I became ill suddenly in November 2004 – up until then I had been a busy mother of two boys – then aged 2 and 5 – and also worked as a primary-school teacher. Looking back, I can see that there were signs before I crashed, I used to be so exhausted after work that I literally could not speak, and I seemed to catch every virus going. But I didn’t pay too much attention, under the false notion that I just had to keep going under any circumstance. At the start of November, the whole family had a bout of sickness which meant I had to take time off work – the following week, I got the flu, and ended up taking three weeks of work. I knew something wasnt right when I tried to go back to work and could barely speak, let alone teach. I couldn’t sleep and felt ill all the time. The doctor prescribed rest and antidepressants. I was so angry that she thought that was all it was, and eventually I did get a diagnosis of CFS. I was referred to a psychologist, but didnt improve at all. I saw a homeopath, who balmed the symptoms on the Epstein Barr virus and we had the house tested for geopathic stress – all without any improvement. Every day was difficult – we relied on friends and family to help and my youngest had to go into full-time nursery care. Emotionally this was the most difficult part of the illness, because my children are eveything to me.
Then in the Summer of 2005, a relative recommended the Optimum Health Clinic so we decided to give it a go. I met Anna and for the first time I began to understand what was going on. She was clear and straight-forward and helped me to understand why my body was stuck in this state, in a way that made lots of sense. I had never realised just how much energy I was putting into the stress of being ill, in fact I didnt even recognise that I was stressed until I started to look at it and change it. I learned how to change the way I was responding and calm my nervous system down – and I began to lose the fear about the illness.
Results didn’t come straight away, but over the following weeks, I noticed that I was able to do more without feeling so ill. I began to be able to take my son to school every day and slowly that became easy. I have now increased what I can do and am working one morning a week – which doesn’t sound like much, but to me is amazing! Our youngest is now able to be at home with me in the afternoons and I never worry about not being able to look after him because I can now do so easily.
I still have l headaches sometimes or difficulty sleeping, but I can see an end in sight and I know that these things will go – some days are better than others, but I know that this is normal now. I have also seen Niki and changed my diet – and though we have always tried to eat healthily, I now think about everything I eat and I know that the diet I am following is helping my body to recover.
Having this illness took away so much from me and my family but we are now getting it back, slowly but surely. There is some way to go, but I know I can get there, I just need patience and perseverence.
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