AndyPR
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http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.c...-why-are-you-ignoring-me-ms-robison-1-4441060The Edinburgh girl I’m interviewing today doesn’t want you to feel sorry for her.
She wants you to feel angry. Emma Shorter, 23, is one of Scotland’s 21,000 ME sufferers. ME stands for “myalgic encephalomilitis” and is a systemic neuro-immune disease. The lazy name it’s been given is chronic fatigue syndrome. In the 80s, it was mockingly called yuppie flu in the media and sufferers were dubbed skivers. Emma had never heard any of these terms until she was 19 and had completed three months of her first year at St Andrews University. All her life she’d been active and healthy. Aged nine, she was climbing Munros. She swam, skied and sailed. She played hockey, started learning shinty and played the violin and the clarinet. When she turned 18, she volunteered for Project Trust and spent a year teaching English in Sri Lanka.
But her body began to change. One morning she woke up to find she couldn’t get out of bed. She had burning muscles and a raging thirst. She could see a glass of water on the bedside table. She wanted to reach out and bring it to her lips but she couldn’t move her hand. Soon afterwards she had to stop studying. In fact she had to stop all her activities – anything that took up her physical or mental energy left her unable to move. If she goes out, she needs to be pushed in a wheelchair or use her mobility scooter. ME comes with a nasty range of intensely unpleasant physical symptoms. Burning pain and spasms in your muscles when you move. Sudden, slow collapses when you’re active. Brain ‘freezes’ and disjointed speech. And an overwhelming fatigue that traps you indoors and in bed, which is where I’m interviewing Emma now.
Again, good job @emsho