed by the constant pain I’m in.  They just see a fairly normal-looking girl.

I can’t blame other people for not knowing that I’m sick.  I don’t display the characteristic signals of someone who is unwell, so of course people assume I’m healthy.  But we need to get to a place where I could tell a stranger that I have ME and they might know what I’m talking about.  That if someone else said they have MS or Crohn’s or fibro, that stranger would have heard of those illnesses.  That the stranger would have at least a basic idea of our struggle and the dire need for change, for research, for treatments, cures and basic respect.

We can get there.  We will.  One May 12th at a time.

Want to do more?  I can help you with that!

• Rent or buy the new ME documentary, Forgotten Plague.  Consider hosting a screening of it for your friends and family!
• Write a one-click letter to Congress to increase ME’s funding.
• Join in the #MillionsMissing protests in Washington DC and other locations through the world on May 25.  You can participate even if you’re too unwell to join in person or if there isn’t a protest near you!
• Wear a blue ribbon in real life or add one to your social media avatar.  Thanks to MEAdvocacy.org for the instruction!
• Start a discussion, link to articles, blogs, videos and/or artwork that discusses ME or other invisible illnesses that will help spread awareness.  Add a #may12th hashtag to your posts!
• Donate to an ME-related group, such as the Microbe Discovery Project, or help support those with invisible illnesses by purchasing items from our online shops.  Get some cute awareness-raising jewelry from The Hopeful Spoon, crystals to meditate and heal with from Mineralism Crystals (or just enjoy looking at!), museum-quality fine art prints from yours truly, give yourself or someone you love the gift of self discover and art with my online photography course Introspective, or a wide variety of fun and practical items from my RedBubble shop!
• See this article from ProHealth.net for more ideas!
• Watch and share the video below which I made last year:

I’d like to thank everyone in my life, online and off, who has supported me during these trying past eight years.  Especially Geoff, who I’d only been dating for a month when I became ill.  Lesser men would have run from what he had to face, but he’s stuck with me, no matter how bad things get.  And I’d also like to thank everyone for the extremely warm and receptive response you all had to my previous blog post.  Your kind words and love and support are greatly appreciated, now and always! ❤

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Silencing Again

On February 10th, the Institute of Medicine released the findings of a report it had been working on for approximately a year and spent over a million dollars on.  Their task: come up with new diagnostic guidelines for patients with myalgic encephalomyalitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and decide on a new, single name to replace both ME and CFS, which are generally used interchangeably for the same disease.*  Considering that ME/CFS gets only a pitiful three million dollars in government funding per year (which may sound like a lot, but consider that male pattern baldness, which is not life-threatening, gets $16 million, and you realize how very, very little that is), this is a cost we cannot afford.

Silenced © Sarah Allegra, model Travis Weinand
Read on for the full image!

The IOM’s findings are so upsetting to me, I can hardly organize my thoughts into rational sentences.  But while I may want to sob and punch a hole through the wall (which, let’s face it, I’m probably not strong enough to do anymore), I need to speak up about these incredibly vital points and I need to do so in a way that other people won’t dismiss me as merely a “hysterical woman.”

I’m going to be generous here for a minute; here are the few good things gleaned from the IOM’s 304-page report.

• They recommend retiring the trivializing name “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.”  I fully agree with that.  I could not agree with that more.
• They admit that far more research needs to be done to understand ME/CFS.
• They admit that ME/CFS is a real and physical disease.
• They recommend that the Department of Health and Human Services should develop new, more accurate ways of diagnosing ME/CFS.

For about half a second, I was happy when I heard the IOM recommended changing the name of “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” to what they’ve proposed: “Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease.”  Mostly I was happy because I saw the word “disease” instead of “syndrome.”  And I will, begrudgingly, admit that their SEID is ever-so-slightly better than CFS.  If CFS is a kick in the balls, SEID is a kidney punch.  Neither is good, but I suppose if i were given the choice between the two (and I were male) I might choose the kidney punch.

Inside Looking Out © Sarah Allegra – model: Katie Johnson

Here’s what’s wrong with SEID.

