Fits what I was suggesting earlier, and more importantly, what others have found. My laymen's interpretation is that perhaps a virus or viruses, etc., may have been part of the picture, but the 'outrageous' overtraining (which screws up/suppresses proper immune function), plus inhaling all the toxic fumes from the cleaning supplies, combined with the mold, standing water, etc., may have been the straws the finally broke the camel's back. Not to mention writing three thesis papers…!!!
Here's one of several studies that talks about exercise and immune function:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12696983
They definitely can and do. But they typically flee the ME/CFS community because a majority often tend to become suspicious that they were ever sick, or "really" sick. That happened in our local group with the woman who was ill for 16 years and bedridden for two of those years -- she actually got very nasty emails backchannel -- just bizarre. I'll be fifty-gulp-six in a month, so I'm in the same boat.
Yup, there's a lot of emotions, and a lot of understandable anger. But anger (which increases stress hormones) gets in the way of healing every time. And just because others have been sick longer, or recovered in different ways, or said they had to avoid this or that before they got well and you'll have to do the same thing -- doesn't mean you will need to do so. We're all different.
Howard Bloom, who will be one of the patients featured in the "Canary in a Coal" mine talks about the mind-body connection, how suggestible we can be without knowing it, and also how everyone is different -- and also how (most) doctors are worthless (he's a little more blunt). But this series of interviews -- about 7 minutes each -- are worth listening to, at least #10-17 or so... IMHO:
http://www.healtheo360.com/stories/chapter-10-cyndi-lauper-and-cfs/#.UmyJeqWl10B