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A Woman Who Dared, with ME

Blog author, Rivka Solomon, has ME and works to raise awareness to this underfunded chronic illness. The documentary Unrest is recently released and explores the realities of this illness. 

It was late afternoon, and I could barely get my body out of bed. In fact, I had been in bed most of the last few days––or was it weeks? Even with all that rest, my legs were still too weak to stand up.

It wasn't that I lacked the desire to get up or that my limbs couldn't function. I just didn't have the cellular energy to power up my muscles. I couldn't do anything except lie flat. Even that was exhausting.

This state of sheer debilitation was not new to me. And it hadn't been going on for days or weeks. It had been a decade.

On this day, in the spring of 2003, I pushed past the utter exhaustion, even knowing that this exertion would cause my condition to worsen. I was determined. After all, I was being honored with a Women Who Dared award. It was being presented by the Jewish Women's Archive and Hadassah Boston for my women's empowerment work. Neither of the organizations honoring me, nor the 300 dinner guests at the award ceremony, knew I did most of that work from my bed.

Should I tell them? I wondered. I had written about my illness in my speech. But would I have the guts to reveal my personal struggle in such a public setting?

The only thing the attendees knew about me was what they could read in the event program: I was a Jewish woman dedicated to social change, in short, to tikkun olam ("repair of the world"). My activism focused on a book I'd written, celebrating the bold and courageous acts of women and girls. I then started a global open mic movement where women from all backgrounds gathered to share their own experiences, telling true tales of daring deeds, and celebrating the chutzpah they needed to fight back against abuse and sexual assault.

What the attendees didn't know was this: I had ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis), a chronic neuro-immune disease that disables between 1 million to 2.5 million Americans and 17 to 20 million people worldwide. The disease is debilitating: it often leaves me too exhausted to do basic tasks, such as cook a meal. It leaves my brain so muddled, I sometimes pause mid-sentence to remember what I’m talking about. Due to my disability, other people lead my women's empowerment events. I usually can't even physically get to them.

ME is commonly known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, a belittling name that does not reflect the devastation of the disease. There is no cure, and no FDA-approved treatments for ME. Perhaps because 75% of ME patients are women, and doctors have historically minimized women’s pain and physical experiences, the disease receives little attention and barely any government research funding.

This lack of research, coupled with negative stereotypes of either the lazy or hysterical woman, has translated to dismissal, stigma, and lack of help and treatment for all people with ME — both men and women. For the past 30 years, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has pushed ME into the shadows by giving it less than $6 million per year in research funding. In fact, a recent paper shows that ME is severely underfunded by as much as twenty-five-fold, based on its level of disease burden and prevalence compared to other diseases that NIH funds.

Recent hope that the NIH would treat ME with the full seriousness it deserves has fallen flat. Calculations show ME funding went from $6 million last year to $13 million this year––from a biseleh to a bisele (from very little to a little). Even $13 million per year is bupkis (nothing). By comparison, multiple sclerosis, a similar neuro-immune disease with half as many patients as ME, regularly gets almost $100 million per year.

The National Academy of Medicine stated in 2015 that ME is a serious, chronic, complex, systemic disease that often can profoundly affect the lives of patients. They said ME patients are more disabled than other highly disabling diseases, including multiple sclerosis, stroke, diabetes, renal failure, lung disease, heart failure and various cancers.

A striking 90% of people with ME are undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, likely because ME is not taught in medical schools. For decades the guidance provided to doctors, including, until only recently, from the CDC, misled doctors on the nature of the disease and stated that exercise would help. In fact, telling an ME patient to exercise is like telling a diabetic to eat sugar.

I made it to the Jewish Women's Archive and Hadassah Boston event that night in 2003. My legs wobbled as I walked to the podium and my voice shook. Not out of fear, but out of sheer exhaustion. That evening, I embraced the sentiment behind my women's empowerment work; I stepped through my fear to tell the audience members about my disability. They responded with warmth and support.

Now, 15 years later, I don't hesitate to share my story with the world. In fact, I now use all the skills I learned from my women's work to assist ME advocacy groups.

