Home from a long day of work today. First port of call, bed! Can’t really beat the comfort of putting ones legs up and relaxing. Muscles as usual aching like mad mixed with that ever present feeling of fatigue & weakness. My myalgia has been progressing far worse in the last 6 months and I have fewer periods of remission these days. Funny enough, I feel it worse when I am not active, perhaps a variant of post-exertional malaise as I am on my feet most of the day. I have a progressive form of CFS/ME, though retain at present a reasonable level of functioning.
I recognise I am in the minority of patients who continues to work full time. As a physician, you can imagine that it is also fairly taxing! Many have had to abandon work or try as best to work on a part time basis. Some have trouble simply trying to support their family. For the last 6 months, I have begun to question for the first time whether full time work is a realistic option for the future. Unfortunately like many places of work, this is simply not an option for hospital based medicine. I have made moves to switch to family medicine and working in the community as this lends itself better to part time work and one has to be realistic about one’s limitations. There is such a lure to stop pushing ourselves in trying to overcome our increasingly disabled bodies but I feel if I do stop, I know in my heart I would be unlikely to return. This is both from a personal and professional position. Hospitals etc simply don’t like gaps in ones CV’s and CFS/ME would be frowned on and treated with the same level of scepticism that all of you are so familiar with.
I will touch on this frustrating dismissive attitude and physician awareness of CFS in my next blog. I have a fair few anecdotes! As always, comments are welcome and I will do my best to reply as time permits.
Wishing you all the best,
Dr RT
As an side note, I am new to blogging and would appreciate if anyone could tell me if google will index this site? It would be nice to reach as large an audience as possible and I guess google is as good a place as any!
FATIGUE DOCTOR (THE LIFE OF A PHYSICIAN WITH CFS) 