Welcome to my blog about my journey through CFS.

Hello Friends,

My name is Linda Marshall. I am 41 years old, and I have CFS. (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) When I look back, I started having symptoms as far back as 2001, but it did not reach its worst point until July 2006. While my journey has its peaks and valleys, I am very thankful for the improvement I have seen over the last 4 years. The progress has been slow, but I continue to have hope that someday I will be completely well again. Today, I’ll give you a little of my story and tomorrow I will start my day to day blog.

I grew up having a very active lifestyle. When I was younger, I spent hours playing outside, and later joined a children’s theatre group. I spent hours rehearsing lines and dance numbers. As an adult, I was always busy. When I was studying in college, I was working full time while carrying a full load of courses, and also living on my own, helping to support my live in boyfriend at the time. I had a lot of energy. I loved going out with friends to parties, and dancing all night. Even later in life in my late 20s and early 30s, I was the type to rarely just sit down. I worked in high pressure, high energy software sales positions for a number of years. During that time in 2000 my husband and I achieved the dream of owning our own home. Since it was a new house, it had nothing but large tumbleweeds in the backyard. I was back there pulling them out by hand. I’d spent many hours happily working in our yard.

In 2001, I was laid off by for a software company due to “restructuring.” All of the inside sales positions were going to be located in Texas. Being laid off, no matter what the reason is a stressful thing, even if you wanted to leave anyway. It’s a little fuzzy to me right now, but I think I was depressed for awhile after it happened. Working for that company had been so stressful; it took years off of my life. I was determined to not to work in that dog eat dog industry again. Luckily, my husband‘s income was enough for us to continue to get by.
I became a consultant for Pampered Chef. When looking back, I know things were not physically normal for me, but we all have a funny thing called denial. It gives us reasons for the things we are experiencing, and allows us to continue on thinking what we are experiencing is normal for us. If you are not familiar with Pampered Chef, it is a company selling kitchen tools, stoneware, cookware, etc. As a consultant, I had shows in people homes. I had to pack up crates of products, some stoneware, cookware, and sometimes a table to people’s homes, set up a demonstration, and cook something in their homes in front of their audience of family and friends. Afterwards, you had to take product orders, clean all of the dishes/tools used, pack up the car, and drive home. This is when I remember having problems with my ability to focus my brain during presentations, muscle weakness during lugging around the products, and lack of energy afterwards. I guess luckily, I did not have back to back shows during the week. Just doing one was exhausting. But there were many women who did, and they seemed to have no problems handling it. At the time, I just made the excuse that I had been spending most of my hours in front of a computer at work, so I was a little out of shape. I did not continue with Pampered Chef for over a year because I was spending more on it than I was earning. J
It was not until I went to Veterinary Technology school in 2003, that I realized something was definitely wrong. I’ve always loved animals, and science, so I went back to school to be a Vet Tech. (Kind of like a nurse) I loved the classes, and did great on written tests, and projects. Actually working with animals is when I noticed problems. One of the things required of a Vet Tech is knowing how to properly restrain an animal using your hands, arms, and body. The muscle weakness I experienced gave me great difficulty in being able to hold the animals. It was a great struggle for me, and I often felt the animals were stronger than me, even if they were small. I also noticed problems with my motor functions, especially when using hypodermic needles. I knew what I needed to do to use them correctly, but I could not get my brain to tell my hands what to do. I also had issues with being able to “access” information I needed to do certain things like calculating dosages of drugs, or how to use certain machines. Even though I learned all of those things in class, and received A’s on my tests, there were just days when I could not remember what I learned. In my heart of hearts I knew there was something wrong, and I left school before completing the program. That was depressing. At this point even though I felt something wasn’t right, I still was in denial and did not seek answers from a doctor.
One morning in July 2006, I woke up at 6 AM with what felt like the beginnings of an upper respiratory infection, but I also had an extremely fast heartbeat and pressure in my chest. Sometimes if I’ve had an extreme dream of some sort, I can “talk” my heart rate back down to normal and go back to sleep. My heart rate was up and stayed up. So when a half hour went by and I woke my husband and told him I needed to go to the ER. They actually needed to use drugs to bring my heart rate down, and more drugs to bring it back up when my numbers tanked. I experienced many tests, and luckily nothing wrong was found with my heart. They kept me overnight for observation. Ever since this day, I feel like I blew a fuse. My blood pressure was low. 80 something over 50 something. (Without any drugs) I felt dizzy and weak most of the time. I was on the couch for about 2 weeks. I could use the bathroom and eat, but not more than that. I do remember there was a time when I took a shower sitting down because I was too weak and dizzy to stand. My arms were barely able to reach up to shampoo my hair.
After tests to rule out other illnesses, I was diagnosed with CFS. I have since spent many hours reading (and re-reading) books, articles, studies when I was able to. Trying to find the answers. Thinking the next supplement or regime I try will be the one to get me well. I have learned a lot, and I have improved greatly since I became ill, but it’s been slow progress. I have learned to manage my time, and how to listen to my body. I’ve found drugs and supplements that have helped. But every waking day I still don’t know how my day is going to be. If I wake up feeling pretty good, I never know how I’ll be feeling later on. I feel like my improvement hit a plateau a bit since this past November. There are no CFS specialists where I live, but found a few in driving distance. Two of them were “quacks” and while the third one seemed promising, they did not accept medical insurance. I just do not have the money to pay up front for treatments, and lack the energy to be dealing with all of that paperwork. I have been a subscriber to Prevention Magazine for some time, and by chance I looked at a flyer enclosed advertising a book about natural cures. In this ad, it mentioned a Dr. Teitlebaum having success with treating his CFS patients. I am feeling hopeful because I have finally found a specialist who I think can help me improve more using Dr. Teitlebaum’s SHINE protocol. I have to drive an hour and a half each way for each appointment, but I’m hoping it’s worth it. My appointment is on March 23th. Wish me luck!

Until tomorrow…
Linda