Today is #WorldMEDay. I've been on SSI disability my entire adult life, but I wasn't physically disabled except for glasses and chronic migraines before Covid. In March 2020, I got a sore throat that made me worry, but no other symptoms developed, so I brushed it off. I'd read that people were getting sore throats from adjusting to masks.
That was the year my beloved cat started to decline rapidly. His kidneys got very bad, and in October I had to have him put down. I thought to myself that I would never forgive nonmaskers for keeping things so bad that my cat had to be distressed and frightened inside a carrier for half an hour at the end of his life, instead of being able to have the vet come to our house. By December, I myself felt so sick and exhausted that I would think, Thank god this only happened after he died, because I couldn't take care of him properly now.
Gradually I started spending more time in bed. After nearly four years of asking doctors about an increasingly long list of new physical symptoms, suggesting disease after disease and being told nothing except "Nope, not that one. Your tests are fine. Go home," somebody in my family finally mentioned ME/CFS to me. At that point it was too late; I'd been pushing myself through the fatigue for too long and was essentially bedbound. As I type this, I haven't gone further than the end of my driveway in six months. When I do that, I have to lie down and rest before I turn around. Digesting solid food is exhausting. No part of my body works right anymore. I'm trying LDN, which has some anecdotal support. There's no actual treatment, because nobody has ever really studied this disease. I feel a tiny bit better with the LDN. But it stops working randomly for some people. So I don't have any long term hope.
At this point I'm sure I had Covid in March 2020, and that my cat caught it from me and that shortened his life (although he was 17). ME accounts for about 50% Long Covid cases. A lot of people in the world are "exhausted" lately. There are no treatments for ME except lying in bed doing nothing, spending as much time as possible in total darkness and silence. If you get to the Very Severe end of the scale, you become completely intolerant of light, sound, human presence, solid food. You just lie still, unable to speak and trying not to die. As I type this I'm getting the pressure in my skull that means I'm pushing myself too hard. I have to rest if I don't want to get worse. But sometimes it happens randomly anyway.
