My Very Own Personal Apocalypse, Part 1

September 10, 2014

Dear friends, family and constant readers,

A number of you have asked me recently about how I became ill with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  Given the interest, I thought I would take time to share my story with you.

Unlike many people with a chronic illnesses, I can point to a specific day when I became sick.  In the Bible, one of the images used to describe the way the world ends is as like "a thief (who comes) in the night." (1 Thessalonians 5:1)  That image speaks to me personally.  For me, the beginning of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was like that - sudden, unexpected, a thief come to steal away my health, my well-being, my very vitality.  When that day came, my life as I had known it ceased to exist.  My old life was taken from me - and a new and strange one had begun.  Thirteen years ago this fall, I experienced my very own personal apocalypse.

When I awoke the morning of Saturday, November 10, 2001, it was a day much like any other.  I clearly remember how good I felt as I rose out of bed to greet the day.  I had good reason to feel great - I was in the best physical shape of my life.  And my life itself was both joyful and rewarding.  In my personal life and my professional life, I was living with the sense that everything was coming together.  But before the end of the day, it would all fall apart.

One of the reasons that I remember that particular Saturday is that it was the day of the annual Richmond marathon.  Lynn, my wife, was a participant and had planned to spend much of the day running those 26.2 miles around the city of Richmond.  My plans for the day included taking care of our five young children and finishing up a landscape project in the front yard of our church parsonage.

So that morning, I got the kids squared away with Cora and Hannah, the two older children, helping to look out for the younger three.  While they watched TV and played in the house, I went outside and began my chores.  For the second Saturday in November, it was an exceptionally beautiful day.  The sun was bright.  The air had a fall crisp feeling to it, but it wasn't cold.  It was a perfect day to be outside.

I had spent much of my off-time since June of that year outside.  On our property behind the house was a large patch of woods.  The undergrowth had been neglected for many years, so I spent that summer cleaning out the woods - getting rid of the bramble and poison ivy, cutting up fallen trees and creating a series of trails for the kids to be able to play.  I dug up piles of leaves which had accumulated over many an autumn.  Though I wasn't quite finished, I felt a great sense of accomplishment in the back yard.

Saturday, November 10, my attention turned to the front lawn.  I began my work about 9 a.m. or so and worked for several hours.  About an hour into my labor, I started to sniffle and my throat felt scratchy.  I didn't think much of it and dismissed it as a possible cold coming on.  Another hour or so passed when I began to feel my body ache.  I suddenly felt sore all over.  By this time I wasn't feeling all that great, but still I continued to work.  Sometime after noon or so, I began to sweat profusely.  It didn't take long for me to conclude that I was running a fever.  Since it was the beginning of November and of flu season, I thought that this was what was happening to me.  A reasonable conclusion, it seemed to me - all the symptoms fit: I had a case of the flu!

When Lynn arrived home from the race, the leaves in the yard were pilled up but not bagged yet.  I was sitting on the front steps of the house, feeling like a train had just run over me.  I told her how sick I was and asked if she would call someone to substitute for me in the pulpit the next day.  Then I headed to the shower to wash up and go to bed.

I was confined to bed for the next three weeks, as it turned out, with what I thought must been the worst

case of flu in my life.  For those three weeks, I ran a high temperature and sweat a great deal.  My throat felt raw.  My body ached terribly.  It felt as though my bones had been broken and my muscles torn.  But the symptom which stood out the most was the unrelenting fatigue.  I slept for the majority of each day.  I felt sleep deprived.  I just couldn't seem to get enough rest - no amount seemed sufficient.

By the end of those three weeks, the symptoms lessened in severity so that I could return to work, but they did not leave entirely - nor have they completely left me in the last thirteen years.  My new life was conceived in feeling that I would live every day of my life as though I was still just getting over the flu.  I felt like that at the end of November 2001, and November 2013.  I feel like that today.  I'm still living as though I have the "tail end" of the flu.

This is how my world ended.  This is also how a new, and very different one, was born.

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Some Things I Have Learned From and About Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Cheers,

Stephen