The IOM complained that the name “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” is demeaning and only focuses on one symptom.  Those are both true.  They also decided that “myalgic encephalomyalitis” was unsuitable because it also only focused on one symptom.  That is not true.  “Myalgic encephalomyalitis” literally means “muscle pain and inflammation of the brain.”  You have two symptoms being named, both of which are hallmarks of the disease and which have tons and tons of scientific proof backing them up, as well as patients’ own experiences aligning with them.  Additionally, more documentation can be found in the UK documentary Voices From The Shadows where multiple autopsies of patients who died from ME/CFS all showed inflammation in the same area of their brains.  Despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, the IOM decided that while nearly every person diagnosed with ME/CFS complains of chronic pain, that was not a general symptom for ME/CFS patients, and thus should be excluded from the name.

I know a lot of people with ME/CFS.  We are a close community as this disease ravages us in ways only other sufferers can truly understand.  We form deep online friendships since we are so often unable to interact with people in meaningful ways in the real world.  We rely on each other for advice about treatments and medications, as we almost always know more about our disease than our doctors do.  None of my doctors had ever even heard the name “myalgic encephalomyelitis” until I said it to them.  We are our own biggest support system.  And I do not know a single person with ME/CFS who does not experience chronic pain.  Personally, I have not had a pain-free day in over seven years.  To have healthy outsiders negate the 2,555+ days of pain I’ve experienced and say it’s not an important symptom is beyond a slap in the face.

A Fading Girl © Sarah Allegra – model: Brooke Shaden

But even those slights aside, “Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease” fails their own test by simply naming only one of our other common symptoms; exertion intolerance.

Exertion intolerance is a very real thing for ME/CFS people.  And it doesn’t have to be physical exertion; mental or emotional exertions can leave us just as sick for days, or weeks, sometimes months… or forever, as physical ones.  For years and years, doctors have been advising us to exercise our disease away.  And for many illnesses, exercise does help.  But with ME/CFS, exercise can be absolutely deadly.  Push yourself too hard and you can make yourself house-bound or bed-bound… sometimes for the rest of your life.

We walk a knife’s edge every day, trying to judge what we can and cannot do.  It’s generally considered a fairly good idea within the ME/CFS community to try and remain as active as you can without overdoing it and making yourself worse.  It’s like playing a very stupid game of blackjack with your energy each day.  You don’t want to lose any ability to be active that you do have, but even hitting 21.01 could mean a week of being stuck in bed.  It’s a serious and deadly game we are forced to play every single day.

So yes, exertion intolerance is a very real and dire threat, but even given that, we’re still left with a name which merely cites one of our symptoms again.  And as I said, SEID is ever-so-slightly better than CFS simply because of trading out the word “symptom” with “disease.”  Laymen hear “syndrome” and it doesn’t sound serious; replace it with “disease” and their view shifts.  I have serious doubts that busy doctors, who have no time to read a 304-page document, will hear anything but “exercise avoidance” in place of “exertion intolerance.”  After all, exercise is a cure-all!  There’s nothing it doesn’t help!  That’s the mantra they’ve been taught again and again and it will take very dramatic events to undo those decades of conditioning.

Vanity’s Muder © Sarah Allegra – a self portrait I created after starting to experience ME-related hair loss

Almost every ME/CFS sufferer I know has had at least one doctor who refused to believe there was anything physically wrong with them.  I had one of those too.  Mine decided I was simply depressed and anxious.  In a way, she was right; I was getting very depressed because I felt terrible every single day and nothing was helping it, and I was becoming increasingly anxious about my appointments with her because I was sensing she didn’t believe me.  I have experienced clinical depression.  There was one solid month in a very dark period of my life where I had to rationalize not killing myself every single day.  I know what depression looks and feels like.  It is a completely different beast than ME/CFS.

It’s like saying sharks and bears are the same threat.  Well, no, one lives in the water and generally attacks you if he mistakes you for a seal; the other lives in the woods and might attack you if she thinks you’re a threat to her cubs…  You get the picture.  Both can kill you, but trying to issue a blanket statement that they are both the same threat, coming from the same place, using the same methods to avoid them would be absurd.

