Fitting My Homeschool Life Around CFS
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Surprisingly enough, my most productive years were also CFS years. In 1994, Alan and I were asked to lead our local homeschooling
support group. We did so for the next seven years.
For the first five years, little was affected by bouts of CFS. They only happened a couple times a year, and they always lasted about six weeks. After a few of these bouts, I'd learned a little something about damage control.
At the first sign of bizarre neurological symptoms, I would immediately start cancelling and getting out of appointments, meetings, events and responsibilities. I had learned that the sooner I did this, the better chance I had of ... well, not of making things better so much, as of not making things worse.
One Christmas season, I was to be in charge of a party for the homeschooling kids and parents. We'd done it before, and while it was pretty hectic and alot of details to take care of, it wasn't what I'd call work. I enjoyed these things. But I woke up on the day with a cold, and knew I was in for it.
I had to get out of that party, I couldn't go to it, let alone be in charge. I called another mom and asked her to do this for me. She was fairly new to the group, but she'd been in charge of other organizations before and was willing to wing it. I hated to stick her out on her own but I knew I had no choice.
After I'd talked to her on the phone, and gotten that nailed down, I lay down on my face on the couch, and closed my eyes, and drifted away. That's where I was later that afternoon when Al got home from the college. And he took over with the kids.
There was no school work for the kids during these bouts, not when they were small at any rate. As they got older, they were able to do more on their own. And when Mommy was sick, that's what they did. They got pretty good at it.
Nevertheless, once my six weeks were up, I was up and at it again. Teaching my kids, arranging field trips, having parents and kids over at my house. Writing articles for the newsletter, taking phone calls from worried homeschoolers and people interested in becoming homeschoolers. I was having the time of my life.
My family was interviewed by three different magazines, one local, one national, and one online. These things were happening in mid-1999, life was gathering momentum. Then in the fall, I went chronic. And though it took some time for me to disengage myself from my involvements, within a few years it was all gone.