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When I got sick I was actually alone, and
ended up losing consciousness and, and passing out.
And woke up, you know, I'm not sure how much time had actually elapsed, but woke
up and you know, heard noises downstairs and was able to, to call for help and.
And say I needed to go to the hospital.
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I had no idea that this would set off a chain of events, you know, where I would
be sick for, for five years, that this would really be a debilitating illness.
So in hindsight when I think about that moment,
the weight of it really stays with me.
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Soccer's really been a part of my life ever since I was five years old.
Most kids sleep with a blanket or teddy bear.
You know, I slept with that soccer ball.
When my, my college career ended I was playing semi-professionally for
the Detroit Jaguars.
Then I also played locally here for the East Bay Power and so
it was hard to imagine a life, you know, without, without soccer.
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>> It's possibly the greatest scientific challenge and mystery of our time.
Chronic fatigue syndrome is a complex, chronic, systemic disease.
That is real.
That is not psychological in any way.
A typical chronic fatigue syndrome patient is one who has had a normal life.
And out of the blue a flu-like syndrome visits them.
Gets into their lives.
Syndrome that in any of us lasts for a few days.
In these patients, go on for years and completely devastates their life.
>> I couldn't sit up without passing out or losing consciousness.
You know, felt like I was just submerged underwater, you know,
had tunnel version, you know, blurred vision, muffled hearing.
Intense back pain, and
just the, the crushing fatigue that just takes the life out of you.
I think that the stigma of chronic fatigue
immune deficiency syndrome kind of delays getting an accurate diagnosis.
You know how I think it's been understood in the medical community is sort of
as a modern day hysteria.
It's a disease that affects a majority of women.
So I, I think that, that a lot of those kind of implicit biases, or biases that
are pretty obvious, I think kind of filter into how the diagnosis is understood.
It's exhausting, you know, going from one professional to,
to another, you know, hearing different things, you know,
especially when you're so sick and so debilitated.
And to just be sitting with the unknown.
You know, that you have something that's, that's really robbing you of life and
no one, no one has answers for you.
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>> The Chronic Fatigue Initiative at Stanford has allowed us to
see the beast at its core.
And we are fortunate that through the tools that we apply at Stanford,
in collaboration with other faculties, such as Mark Davis and
Holden Maecker and others, we have discovered this disease
has a central process of inflammation that is going on and control.
So we are very excited, because with this information in the future, we
will be able to apply treatments that were not available to these patients before.
>> When I came to Stanford, I was presented with various options for
treatment, which after being told I had a disease that didn't have a cure,
there was nothing I could really do for it, gave me quite, quite a lot of relief.
>> So Erin had been sick for several years.
And we were fortunate to identify viruses that were likely either triggering or
making her illness worse.
And on her, after suppressing these two viruses.
We started to see this dramatic changes of events in her life.
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>> That really took an interdisciplinary team to eventually give me
the medications and course of treatment that,
you know, allowed me to, to begin a path on recovery.
I'm really grateful for what I can do now.
I'm able to work full time again.
So I'm able to hike, I'm not having to worry about climbing hills.
I can run on the beach.
I am playing soccer again, which is, you know, incredible to just be
able to run with the ball again and to be a part of a team again.
>> The happiest moment, in, in a, in a doctor's life.
The happiest moment in my life, is when I see a patient is smiling again.
Finally, we are getting to the core of chronic fatigue syndrome.
Finding what is wrong with these patients, so
that they get the treatment that they deserve.
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The preceding program is copyrighted by the Board of Trustees of
the Leland Stanford Junior University.
Please visit us at med.stanford.edu.
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