The Blue Ribbon © Sarah Allegra – Model: Katie Johnson

ME/CFS is not “just” depression.  I put “just” in quotes because I know how serious depression can be and I never want to be dismissive of it.  It kills too.  But they are completely separate entities.  There is a tendency for people who have ME/CFS to become depressed because they have ME/CFS, but that does not mean they are one and the same.  Almost anyone with a chronic, incurable illness is going to get depressed.  You never hear people accusing cancer patients that the cancer is all in their heads; they’re just depressed and if they went for a nice jog, everything would be fine!

And lest you think I am fear-mongering and making ME/CFS out to be more than it is, let me remind you of a quote by Dr. Nancy G. Klimas, who specializes in treating both HIV/AIDS patients along with ME/CFS patients.  In 2009, she was quoted with the following: “…But I hope you are not saying that C.F.S patients are not as ill as H.I.V. patients. My H.I.V. patients for the most part are hale and hearty thanks to three decades of intense and excellent research and billions of dollars invested. Many of my C.F.S patients, on the other hand, are terribly ill and unable to work or participate in the care of their families.  I split my clinical time between the two illnesses, and I can tell you if I had to choose between the two illnesses (in 2009) I would rather have H.I.V. But C.F.S., which impacts a million people in the United States alone, has had a small fraction of the research dollars directed towards it.”

The overwhelming majority of ME/CFS patients would have liked to have had our name officially changed to “myalgic encephalomyelitis.”  We made our preferences known loudly during the entire time the IOM worked.  ME is, after all, what most of the modern world calls it.  It was only because of one insidious man that the United States switched to “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.”  And why was such a name invented?  To create a legal loophole where insurance companies would be able to deny sufferers coverage.  The schism between the United State’s naming of the disease and the rest of the world began with greed from insurance companies.  These are your US tax dollars at work.

And what’s even worse is that there is speculation that the IOM is intentionally confusing the issues around ME/CFS; making the definition unusably broad, ignoring patients’ wants and needs.  Once again, making sure we’re worse off than we were before they came along.

Breakable © Sarah Allegra – a self portrait

The second of the IOM’s tasks, coming up with a diagnostic criteria for ME/CFS, was also unnecessary.  Two excellent, specific and scientific definitions already exist (and are used by most of the modern world as well.)  It was loudly advocated by ME/CFS patients and specialists alike that the IOM adopt these guidelines.  In fact, 50 of the world’s leading ME/CFS experts sent letters asking that the IOM’s contract be canceled along with countless letters written and petitions signed by patients.

That brings up another salient point… who are these people chosen by the IOM for this heavy and delicate task, ripe with repercussions which will ripple through the decades?  They are 15 people, only seven of whom specialize in ME/CFS in any way.  Some are not even doctors.  How is this at all ok?  How was it allowed that a group of people who don’t have anything to do with the disease at hand would be asked to redefine it?

Let’s give them the benefit of doubt for a moment and assume they’ll really try and do a good job.  Who knows.  What did they come up with?  They decided that to be diagnosed with ME/CFS, you need only three of the following core symptoms:

1. A substantial reduction or impairment in the ability to engage in pre-illness levels of activities that persists for more than six months and is accompanied by fatigue – which is often profound – of new or definite onset, not the result of ongoing excessive exertion and not substantially alleviated by rest.
   
2. The worsening of patients’ symptoms after any type of exertion – such as physical, cognitive, or emotional stress – known as post-exertional malaise.
   
3. Unrefreshing sleep.
   

And at least one of the two symptoms is also required:

1. Cognitive impairment.
   
2. The inability to remain upright with symptoms that improve when lying down – known as orthostatic intolerance.

Do you know how many diseases and conditions fall under this umbrella?  It’s so broad, it’s utterly useless.  You wouldn’t even need to have a physical ailment to qualify for ME/CFS.  This is a big deal.  If this new standard is adopted, this is the criteria that will be used to find patients to test new drugs and treatments.  Can you imagine how murky and confusing the results will be if your patients could potentially have almost any disease?  Answers will never be found under these guidelines.

