Fitting My Church Life Around CFS

When I began going to my last church, it was the fall of 1992, and I had only had two 6-week bouts of CFS by that time. I considered it some bizarre kind of flu, and hoped it was over and done with.
Over the next seven years, I continued to crash about twice a year, continued to get up and get going again after each crash.
During that time, I was busy, felt productive, enjoying what I was doing. I had no intention of curtailing any of this because of some unnamed ... weirdness that dropped on me, flattened me and then flew away again.
After all, I'd gone for tests -- an EEG, an EKG, a CT scan, and a raft of blood work -- I'd seen a neurologist, and they found nothing amiss. I kept this pattern of living for seven years and it seemed, more or less, to be working for me.
I worked in the nursery. I began and taught a Sunday School. I worked in Children's Church. I scheduled these departments at one time as well. I sang in the worship team, occasionally doing solos. I was the head female usher, and did the scheduling.
I put together schedules for a few departments I wasn't even part of, because I was a good organizer. I organized a library from the ground up, and enlisted a couple of other women to help out.
My husband Alan and I edited and wrote for the monthly newsletter. I wrote, directed and herded the kids in a few plays for Christmas and Easter. I was in the thick of things and I was having a great time. When I wasn't flat on my face.
In the fall of 1999, I was faced with needing to make a change. I was no longer back to normal after six weeks, my symptoms no longer went away. I knew I had to start plugging the leaks in my energy boat, before something worse came upon me.
I started dropping departments. It was a painful decision, and it was equally painful to sit in a pew watching everyone else doing their thing; watching them doing MY thing.
I made myself stay home from services on the days when I was too sick to go. That was new, I used to go anyway, and then collapse at home for days at a time, my only goal being to get enough energy together to do it all again. And again, crash.
Eventually, in the spring of 2002, I just quit going at all. I was too sick, and couldn't kid myself about it any longer. And so this part of my life ... disappeared. That was seven years ago. I have not been back.

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