Description

Born 1931 in England, and growing up during the blitz, from an early age the author questioned the legit-imacy of war, of religion, even who she was and just what, on earth, liv-ing could achieve. It took a lifetime to find even a few answers, but sur-prisingly the deepest answers came while trying to continue a normal life when also coping with a devas-tating chronic illness.
After numerous infections treated with anti-biotics a tentative diagno-sis was offered, Allergic to the 20th Century; then as all allergy tests came back negative changed to Food and Chemical Sensitivity and Immune Dysfunction. Finally, it was named Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which morphed into Myalgic En-cephalomyelitis, ME/CFS.
ME/CFS is an orphan illness, still de-nied as having a physical cause by much of the medical profession, it was relegated to psychiatry, the cause being wrong thinking and physical deconditioning. It is all in your mind, do a bit more each day, you will get over it. No
The illness came to dominate every aspect of life. Debilitating reactions to multiple foods and everyday chemicals brought massive re-strictions in energy and lifestyle; un-able to work as a registered nurse, go to church, choir, swimming, sail-ing; looking after family and shop-ping was a nightmare.
Frequently unable to sleep and tormented by urticaria, at times a different reality fleetingly took over, an alternative consciousness of peace and brilliant light brought pe-riods of temporary relief. Its brevity made her long for more, thus start-ed a search for answers, physical and spiritual. Trained as a nurse and having lived or worked on five con-tinents inevitably the search was wide; medical and metaphysical. West and East. It seemed like the challenges of a prolonged Shaman-istic journey: Karma, Kundalini, rein-carnation--what? When? Where? Here.
This memoir is about that search for meaning and the conclusions reached. Dear M.E., it might never have happened without you.