In Between Awake and Sleep © Sarah Allegra – a self portrait

As people online have pointed out, SEID backwards spells DIES.  And it’s hard to feel like that isn’t exactly what the IOM, HHS and CDC want us to do.  We are an embarrassment to them because they don’t know what our disease is, what causes it or how to fix it… and, of course, a great deal of that confusion was created intentionally; a fact they’re desperate for us to forget.  They would rather sweep us under the rug, ignore us, talk over us.  And sadly, that is very easy for them to do.  With so many patients house- and bed-bound, it’s extremely difficult to show our numbers, organize protests, or object to our treatment in any meaningful ways.

But this is what they haven’t counted on.

When you are backed into a corner by illness, you can either crumple under it or develop a steel core in the deepest part of your soul to bear it.  Some days you may flip back and forth between the two, but ultimately, your will strengthens.  The stakes are personal to us and they are very high.  Though it might take the help of our caretakers or cost us a week of energy or send us back to bed for months, we will not be silenced again.  Shifty, snakey policy-makers may have the energy and money we don’t, but they do not have this core to draw on.

We will fight.  And we will win.

Silenced © Sarah Allegra – model: Travis Weinand

Are you pissed off?  Good.  We need you to be pissed off.  We need a public outcry so loud that it simply can’t be ignored.  And we need the healthy, compassionate people of the world to join us in demanding change.

Here are some things you can do:

Pass around the image above, Silenced, on your social media platforms.  Linking to this post would be helpful!  I am giving you permission to use the Silenced image to help get our message across!  Put it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest… wherever you hangout online!  The more people who see it and become aware of the problem, the better!

Tweet to @TheIOM, @HHSgov and @CDCgov letting them know your displeasure in the proposed name change.  We DO have the power to stop this from becoming our reality!  Please use the hashtag #MENotSEID.  Not sure what to say?  Here are a couple examples you are free to use!

.@TheIOM @HHSgov @CDCgov: ME/CFS research will be useless with the name SEID. #MENotSEID

.@TheIOM @HHSgov @CDCgov: SEID is still only naming a single symptom. #MENotSEID

.@TheIOM @HHSgov @CDCgov: ME/CFS patients will not be helped by SEID, it will only hurt us further. #MENotSEID

.@TheIOM @HHSgov @CDCgov: MECFS patients reject SEID and demand the name ME! #MENotSEID

.@TheIOM @HHSgov @CDCgov: Why are we spending a million dollars redefining and renaming what doesn’t need it? #MENotSEID

.@TheIOM @HHSgov @CDCgov: ME/CFS patients WILL NOT be bullied into silence over the proposed name SEID. #MENotSEID

Additionally, you can:

Submit answers to a survey about what you think of the IOM’s proposed name change.

Sign this petition to stop the HHS-IOM contract and accept the CCC [Canadian Consensus Criteria] definition of M.E.

Or this petition!

Every voice counts!

 

Would you also like to support me in my quest to continue making art in spite of ME’s constant presence in my life?  How lovely of you!  🙂  I have added the new Silenced image to my RedBubble shop as well as my Etsy store; you can get it (or most other images) as museum-quality prints, tshirt, stickers, covers for your phones and i-Devices, travel mugs, blank greeting cards, even pillows and tote bags!  Every purchase goes toward helping me continue to produce new art as well as spend the countless hours necessary to delve into issues like this post.  And every single purchase is hugely appreciated!

We Rise Again © Sarah Allegra – a self portrait

Images are from my Enchanted Sleep series, which portrays living with ME/CFS/fibro.**

Istagrammers!  Here is a square version of the image, already Instagram-friendly 🙂

Silenced © Sarah Allegra – model: Travis Weinand

*When you dig into it, no, ME and CFS are not describing the same disease, mainly because the current US diagnostic guidelines for CFS are so sloppy and wide-open.  Further information on the subject can be found here, along with countless other places online.  Since there is a lot to talk about in this post as is, for brevity’s sake, I’m using the term people are most familiar with, ME/CFS, though the definition I have in mind is the CCC and ICC definition of ME.

**Fibromyalgia is, for the most part, also used interchangeably with ME/CFS in the US.  This is not entirely accurate, much like ME and CFS are not really the same thing, but for the sake this post, when I talk about ME or CFS, I am also talking about fibro.