As my latest tikkum olam effort, I am co-organizing, along with the Massachusetts CFIDS/ME & FM Association, a Boston area event on November 12, 2017. UNREST, a Sundance Film Festival and Boston Globe (GlobeDocs) award-winning film by Jennifer Brea, is both a love story and a window into the hidden lives of people with ME. An impressive list of artistic, academic, disability and women's groups are co-sponsoring our event, including the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

No cure, no treatments, little research funding, and doctors who dismiss patients or recommend treatments that can cause harm: it is understandable patients struggle to hold on to hope. But with this film, and the extensive media attention it is getting, the ME community is coming out of the shadows and into the light. As a Jewish woman who dares, I'm committed to doing my part to help.

 Rivka Solomon is a Massachusetts writer focusing on disability and women's empowerment. She has organized demonstrations in front of the US Department of Health and Human Services; raised funds for ME research foundations, received the support of elected officials, and secured State and City Proclamations for ME Awareness Day (May 12th).You can reach her on Twitter (@RivkaTweets). Portions of this article were first published in Ms. magazine (online). Feel free to contact her if you are interested in co-sponsoring the upcoming screening of Unrest.

14 Comments
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In reply to by Matina

I agree it is unacceptable that the government has neglected research into our illness. But I disagree that the things I mention 'just treat some symptoms'. They support and help reverse biological problems that result in those symptoms, rather than drugs, most of which just temporarily cover up symptoms like pain, while doing nothing to correct the cause of the pain.

Regarding severe ME, please remember that Rituximab was the drug that made Janet Dafoe's son Whitney a lot worse. He was partially bedridden when he started it, but completely bedridden 9 months later. He lost the ability to read and write because of that drug.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for raising awareness to this very debilitating illness for which I and many have suffered for decades. Thank You to Jewish Womans Archive for having this article presented for all to see. 

 

 

 

So proud of your actions, your story, your courage to go on and on.

Thank you, JWA, for publishing this intimate, critical and thoughtfully-written piece which amplified the plight of many thousands of Jewish women worldwide who are neglected by society and abused by governments for lack of support.

“Unrest” is an incredible, incredible film which must be seen!  

Beautifully written.  Thank you for sharing.

Thank you Rivka Solomon for couragously shariring your powerful and heart felt story. Yours is a hero's journey. Thanks too, for shinning a light on how devistating, misunderstood, misrepresented, under-reaseached and underfunded this dibilating illness (ME) is. And, thanks Jewish Woman's Archive for publishing this important post. 

Bravo! Thank you for being a voice for thousands of us who are invisible, at home, and lacking treatment. 

THank you Rivka and the Jewish Women's Archive for spreading word of the severity of ME and the desperate need for research funding, education and treatment! About 25% of patients are homebound or bedbound, hidden from the world, sturggling to survive let alone advocate.This hidden epidemic needs to be exposed so no future children, women, men get the disease, and then get left to rot.

Thank you, Jewish Women's Archive, for letting the world know about people living with ME. For those who want to get involved, please visit these organizations: meaction.net, omf.ngo, solvecfs.org and ammes.org. In Massachusetts, please also contact masscfids.org -- Rivka

In reply to by Rivka Solomon

You are so courageous Rivka. You carry on carrying on through great adversity. Thank you for your well written essay. I'm so proud that you bear our name.

In reply to by Joan Solomon

Joan, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your kind words. I am so happy to share our name!

In reply to by Rivka Solomon

Please don't say that it will be many more years before we get treatment. OMF may find treatments in the next few years. I really need hope.

In reply to by Eimear

True! You are right! We do hold on to hope with the (privately funded) work of brave researchers like Ron Davis and others. The US gov’t — Dr. Francis Collins—should fund Davis and the others.

In reply to by Rivka

Hopefully this year Ron Davis will get some funds from NIH, its hard to fathom that they still haven't given him a cent

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How to cite this page

Solomon, Rivka. "A Woman Who Dared, with ME." 24 October 2017. Jewish Women's Archive. (Viewed on December 8, 2024) <https://jwa.org/blog/woman-who-dared-and-me>.