ME/CFS has been in the news a lot this year.
In case you're unfamiliar, ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue syndrome) is a chronic disease that involves debilitating pain, cognitive impairment, crushing exhaustion, and many other nasty symptoms. Sufferers also experience post-exertional morbidity, which means they feel worse following even light exertion and require an extended recovery period. Many people with ME/CFS are housebound or bedbound.
Despite the severity of the disease, it isn't on most people's radar the way, say, breast cancer or multiple sclerosis are. At least not until recently, when a pandemic struck and some of the people who got sick never got better. Long covid, they call it. It bears some similarity to ME/CFS.
Living through the pandemic—for those of us who've survived it—has absolutely sucked. Nothing will compensate for the lives lost, or the lives devestated by the version of covid-19 that doesn't go away. But if we can find a silver lining in the increased funding for research on postviral syndromes, I will take it.
In the meantime, happy ME/CFS Awareness Day.
