Hypochondriac

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel is the latest book I have read with my book club. I had difficulty getting into it at first but I was engrossed by page 100 of its 900 pages. I like her portrayal of Thomas Cromwell—opposite from his prevailing image. Through his eyes we observe the rapacious world of the court of King Henry VIII as well as the turbulence of the English reformation.

I discovered that she wrote a memoir, Giving up the Ghost, that tells the story of her struggle with chronic illness. Intrigued, partially because of my own battle with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I read it. It is appalling what she endured not only from the illness but because of poor treatment from the medical establishment. It is tragic how her physical complaints as a young woman in her twenties were answered with psychotropic drugs that sent her spinning into a world of even more pain and suffering. Yet she describes it with grace and humor.

I have read many similar stories of people with CFS/ME/CFIDS. Why must some doctors assume that if they fail to understand the symptoms, the patient must be imagining them and therefore has a psychiatric problem? Why can’t doctors listen with compassion to the patient and admit that sometimes they simply don’t know? And not only doctors but friends and family as well? Hypochondriac is a word for when you don’t know what to do with another’s pain.