I still managed to drag myself to a chiropractor, in Winnellie. Driving there with all these floaters in my eyes was a major effort and I was sometimes late. After seeing me hobble into the room hunched over and pale-faced, and upon examining me and watching my backward progress after several visits, the chiropractor shut the door and had a few words to me. "If you don't get to a doctor and do something about your situation, you are going to lie down and not get back up!" She seemed serious. My adrenal glands were no longer able to function properly.
Finally I ended up taking myself to the Casuarina Day and Night Surgery and I happened to get in to see a doctor Chung Wah. He told me that I had CFIDS (Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome). He said that he had been studying it for many years and that while it was considered incurable some people did actually recover. He added, "But even if you do recover, your health will never be the same as it was before."
Since many of the more ignorant doctors remained sceptical in regard to CFIDS, with some going so far as to say that it did not exist, I had been very fortunate to stumble upon Doctor Chung Wah. His understanding of my situation and willingness to prescribe the correct medication was crucial to my overall sense well being and therefore my survival. I had later heard stories about other sufferers and how the Department of Social Security attempted to wear them down, while they were too ill to defend themselves. Occasionally I would see one of them, hunched over and pale-faced, as they slowly hobbled along the streets. As it turned out, Doctor Chung Wah was later sacked by The Medical Board, apparently for 'spending too much time' with his patients. Perhaps he cared about us too much as well.
That night back at Ridgehaven Circuit, through a haze of inescapable pain and brain malfunction and the prospect of many years of these symptons without recovery, I lay back down on the lounge bed and experienced what I would describe as an all-consuming white light, that I felt I could actually see, coming down over the top of my body. It was as if we had entered each other simultaneously and when this occurred I had a feeling of elation, like being totally nurtured and protected while lying in the palm of God. As a result, no matter how ill I became, I never suffered from depression. It felt like an angel had been sent into my physical body in order to assist me.
After the onset of CFIDS, I would be unable to walk the dogs for around eight months. Going to the vet and getting myself to the chiropractor took a lot of my energy. I was often too ill to get to the doctors on top of that. It took many more months before I was even well enough to get my fortnightly B12 injections at the Casuarina Day and Night Surgery. I was usually too disoriented to put out the garbage or check the letterbox downstairs. Yet sometimes there came these small windows of opportunity where I was able to get things done, before collapsing again. I remained determined to get our food.
I was able to shop at Woolworths Hibiscus once a month, since the checkout operators helped me to the car with the trolley. I was grateful for this assistance. It then took me all my strength to get the bags up the house stairs. I would often collapse on the lounge with all the lights on and the groceries all over the benches and floors. The dogs sometimes missed out on their dinner if I collapsed on shopping night, but I made up for it with a big breakfast the next morning. During the day the dogs mainly slept, while I struggled with up to fifteen symptoms a day, as my body wanted to die but didn't quite get there.
Not long after I was diagnosed, Doctor Chung Wah gave me the phone number of a woman called Andrea. Andrea ran the local CFIDS support group in Darwin and through her I heard and read about how people with the disease were so often abused, ripped off and predated upon. Andrea said that she and others she knew of had virtually gone into hiding around Darwin. Her blue eyes widened as she added, "It was for my own survival."
