Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Nina's Story

Nina entered law school late in life. At 29, she had just spent 8 years working in the communications field, getting nowhere and making little money. She decided it was time for a change so she took her LSATs, found a law school that would accept her, packed up a U-Haul and headed for Cooley Law School in East Lansing, Michigan.

In entering law school, Nina knew there would be tons of stress - not merely the workload or the thought of returning to school after almost a decade, but also the financial burden. Her future, both academically and finically, rested on her shoulders. .

The second year was a little more difficult, but still manageable. Nina had found a good roommate and an endearing boyfriend. Lansing, Michigan was finally becoming a home away from home. Then in mid-February Nina started coming down with flu like symptoms - she was incredibly tired, her bones and muscles ached, she had horrible headaches, she was dizzy and nauseous. After a week the symptoms worsened: Nina could hardly get out of bed, she couldn't concentrate or read, and couldn't retain information. Doctors at the student health services put her on a slew of antibiotics, but the symptoms didn't abate. She went to private doctors but even they couldn't find anything physically wrong with her. One even suggested she see a psychiatrist.

And while Nina protested, arguing that these symptoms were not psychosomatic, she was wasting time, money, and her education; she would do anything to feel better, even if it was seeing a shrink. The psychiatrist proscribed Elavil, an anti-depressant, and weekly sessions but nothing seemed to help. With work and law loans piling up and finals nearing Nina had no other choice but to withdraw from school. "I remember the day I had to pick up the phone and tell my parents I needed to come home," Nina says, "I felt like everything was such a waste. Beyond feeling like hell, I was so depressed."

"She looked like a ghost," Nina's father recalls, seeing her daughter step off the plane at Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia. "She had lost about twenty pounds on an already petite frame, her eyes bloodshot. It looked like she cried all the way home." She did.
Nina's parents immediately set up a myriad of doctors' appointments at hospitals up and down the Eastern seaboard - Georgetown, John Hopkins, Yale/New Haven. In two months she saw over a dozen doctors and specialists, undergoing a battery of tests: her electrolytes, blood count, thyroid, and levels of calcium, glucose, and phosphorus were constantly monitored. She was given Rorschach tests, concentration and memory tests, personality assessments. "Poked and prodded, diagnosed and misdiagnosed for so long by so many people in white coats, she began to feel like a laboratory rat, " her sister remarks.

All of it was to no avail; her illness remained a mystery. And as the cause of the symptoms remained unanswered, Nina worsened. Depression only added to the mix. She became a hermit. She didn't talk to friends, she shut her boyfriend out, some days she had to lay in total darkness just to make the room stop spinning. "It really seemed hopeless," Nina's step-mother observed. "Some people thought she was doing it all for attention. But it was real."

And then one day, a doctor finally had a diagnosis -- Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or CFS. Nina thought finally something tangible, something she could treat, but then the doctor broke the news to her -- there was no real cure; doctors were note even sure what caused CFS. "I felt even more hopeless. Finally I had a diagnosis, but it was more like a sentence." It would be something Nina would have to live with for the rest of her life.

Diagnosis: Chronic Fatigue

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) defines CFS as a debilitating and complex disorder characterized by profound fatigue that is not improved by bed rest and may be worsened by physical or mental activity. Persons with CFS often function at a substantially lower level of activity than they were capable of before the onset of illness. Moreover, these patients are plagued by nonspecific ailments such as dizziness, muscle aches and pains, headaches, unrefeshing sleep, and concentration or short-term memory impairment. CFS is often hard to diagnosis because a variety of illnesses -- fibromyalgia, Epstein-Barr, chronic mononucleosis, eating disorders, bipolar affective disorders, schizophrenia, sleep apnea, substance abuse, and cancer - bear similar symptoms.

For many people, CFS begins after a bout with the cold or the flu; for some it starts after a period of high stress. And in others, CFS develops gradually, almost out of the blue, with no rhyme or reason. In fact, CFS was once stereotyped as a new "yuppie flu" because those who sought help in the early 1980s were mainly well-educated, well-off women in their thirties and forties. In recent years, however, the syndrome has been diagnosed in people of all ages, races, and social and economic backgrounds. Of every 100,000 Americas, 422 have CFS and only 10% who meet the definition have been diagnosed.

Living with CFS

Though the doctor told Nina there was no cure, there were things he suggested she could do.

She was instructed to adopt time and energy saving devices to conserve her strength - an electric tooth brush and shaver, a chair in the shower, a laptop. She started taking Yoga in hopes that the breathing and meditation exercises would lead to improved concentration and memory as well as better sleep. She was put on everything from analgesics to antidepressants, stimulants to muscle relaxants. "It wasn't which prescription was I on, but rather, which prescription wasn't I on?" Nina remembers. "You name it - I was on it. I could go down the list: 'Prozac, yes'; 'Ambien, yes'; 'Xanax, yes'; 'Cortisol, yes"… " She also flew to California to see a doctor who specialized in Homeopathic remedies and was prescribed everything from vitamins to root and plant extracts.

"I felt like my life was over. Really. Law school was a joke. I was in debt up to my ears with nothing to show for it. I thought I wouldn't ever get married or have kids. I would just stay in my bed for the rest of my life. I was so disheartened." She joined support groups and read up on it when she can, but all of it was merely supplemental -- nothing eased the symptoms.

And then suddenly, the illness disappeared as oddly and as silently as it emerged. The illness disappeared as oddly as it emerged. One day Nina woke up feeling the fog that weighed on her like a milestone, the miasma of dizziness had lifted. She still ached, she was still tired, but she was able to get out of bed, feed herself, she even called a friend. It was one of the biggest successes she had had in years. "Crazy, I know, to count getting out of bed as a success, but it was," she remembers.

"I remember sitting out on the porch for the first time in years. It was wonderful." Slowly the symptoms started to fade. That is part of the mystery of Chronic Fatigue. It can come and go throughout ones life with no apparent reason, but it is something that will always be there.

After another six months Nina returned to law school to finish her degree. She graduated at the top of her class and even made law review. She returned to Northern Virginia, passed the bar, and was hired by the Justice Department. She has bouts with excessive fatigue, she still suffers from gastrological problems, but all and all she has not be bed-ridden like she was. And while Nina has to cope CFS for the rest of her life, she is able to actually live.

Nina is happily married with twins. She lives in Northern Virginia.