 

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A Little Fun For You and ME

***Want to win a free print of my latest image, The Blue Ribbon?  Read on to find out how you can enter!!***

It’s been an emotional week for me; not surprising since ME is something I deal with firsthand.  Since we’ve all walked through the more difficult parts of this disease, let’s take a break with some levity and fun!

 

From constantfuckingshit.wordpress.com

From idelhearts.com

This actually does happen to me. From invisibleillnessweek.com

 

From memgenerator.com

From icanhascheezburger.com

And lastly, one poignant one:

From PostSecret.com

Now go tweet some facts so you can win a print!! 🙂

 

To do my part in raising awareness about ME, for the month of May, I am donating 50 percent of profits from all my sales to The Microbe Discovery Project, a group working to solve the mystery of ME and find a cure for those afflicted..  And what do I sell?  Well, what do you want?  Because my images come from the frameable to the wearable and in every price range.
– museum-quality, fine art prints
– iPad/iPhone/iPod covers
– stickers
– blank greeting cards
– post cards
– shirts and hoodies
– wearable art
– throw pillows
– INTROSPECTIVE: my eight-week, on-line, course of self-discovery through photography

Also, in honor of this day of raising awareness, I’m holding a contest to win a beautiful, 10″ x 15″, museum-quality print of my latest image, The Blue Ribbon; an underwater representation of the struggle that living with ME can be.  Your print will come on beautiful, shimmering, pearlized, archival paper.  And all you have to do is tweet!

The Blue Ribbon, model: Katie Johnson – enter the giveaway to win a print of this image!

Ready to tweet?  Use any of the following!

Curing baldness gets 4x more funding than ME/CFS, but no one ever died of baldness http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

*****

ME/CFS knows no social or economic boundaries; it affects all equally w/out mercy. http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

*****

ME/CFS in not in our heads & cannot be cured with exercise & a better attitude. http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

*****

ME/CFS is not a “female” disease; 20% of sufferers are male. http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

*****

ME/CFS isn’t just about being “tired,” it ravages every single part of the body. http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

*****

ME/CFS can be just as deadly as MS, HIV and AIDS, yet it is largely ignored. http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

*****

More exercise and a better attitude will not cure ME/CFS. http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

*****

We’re not chronically fatigued, @CDCgov. We have myalgic encephalomyelitis. http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

Tweeting multiple statements will count as extra entries, so enter as many times as you like.  However, tweeting the same statement multiple times will not count.  And that will probably just annoy the people reading your feed, so don’t do it. 😉  I will choose a random winner from all entries on May 20th and announce the winner here!

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The Huge, Glass Mountain

***Want to win a free print of my latest image, The Blue Ribbon?  Read on to find out how you can enter!!***

ME Awareness Week continues!  Catch up on the story with the first, second and third posts!

Spoon Theory – a self portrait

For anyone not convinced of the seriousness of ME, let me present you with a quote from Dr. Nancy G. Klimas in a Q & A article from The New York Times on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  Dr. Klimas serves on the board of directors for The International Association for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and treats both CFS patients as well as patients with HIV and AIDS.  In 2009, she made a comment comparing CFS to HIV and AIDS.  A reader expressed anger over her comment, calling it alarmist and saying it was making CFS sound like a much more deadly disease than it is.  Dr. Kilmas had this to say [emphasis mine]:

“…But I hope you are not saying that C.F.S. patients are not as ill as H.I.V. patients. My H.I.V. patients for the most part are hale and hearty thanks to three decades of intense and excellent research and billions of dollars invested. Many of my C.F.S. patients, on the other hand, are terribly ill and unable to work or participate in the care of their families.

I split my clinical time between the two illnesses, and I can tell you if I had to choose between the two illnesses (in 2009) I would rather have H.I.V. But C.F.S., which impacts a million people in the United States alone, has had a small fraction of the research dollars directed towards it.”

In Between Awake And Asleep – a self portrait

This is the point in my explanations where I like to remind people (and myself) that I am lucky; I am on the mild-to-moderate end of the ME illness spectrum.  It can get much, much worse.  There are thousands of people afflicted with severe ME, on constant morphine drips, in agonizing pain, earplugs in every second of the day, unable to tolerate the slightest light or sound, unable to feed or dress themselves or even use the bathroom on their own.  People die from ME.  That is why it is so very, very dangerous when the medical community trivializes our disease, insists it’s psychosomatic, insists there’s nothing physically wrong with us.  YES.  Yes, there is, doctors.  Those who have died from ME, and there are many, many examples, frequently show the same inflamed areas in the brain when autopsied.  While I’m not sure I’m ready to say ME is purely a neurological disease, it sure seems to be a big piece of the puzzle.

