Little Bluestem
All Good Things Must Come to an End
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- 4,930
If it was the gradual onset, then you drove for years with ME without realizing it. It sound like you realized you were seriously ill about the same time you became unable to drive.I do actually have a ‘first memorised illness event’ – though I wasn’t driving but negotiating a journey comprised of walking and public transport. On leaving a meeting (the day had started fine) in a part of my then home city that knew moderately well, I found myself weaving around the street, feeling as though I’d consumed a great deal of alcohol and was very confused about where I was. I actually had ( even the following days) little memory abut how I got home but the memory of visual ‘instability’ and overall lack of co-ordination was strong enough to remain. At the time I assumed I had ‘flu’ – and indeed maybe I did have a virus, and I certainly never had any sustained ‘good health’ thereafter so it could have be ‘onset’. I wasn’t driving regularly at the time – and never again felt able to.
But was that actually the point I ‘got M.E’, or was it the HFMD that I had some weeks before, from which point I’d been mostly ‘under the weather’ , or was it from a couple of years earlier when I’d had a sort of low level malaise for several months or ………. ? On balance, I’ve come to look at ‘my M.E’ as a gradual onset illness probably following a slow but increasingly severe relapsing course following a Mono type infection as a child. IVI
I woke up in the morning with the 'nasty flu'. I didn't drive home until the afternoon, so I knew I was sick when I started out. Just young, foolish, and a female who had been conditioned not to be a 'bother' to other people. I also didn't realize just how sick I was when I started the drive. It caught me unaware and with severe brain fog which hindered my judgement. I learned from the experience and made sure it never happened again.
Actually, I drove for years without knowing that I had ME, but I knew I had a problem and made changes to my driving to accommodate it. I got a clue that it was probably CFS (as it was called at the time) shortly before I lost my job. I now do not push myself to extreme PEM like I did when trying to maintain my job and am able to drive longer distances than I did then.