Physician, Heal Thyself
From ME/CFS
(Part 1 of 3)
Dear Reader,
If you lived for decades with a complex, incurable, invisible disease—let’s call it A—and then acquired a very similar, overlapping disease B for which there was no known confirmatory test and no known treatment, would you be glad to have distinguished between A and B? Would adding B to the diagnostic mix make a positive difference in your life? Or might the new insight do you more harm than good, perhaps by increasing passivity and amplifying despair?
As a physician author with fibromyalgia, I write about many kinds of suffering. All are miserable. But some diseases are so severe, so all-encompassing, that they can only be addressed and comprehended tangentially.
To protect their retinas, prudent people study a total solar eclipse through a dark lens or a pinhole device. Similarly, many of us in severe distress cocoon ourselves, not just against physical insults but even against deep thoughts about suffering. Our mind-body connection glows like molten metal. Mental images ignite physical agony.
On my worst days, I have sometimes fallen into bubbling, steaming lava, into a whole-body burn from the mere thought of turning one page in a book. And yet I write—when able—taking the utmost care not to harm people like me. I hope to offer suffering readers the same protection that I require—the bearskin cloak of metaphor.
Tale 1
Thirty years ago, I fell into a high-walled Toxic River A, from which there seems to be no escape. Over many years, I learned how to float and even swim with the current, keeping my head above water most of the time.
One day, the waters shifted. They started swirling backward, sucking me under more often than before. Abrupt onset? Maybe. Probably. But how was I to notice? What was one more plunge following a hundred previous near drownings? So what if I sank for ten days in some new riptide, gasping with misery score 7/10? Big deal. I survived misery 8/10 for fifteen years before learning to swim.
In the past, I endured misery 9/10, “PTSD” level, and 10/10, “Longing for Death.” I wondered then how crucifixion could feel any worse; it seemed as if sawing through my own limbs might offer relief.
So what if I now experienced twenty “bad” days, pain level 7/10? Or forty days submersed without reprieve? I had counted myself among the dead long ago, and the dead have nothing to prove. The same old nasty current had merely washed me across new rocks.
But I was wrong. Perhaps I should have known better, for I understood, even in my continuous half-stupor, that layers of pain had baked my mind and warped me. Since Judgment Error had become my legal name, I never suspected that my daily transport had fundamentally changed.
Even cloudy-eyed people see clearly sometimes, for reasons unknown, and so it happened to me. While still drifting, I glided out of a thick mist and emerged into a brilliant wakefulness. My previously disconnected memories cohered, drawn together like magnets. Fragments of ancient legend snapped together in my mind, 3D with full sound and color. Mismatched puzzle pieces locked in place, uniting historical reports with new claims of a separate water, tentatively named Poison River B.
A dozen dubious tales of ravenous currents—each called by a separate moniker—coalesced within me. Though fantastical when taken separately, the collective threads wove together a single cloth. Each report represented but one aspect of a complex, unified system of intertwining streams.
How little was known of this Poison River B! Many witnesses claimed to be survivors of mystical, inexplicable currents, but most of them lived like ghosts, ever fearful, mouths agape. They refused all questions and fled human interaction, as if unable to endure it.
A few deeply scarred observers showed more fortitude than the rest and reported their experiences. They were the outliers of humanity, the most stubborn and difficult people, whether by birth or life experience, and they disagreed profoundly with one another. One man, his face and body like burned cherries, said River B flowed from its own high, evil mountain, never mixing with other streams.
A wiry man with bristly hair and beard promptly disagreed. He argued vehemently with Cherry Man that there was no River B, only A. Always A. But he was an odd fellow, bitter of speech, and consequential only because, by tone and expression, he seemed to decry his own beliefs.
An ancient woman with a forehead like cracked clay and a voice to match claimed the two waters merged. “They join,” she said, thrusting her pursed lips to the sky. “Perhaps they diverge intermittently, but who knows? Nobody has ever mapped either river from beginning to end, and no one ever will.”
In January 2026, I, TAT, being of sound mind and fully alert, confirm the merger of River A with River B. For half my life, I floated in River A, where I nearly mastered the currents. I detected other waters sporadically but never continuously. Then, in 2020, after acquiring COVID-19, I entered a double-wide fusion stream bubbling with all the attributes of both Rivers A and B. And here I remain.
The twin currents blend and churn unpredictably. My old floating techniques no longer suffice. I can neither identify the water surface with any consistency, nor distinguish the upstream from the down. I bob like a cork, and the shoreline spins. The prospect of escape eludes me. My optimism falters.
But I will not surrender to the waves. Though the waters scour me beyond recognition, like Jonah, blanched and shriveled by the depths of the sea, I will not give up. If purpose exists throughout the earth, then it’s also here—if only I could find it.
A single floating spar sustains me. I cling to the wood. With my fingertips, I detect words engraved upon the underside. Unlocking my arms, however briefly, I decipher the carven message that I cannot see: “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness for those who have been trained by it.” Hebrews 12:11
Dear Reader, accompany me on my continuing journey down this conjoined and tortuous river. Let us map it together. Perhaps we’ll find a surmountable wall around the next bend, a potential escape for others. If we document well, might we not offer hope to many who follow?
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