International ME/CFS Day 2007

Not sure what this flower is - bulbs planted in a hurry between showers. Might it be a ranunculus?

Today is International ME/CFS Day. It's also Florence Nightingale's birthday - some people believe she may have had ME. She certainly had some sort of disabling, relapsing and remitting illness. She may have had chronic Brucellosis, as suggested by D A B Young, formerly principal scientist, Wellcome Foundation. Maybe that's another thing that could be checked for in ME/CFS patients.

Was very pleased to see that Dr Crippen included a post from Mary in this week's BritMeds about her recent consultation with her (locum) GP over her DLA renewal application. I have always been looked after both well and kindly by my GPs, but I have heard many stories similar to Mary's.

Dr Crippen also included a link to an article in the Scotsman about the spread of Ticks and Lyme Disease in Scotland. The lady in the article was misdiagnosed with ME, and I wonder how many other ME patients may be misdiagnosed when they really have Lyme.

This time last year we were staying with Sarah in her shared house in London. We demonstrated outside the Department of Health, and I presented documents from the MEACH Trust to 10 Downing Street. We did some gardening too.

This year we have had too much on our plate with Dad's hospitalisation and then discharge into a nursing home to have been able to travel that far - we haven't even made it to the caravan yet.



I like the way the raindrops have spattered the black pollen around the petals.

PS The knitting is going very slowly (and is also very mistakey!). About 1 or 2 rounds a day. But I think (hope!) it's longer than it was the last picture I took. I don't think John will mind the mistakes (he's not a knitter, so probably will think it's supposed to be the way it is), nice soft warm wooly socks, who cares about mistakes.