A life spent fighting fatigue

Kerri Stephenson has spent almost all of her adult life in bed.

For several years every ounce of energy she could muster was spent purely on doing the bare minimum to keep herself alive.

She couldn’t speak, and communicated her most basic needs with hand signals for years at a time.

Ms Stephenson, now 32, has Myalgic Encephalopathy, more commonly known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).

A commonly misunderstood disease, CFS causes extreme fatigue, pain, and cognitive problems which can make it hard for sufferers to concentrate and leave them confused.

Ms Stephenson was diagnosed with the disease, which is believed to be triggered by serious viral infections like Glandular Fever, when she was just 20.

At the time she was studying Exercise Science at the University of Wollongong, but before long she had to drop out, as normal parts of day-to-day life began to leave her without energy.

Things continued to deteriorate until the young woman entered a dark period lasting several years, trapped in her darkened bedroom, communicating with her dedicated parents John and Winsome by pointing to her mouth for water and her stomach for food.

She described her life with CFS as ‘gradually losing layer by layer of my once active, social, independent life until I hit the centre/rock bottom…too weak to move, talk or do anything other than keep breathing.’

Today Ms Stephenson is still well and truly in the clutches of her debilitating illness, but compared to a few years ago is doing incredibly well.

Sometimes she can risk moving around by herself, having now re-learnt how to walk, and can check her emails to keep in touch with friends.

The amazing flip side to Ms Stephenson’s terrible story is that she remains an overridingly positive person.

“I appreciate every little thing - most people take a lot for granted,” she said.

Wollongong ME/CFS Support Group can be contacted on cfswollongong@optusnet.comau.