By KAY GILDERDALE, Last updated at 1:54 AM on 14th April 2011:
‘They keep telling me I’m pretending,’ she said. ‘One of the nurses started laughing at me and called me a silly little girl. I am not pretending. I don’t want to be like this. I hate being ill.’
I wanted to weep for the pain she was suffering, yet Lynn remained cheerful and resilient, loving and thoughtful.
All this despite being in hospital, or lying in a darkened room, unable to walk, talk, feed herself, use the toilet, read, or listen to music. She had to communicate by using a kind of sign language we developed between us, based on deaf and dumb signings.
‘I’m sorry for ruining your life, and Daddy’s,’ she’d say.
My obsession with solving the mystery of ME had left little room in my life for Richard, and we had agreed to separate. Lynn thought she had ruined our lives, but she hadn’t. ME had destroyed hers.
For the next 17 years, Lynn endured an unending string of hospital tests that revealed one frustrating and inconclusive result after another, and doctors who rarely offered much hope.
She could not swallow and had to be fed through a tube. She had to remain horizontal because sitting up made her lose consciousness and she lay on a sheepskin rug to prevent bedsores.
Her major organs and hormone system were breaking down and, despite her daily morphine, she was often in severe pain. Read more>>
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