Debut Post

This is my very first post, therefore I don't see any other option than to start from the beginning. In order to allow anybody who choses to read this to follow my journey from the very beginning.

At the age of 16 I had decided on a career in medicine, began my A Levels and was basically starting on the long journey to everything I wanted from my future. I was willing to work hard, and to not let anything stand in my way.

As it turned out, I didn't have a choice in the matter, after only around 2 months of studying for my AS Levels I was struck down with a mystery illness. I was not just tired, but exhausted. Physically drained to the point that it seemed impossible to sit up in bed in the morning. Along with this I no longer had an appetite. I thought about being hungry, knowing that I should be. But I never actually felt those hunger pangs. I less I ate, the less I wanted to eat, and eventually it became my mission to avoid food altogether. Why would I choose to eat when I was left feeling sick and so full from so little?

After months of not being able to leave my bed and losing weight faster than I could ever imagine, I was hospitalised. This was exactly what I had wanted for months, to be sent somewhere I could be helped and maybe made better. But it wasn't that simple, I went through one test after another. Being tested for all these diseases and illnesses was both terrifying and frustrating.

After putting on some weight (almost impossible to not put any one considering the fact that they were still observing me for signs of anorexia, and the nurses were writing down every last mouthful of food I consumed) I was released from the hospital, and sent home. I had no answers, nothing to make me feel any better, and no idea of what to do. In retrospect I think this is where my depression first became obvious. I had been to hospital, and gone through all the tests because I thought I would get an answer. I would be given something to treat whatever I had, and eventually I would be better. Instead I was still ill, had developed even more symptoms and had no answers.

A month later I was called back to the hospital, this was when I was given my diagnosis; Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.