by Jaime Wellman
written May 1996

When I first started to get "sick", I had a very strange sensation set in, one for which I cannot describe, but yet is one I know all of you can sympathize with. Outside of the feeling of being isolated because I had recently moved, I was also beginning to acquire a different type of isolation. It was an isolation that was setting me apart from even myself.

After coming to the conclusion that "yes, I do have a chronic illness," something else arose. It was almost like someone had just recruited me and I was now in for a long, hard battle. Coming to terms with the realization that "yes, this is happening, and yes, it is happening to me" did not come quickly, in fact, it still hasn't I don't think. Well, then again, maybe it has.

I use to think that it wasn't fair that something like this had to happen to me of all people. Now I have come to a point where I have realized that I was "the best person for the job." Don't get me wrong, I do not like being sick, and I do not want to be sick, that's not it at all. What I am saying is that I do have this illness, I am the best person for it. This is because I am one of those people that will make the best out if it and turn it around and MAKE good come out of it.

Even though I know I still have that "long, hard battle" in front of me, I already know that I am the one that in the end is going to come out as the victorious one.

View this article as seen in the CFIDS Assoc. of America - VOICE! Winter '97