Why this blog?

Some years ago, at a friend's funeral, it was mentioned that her life's philosophy was:

"The purpose of life is not to be happy, it is to be useful" - Leo Rosten

The friend sitting with me said that quote reminded him of me, that being useful made me happy, and he felt I was troubled when I could not be useful somehow.

So, here I am, being useful in the only way I can.  I can't march on Washington, I can't do scientific research, but I can reassure my fellow patients that what they're experiencing is normal, it's typical, and it's not in their heads (no matter what their doctors may think).

There are legitimate biological reasons why you feel the way you do.  Unfortunately, too many medical school professors were taught that CFS and fibromyalgia are diseases of whiny hypochondriac women and they continue to teach what they were taught, regardless that thousands upon thousands of research studies have found physical abnormalities such as viral damage in CFS patients.  Autopsies on CFS patients have found inflammation.  Fibromyalgia has been proven to be caused by a biochemical imbalance.  Regardless of what your doctor was taught, these are the facts, unadulterated by male views on stereotypical women's behavior.

If I can help one person avoid being victimized or permanently disabled by the erroneous philosophy that CFS is a non-stigmatizing name for depression, then I've been useful.  If I can help one patient get the right treatment, then I've been useful.  If I can get one doctor to change his mind and acknowledge that a 105 fever means a virus, not depression or laziness, then I've been useful.

I know there are those who will never change their minds until it becomes too uncomfortable for them to continue to maintain their stance, because the prevailing wisdom will finally have changed from a psychological cause (which is bolstered by studies in which the patient pool is intentionally polluted with psych patients) to a biological cause (as is demonstated when the patient pool requires a viral/infectious onset, as I had).  As JoAnn says, "porcine musical education is a waste of time".  But as more doctors become aware of the facts -- some from reading this blog, some from reading research their patients found via this blog -- there will be more doctors who are forced to accept that they were wrong.

I'm an educator.  Many of my closest friends are teachers.  And that's all I'm trying to do with this blog, is teach people that CFS and fibromyalgia are not psychiatric problems, are not work avoidance, and cannot be explained with misogynistic excuses because they also affect men.