When the medical community has nothing to offer you, you become your own doctor, your own detective and your own science experiment.  You try anything and everything that might help; medications, physical therapy, diet changes, supplements, “Eastern” medicine, energy healing, modifying your sleep habits, psychotherapy; anything.  One year when I was still able to work a part-time job, I spent over a quarter of my pitiful earnings on doctor copays, medications, supplements and treatments.  That amount hasn’t changed much since then.

While there have been some setbacks recently for the ME community, there has also been forward momentum.  I know of at least two ME documentaries currently in production.  I had the chance to work with one of the films, Canary In A Coal Mine, and get involved with when it was raising funds through Kickstarter by donating the printing rights to some of my ME-themed images for them to use as backer rewards.  Everyone was shocked and delighted when the Canary film more than quadrupled its initial goal in its 30-day campaign!  I take this overwhelming support as a sign that our voices are finally starting to be heard, and that, perhaps, this indicates the winds are finally starting to change.

The Fragile Blossom That Opens In The Snow – a self portrait. “Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow.”
– Alice M. Swaim

I never write posts about subjects like this with the intent to garner pity or complain.  That is never my intention.  What I want is to bring awareness to this extremely misunderstood, unappreciated and devastating disease by speaking frankly and candidly about it.  We are suffering and dying and there are few people who know about it and even fewer who are doing anything about it.  The squeaky wheel does get the oil.  Enough noise needs to be made and enough public outrage needs to be expressed over how the medical community (as a group; there are certainly exceptions and wonderful doctors working alongside us) is ignoring us and indeed doing harm.

It can feel daunting to attack such a huge, glass mountain.  It does not matter that you are only one person and that I am only one person.  Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. were each just one person.

I genuinely believe this is a problem science could solve if enough effort was made to solve it.  At the very, very least we could find treatments to alleviate the symptoms.  We have tackled other serious diseases.  But we need the funds and we need the public to demand action.  And we need a name that isn’t dismissive and demeaning.  So this last part goes to the CDC:

Hey, CDC, change our fucking name already.

Exoskeletonation – a self portrait

To do my part in raising awareness about ME, for the month of May, I am donating 50 percent of profits from all my sales to The Microbe Discovery Project, a group working to solve the mystery of ME and find a cure for those afflicted..  And what do I sell?  Well, what do you want?  Because my images come from the frameable to the wearable and in every price range.
– museum-quality, fine art prints
– iPad/iPhone/iPod covers
– stickers
– blank greeting cards
– post cards
– shirts and hoodies
– wearable art
– throw pillows
– INTROSPECTIVE: my eight-week, on-line, course of self-discovery through photography

Also, in honor of this day of raising awareness, I’m holding a contest to win a beautiful, 10″ x 15″, museum-quality print of my latest image, The Blue Ribbon; an underwater representation of the struggle that living with ME can be.  Your print will come on beautiful, shimmering, pearlized, archival paper.  And all you have to do is tweet!

The Blue Ribbon, model: Katie Johnson – enter the giveaway to win a print of this image!

Ready to tweet?  Use any of the following!

Curing baldness gets 4x more funding than ME/CFS, but no one ever died of baldness http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

*****

ME/CFS knows no social or economic boundaries; it affects all equally w/out mercy. http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

*****

ME/CFS in not in our heads & cannot be cured with exercise & a better attitude. http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

*****

ME/CFS is not a “female” disease; 20% of sufferers are male. http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

*****

ME/CFS isn’t just about being “tired,” it ravages every single part of the body. http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

*****

ME/CFS can be just as deadly as MS, HIV and AIDS, yet it is largely ignored. http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

*****

More exercise and a better attitude will not cure ME/CFS. http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

*****

We’re not chronically fatigued, @CDCgov. We have myalgic encephalomyelitis. http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

Tweeting multiple statements will count as extra entries, so enter as many times as you like.  However, tweeting the same statement multiple times will not count.  And that will probably just annoy the people reading your feed, so don’t do it. 😉  I will choose a random winner from all entries on May 20th and announce the winner here!

