Laura Hillenbrand 2020 —Her MECFS has improved and she has Covid-19

Moderator note: we have consolidated posts on Laura Hillenbrand in 2020 here, as there were multiple overlapping discussions.

Laura Hillenbrand (presumptive)

 

https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavi...-felt-like-i-was-breathing-through-gauze.html

In this interview Laura indicates her CFS has improved a lot.

 

If her written accounts are an accurate portrayal of her illness, Laura would have been classed as having moderate M.E (with some severe episodes). It's still astounding that someone can be ill for decades and then have a decent 'recovery' after 25 years.

 

Sounds to me more like severe. But she must not have had much in the way of cognitive symptoms if she wrote a bunch of books. I’ve mentioned this before but it seems to me that people who don’t have cognitive symptoms have a better prognosis.

 

I think she did have cognitive and neurological symptoms. If I recall she couldn't read for a while. It is worth re-reading her essay on becoming ill, because it's very good. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/07/07/a-sudden-illness

 

Yes, she was severely ill. It is heartening that some recovery is possible.

 

25 years.. Incredible feat of character

 

She was dreadfully sick during her first marriage, and basically lived in the bedroom, and suffering terrible vertigo--from what I read. However, I also read that initially during the 2000s she did not seek help. But from what I read, not sure where--could have been on Cort's blog, that she eventually did start seeing some CFS physicians. I tried to find out whom she saw, but was unable to learn this. She does seem healthier now that she is in Oregon, and presumably under medical care, but I have no idea what this is--and would dearly like to know if she took antivirals, or what. But I guess this is personal information.

 

I doubt that's useful information. For every person who's miraculously recovered by one treatment or other, there are hundreds more who didn't.

 

25 years? In isolation, for her, obviously it is impressive, but for many long-term sufferers they would happily swap with her.

 

She's had very severe vertigo, which I know from personal experience can be extraordinarily incapacitating.

 

Sure, but there is always someone who has it worse. Does not make it any less of a feat to endure the illness for so long

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/27/...l?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

From a Loss, Something Found

No, not ME/CFS (well one sentence), but only to note that this article appears on the same page as the article about Post-Covid brain dysfunction that does NOT mention ME/CFS--posted on this page here https://www.s4me.info/threads/possibility-of-me-or-pvfs-after-covid-19.14074/page-30