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About Me

I am a 18 year old girl named Sarah. Two years ago, I was a active and happy girl. I was a cross-country skiier, and I trained every day, often twice. All that mattered to me was cross country skiing, running and being active. That ended September 2012.

It all started with a virus infection that turned out to be mononucleosis. Unfortunately, the doctors didn't figure this out before November the same year. Those two months I was convinced that it was just a normal infection that would pass fast. When I had a tiny bit of energy, I went running until I threw up. This didn't take very long though.
After two months with hospital visits, days in bed and failed workouts, I got the diagnose mononucleosis. This was partly a relief, because I knew that it wasn't anything worse, and I knew that I would fully recover, it would just take some time.

January 2nd 2013, I spent an entire hour without headache. It fellt as if my head were twenty pounds lighter. For a girl that had spent the entire fall with constant headache, this was amazing. But two days later, I was back in bed feeling worse than ever. Another three days later, I got a text from my doctor saying that my testresults now were fine. Now I should have been fine. What was wrong with me? I didn't understand, but I concluded with that my body just needed a couple of weeks to recover, and then I would be fine.
In the middle of February, I felt better. When my family and I visited our cabin, I even took a couple of trips cross country skiing. It felt great, but of course, I got much worse later. This continued all through the spring. I had some ups and downs, I managed to be on school most days, but then I needed to rest all afternoon.

May 2013 was my best month. I felt like I was finally me again. I spent time with friends, I worked out a little and I didn't miss a single day of school. But of course, this couldn't last forever. In June I was back at spending my days in bed again. I had just started a new summer job, and I didn't want to be the problem kid who always called in sick. So I manned up, and went to work. Unfortunately, I became the problem kid. I wanted to go to work so badly, but the headache was so bad I thought my head migh blow up, and all my body was screaming for, was sleep. So to sum up my summer, I worked a few days, I spent three nights out with friends and I slept the rest.
In August, my family and I went to Denmark on vacation for a week. I had looked forward to this for so long, and after hours of convincing, my parents let me go. Some might think that a week with your parents and siblings are awful, but I love them and I love spending time with them. Even though the vacation didin't go as planned, we had a lovely time.

After the vacation, I started using a new medicine. I was very positive and thought that this one would work. It didn't. It made me worse. After a terrible month with throwing up, weight loss, cold sweat and headache, I stopped using that medicine. I got immediately better, and October was a great month. I don't know why that month was so good, but it was great to get to spend some time with my friends without getting a thousand times worse the next day. But in November it was "back to normal", only worse. Only a "simple" task as taking a shower was too much. The feeling of failure when you're not able to take a shower by yourself anymore, is indescribable. December 19th, I was back at the hospital. My parents didn't dare to keep me home anymore, afraid of what could happen when they turned their eyes away from me.
At the hospital I got a new diagnosis; post-viral fatigue syndrome (PVFS), myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) or chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). The diasese has multiple names, but it's all the same.
This was my biggest fear. All the stories I've heard, and all the sentences that before were used to cheer me up; "You should be glad you don't have ME", "I know someone with ME, and she was ill for 10 years!" etc.

But I can't do anything about my diagnose. In one way, it feels better to be diagnosed with something, than to feel horrible and not knowing why. I have now started teatment, and I hope that I will get my life back one day, better late than never.

~ Sarah ~

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