I first began to notice a change in my health in 1998. I had always been healthy, outgoing and full of energy. My favorite phrase was "I will sleep when I die", but in 1998 I began to notice that I was abnormally tired. For a few years I was aware of this feeling but always blamed it on other factors such as my mom's passing, working 12-16 shifts at my job, just not getting enough rest, not eating properly, etc. All part of a busy lifestyle. But late in 2000 I began to take a turn for the worse, the tiredness I was feeling turned to exhaustion. I began to have migrane headaches, earaches, swollen lymph nodes, sore throats, upset stomach and fr

equent diarreha. I remember in Feburary 2001 I took a trip to Florida and literally slept all the way there and back. I went to see my doctor and we did some blood work checking my thyroid, looking for viral infections and even multiple sclerosis. We found nothing from the blood work and I was rescheduled for September. The symptoms continued and got worse. I began to have problems with my sleeping from insomnia to sleeping on nearly all of my off time. I would even fight sleep at work and on the drive back and forth to it. I found it hard to concentrate and had short-term memory loss. I remember a time I went to answer the phone and when I picked it up I "forgot" what I was supposed to say when I answered it. I could read a page in a book and not know what I had just read. Simple everyday tasks grew more confusing and difficult. I got chills and night sweats, dissiness and balance problems, problems with my stomach got worse. I carried a low grade fever most days and would experience tingling in my feet and lower legs. It was becoming harder and harder to function on a daily basis. I would sleep so hard at times it would take 3 alarm clocks to awaken me and I would still feel exhausted, no matter how much sleep I had. My social life became nil. In June, I came down with bronchitis and it took 3 months, two visits to minor-emergency centers and a visit to the emergency room to get past it. In September, I returned to my doctor and was diagnosed with CFS.

A study done in 1999, conducted by Depaul University, estimated that as many as 800,000 people nationwide suffer from the illness. 90% of these have not been diagnosed and struggle through life without medical care. Research has shown that CFS is 3 times more common in women, a rat

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