Catch up on the story with the first, second and third posts this week about ME.

Thank you to everyone for reading and participating!  If you have had your own experiences with ME, CFS, fibro or any other chronic illness and you’d like to share your story, please leave it in a comment!

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The 12th of May and a Print Giveaway

“I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

 

Vanity’s Murder, a self portrait

 

May 12th is called “Invisible Illness Day.”

You probably don’t know that…and that’s part of the problem.

Years ago, May 12th was chosen to be the international awareness day for chronic immunological and neurological diseases, which include everything from Gulf War Syndrome and Multiple Chemical Sensitivities to fibromyalgia (fibro), Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME).  Yet more money is spent each year trying to cure male pattern baldness than these diseases.

I’m all for a luxurious head of hair.  But, diseases like ME are taking lives.

A Fading Girl – model: Brooke Shaden

To be sure, “Invisible Illness Day” rolls off the tongue much more easily than “Myalgic Encephalomyelitis Day.”  But the name highlights one of the sources of great frustration for most of us — we often do not APPEAR outwardly sick, thus many people refuse to believe our illness is real.

Unfortunately, some of those “many people” include doctors, policy makers and insurance companies.

How do we fight an illness with no end, no cure, no treatment, no recognition?  How many people must die before the world pays attention?  How many sufferers must commit suicide from the hopelessness and misery they’re dragged through every day before change comes?  We fight it by bringing awareness of the problem, one person at a time.  Every tweet, Facebook post, blog entry, text and conversation you and I have about ME helps fight it.  Every petition we sign, documentary we watch and donation we give is a punch in ME’s face.  And here’s the latest way I’m balling up my tiny little fists.

For the month of May, I am donating 50 percent of profits from all my sales to The Microbe Discovery Project, a group working to solve the mystery of ME and find a cure for those afflicted.  And what do I sell?  Well, what do you want?  Because my images come from the frameable to the wearable and in every price range.
– museum-quality, fine art prints
– iPad/iPhone/iPod covers
– stickers
– blank greeting cards
– post cards
– shirts and hoodies
– wearable art
– throw pillows
– INTROSPECTIVE: my eight-week, on-line, course of self-discovery through photography

Also, in honor of this day of raising awareness, I’m holding a contest to win a beautiful, 10″ x 15″, museum-quality print of my latest image, The Blue Ribbon; an underwater representation of the struggle that living with ME can be.  Your print will come on beautiful, shimmering, pearlized, archival paper.  And all you have to do is tweet!

The Blue Ribbon, model: Katie Johnson – enter the giveaway to win a print of this image!

Ready to tweet?  Use any of the following!

Curing baldness gets 4x more funding than ME/CFS, but no one ever died of baldness http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

*****

ME/CFS knows no social or economic boundaries; it affects all equally w/out mercy. http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

*****

ME/CFS in not in our heads & cannot be cured with exercise & a better attitude. http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

*****

ME/CFS is not a “female” disease; 20% of sufferers are male. http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

*****

ME/CFS isn’t just about being “tired,” it ravages every single part of the body. http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

*****

ME/CFS can be just as deadly as MS, HIV and AIDS, yet it is largely ignored. http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

*****

More exercise and a better attitude will not cure ME/CFS. http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

*****

We’re not chronically fatigued, @CDCgov. We have myalgic encephalomyelitis. http://wp.me/p17spB-EX #MEAwareness #CFS #SAPrintGiveaway

The Blue Ribbon – detail

Tweeting multiple statements will count as extra entries, so enter as many times as you like.  However, tweeting the same statement multiple times will not count.  And that will probably just annoy the people reading your feed, so don’t do it. 😉  I will choose a random winner from all entries on May 20th and announce the winner here!

Thank you to everyone for reading and participating!

Curious how ME became an invisible disease?  Stay tuned to find out more for Invisible Illness Week!

If you have had your own experiences with ME, CFS, fibro or any other chronic illness and you’d like to share your story, please leave it in a comment!

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