To answer your second question first: The aerial spraying for Med Fly, a threat to Calif. citrus, happened in the late 70's, I think. My encounters with tented houses happened from around then through 1988 when I was no longer able to work. I met the "Orkin Man" in the early 90's in Oklahoma.
No, I"m not all better, not at all. I feel like I'm losing some of the gains I got from the MP antibiotic protocol, which I did not finish. Some of the back pain is returning. I'm still free of MCS.
I'd estimate my level at about 35, down from 40 recently, using the Bell system:
40 = Moderate symptoms at rest. Moderate to severe symptoms with
exercise or activity; overall activity level reduced to 50%-70% of
expected. Not confined to house. Unable to perform strenuous
duties; able to perform light duty or desk work 3-4 hours a day, but
requires rest periods.
30 = Moderate to severe symptoms at rest. Severe symptoms with any
exercise; overall activity level reduced to 50% of expected. Usually
confined to house. Unable to perform any strenuous tasks. Able to
perform desk work 2-3 hours a day, but requires rest periods.
Part of my regression is, I think, related to life in Nicaragua, which is very noisy. For the whole month of December they celebrate Purisima (Catholic holiday celebrating the Virgin Mary's non-sexual pregnancy) by exploding mortars (bombs) and fireworks night and day, extremely loud amplified music, parades with loud drumming and general drunkenness.) It's Carnival combined with summer vacation for the schools, so a lot of young men have nothing better to do. The noise is horribly overstimulating for me, causing dizziness, headaches and increased fatigue. I try to stay home as much as possible. Loud noise is a feature of everyday life here, but much worse for the month of December, which is, thank Quan Yin, over for this year. There is also a lot of smoke in the air much of the time. These two features of Nica life are my challenges at the moment, to emotionally accept them and be grateful for the good aspects of living here, which are many. I moved here because my disability check was just too small to cover heating bills that were sometimes more than my monthly income, the insurance and repairs for a vehicle which I had to have to drive the 90 miles to the only doctor who would take me seriously, and the overall high cost of living in the US. Here, I have warm weather all year and very cheap public transportation. (A taxi anywhere in town costs about fifty cents. A bus costs about five cents. A bus to another town costs about one dollar per hour of travel. A fancy air conditioned bus to Costa Rica, where I just spent a couple of days renewing my visa, costs about $48 round trip.) Routine health care here is free to everyone, Nicaragua being one of those horrible socialist countries, ha ha. Private care costs about 20% of US costs. My private Nica doctor makes housecalls for $15, but doesn't charge me anything because he is a friend of my companero. Many prescriptions are cheaper, some not even available, but all are over the counter, no Rx needed. Fresh vegetables and fruit are available all year and locally grown. Imported stuff is available, such as apples, but I don't bother with them when I can have mangoes, papaya, bananas, watermelon, cantaloupe, pineapple, etc. It's also cheap and easy to pay someone else to do all the "hard" stuff here, like cleaning, laundry, shopping, paying bills, etc. I have had the good fortune, too, of having a good man find me and insert himself into my life as my guardian, caretaker and champion, when I need those. Heaven knows, I wasn't looking, but he found me, another thing to be grateful for. He's also teaching me Acceptance and how to be happy with life that is not how you imagined it would be. In another 5 years he will retire, he is a primary school teacher, and we will move to a quieter town. At least that's the plan right now.
What I still have is terrible fatigue, PEM, joint pain, especially in my hip joints, tinnitus, and a whole host of neurological stuff including brain fog, short term memory loss, migraine like auras with not much pain, emotional lability, weight gain and no energy and hypersensitivity to noise and motion. Headaches were never one of my main complaints but have been increasing lately.
Sorry if this is too much information. I guess I should have put it all in my personal profile. Maybe later.....time for a nap in the hammock.
Bottom line, I really intuit that the manifestation of ME/CFS takes at least three things/assaults/aspects. For instance, the EBV I had in the late 60s, the chemical sprays in CA in the 70s-80s, then the XMRV or something else, in the 1982 summer "flu" in San Jose, as a possible one two three punch for me personally. There are other possibilities, of course.
