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Chronic Fatigue Syndrome means more than feeling tired

Paulina Rau
4 min readJun 21, 2024

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The prevalence of Long-Covid has increased and led to research, which is said to help sufferers of ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Unfortunately, I have yet to see this improvement in our lives.

I was diagnosed with ME/CFS in 2020 but had been ill for a few years while continuing to work full-time. When I say ill I mean that in terms of being susceptible to colds, being exhausted, randomly overwhelmed and if I was a car, I was running on two cylinders. In May 2020, it was as if my entire body shut down. It was school holidays and I forced myself outside to weed the garden, not because I am an avid gardener but because the weeds were getting mighty high. I could picture them peeping over the shared fence like friendly triffids.

After about 90 minutes with the patch half-cleared, I’d had enough. I stood up and wobbled. Then I staggered into the house and held onto the kitchen bench for a few minutes, wondering what on earth was wrong with me. The only place was bed so that’s where I stayed for the rest of the day and the next.

A week later, I returned to work and instantly caught influenza from two students, who were so unwell they could barely speak. Sick leave began and I thought it would be a week until I returned, but I never went back. The mental shock has been stupendous.

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Paulina Rau
Paulina Rau

Written by Paulina Rau

I am a writer, interested in people, ideas and language.

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