Battle The Thief That’s Stolen
Your Loved One’s Health And Your Freedom!
“Finally– Get the hope, help, and care that you want for your CFS-CFIDS – M.E. loved one – and yourself!”
Dear Loving Caregiver;
As you know, for anyone dealing with this sickness, common experiences include being
- fed up with feeling alone, demeaned – and even invisible - because people just don’t know (or seem to care) what CFS-CFIDS-M.E. is doing to you and your loved one
-
tired of feeling stuck and lonely as a CFS-CFIDS-M.E. caregiver – and that even your loved one doesn’t understand?
-
In a constant struggle to explain the confusing CFS-CFIDS-M.E. symptoms
Frequently, a loved one’s symptoms of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome make Caregivers feel chronically overwhelmed, exhausted, lonely and frustrated from too little support.
If you can identify with any or all of these experiences or feelings, this could be the most important letter you ever read! Let me tell you why.
Ann Corcoran, CFIDS Caregiver
Hello – my name is Ann Corcoran, and I’ve been taking care of my older brother for 7 years. He has been severely disabled from the sickness of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS/CFIDS/ME) for 20 years.
I have devoted my life and career to helping the disadvantaged and disabled. During this time, while married to a wonderful, physically disabled man for 30 years, I earned a Masters of Science degree in Special Education, and trained others to teach and become advocates for physically and mentally disabled children.
I specialized in analyzing what it takes for a person to learn and accomplish something and in teaching them, step by step, how to learn and get something finished.
And yet…
My brother’s Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Had Me Stumped!
Here’s why:
Many years ago, when I picked up my brother from the airport after not having seen him in years, I was shocked. This was not the smart, funny, high energy guy I remembered growing up with.
Sure, he’d tried to explain his illness – but I just didn’t understand what he had gone through until I began to live, face-to-face, with CFS every day, like you do.
I’d worked with disabled people, but Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was completely different!
Pretty soon I discovered that dealing with my own sibling’s chronic illness made me tired – and I felt resentful and guilty.
Does this sound familiar?
When some of my brother’s symptom’s weren’t so bad and he felt able to speak, he explained why Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was more than just chronic “fatigue”.
This was severe fatigue, worse than any “tired” I’d ever seen – and it lasted for weeks. Sometimes, for days and days, he couldn’t get out of bed at all. Because he was also suffering from chronic muscle pain, chronic headaches, chronic everything!!
He also had chronic cognitive skills impairment.
It was so sad.
In his 40s, he was a highly successful Sales and Marketing Executive who put together – and won – multi-million dollar sales.
Now he was destitute, homeless, and couldn’t think his way out of a paper bag.
And yet, sometimes we had so much fun, I forgot he was sick – until a few hours later when he was sick AGAIN!!
“How could that be?”
I couldn’t understand it…How could he be okay one day and then sick for a whole week!
My friends did not believe me and told me my brother was lazy and if he just stopped acting like a victim, he’d be okay!
I felt sick at heart and so alone …
Dealing with CFS was driving me crazy.
Yes, I knew my brother was sick, but still resented that he was in bed when I left and still in bed when I got home — when I had to go to work all day.
His short term memory loss made him put things away in odd places and then he couldn’t remember where he had put them!
My house was a confusing mess. I felt angry…and then I felt guilty.
Our relatives lived far away and they didn’t understand anything about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome symptoms. As a sibling of CFS, I felt totally and utterly alone.
I learned that in families when one sibling is chronically impaired, this can be common.
Sibling support for chronic illness – any chronic illness – can be rare.
Nobody I knew had ever heard of this “chronic fatigue stuff”. Even my own doctor pooh-poohed the whole idea of CFS.
He told me, “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is just an excuse!” He said that CFS “didn’t exist!“
Other doctors told me there was no cure for chronic fatigue – as if my brother wasn’t also suffering from so many other symptoms at the same time!
