The volunteer
Richard Lamb, 57, of Snoqualmie, Wash., is a retired senior systems administrator who worked for several corporations, including Boeing and Microsoft, before having to retire in 2011 because of symptoms stemming from his condition, myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), a condition that results in extreme fatigue and other symptoms exacerbated by physical or mental exertion. He receives money from SSDI and from the Department of Veterans Affairs for his hearing loss.
What I have is myalgic encephalomyelitis, an autonomic and neurological disease that renders people with, maybe on a good day, 25 percent of the energy that they would otherwise have.
You wake up in the morning and you have 25 spoons of energy. You go through your day, you do normal stuff. You go to bed with 10 spoons of energy. Wake up, repeat. I wake up in the morning, I might have five or six [spoons] on a good day.
My daily routine is get up in the morning [and] I may or may not take a shower. If I take a shower, I generally lie down after that to regenerate or regain my energy after that output. I’m very active at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and participate in two different research projects there. That’s been helpful for me, because I think one of the things I really struggle with is finding a method to give back that doesn’t kill me.
I do like to get out of the house and socialize with society. We have lots of trails right out our back door and they’re wide enough for my chair. I think the day I took delivery of the wheelchair, we went to the waterfront in Seattle with the wheelchair and there’s a long walking path up there right on the water, and that was fun.
Even though I’m out in my wheelchair in society or on a mountain biking trail, I’m still disabled and still sick. None of that goes away. [Those activities] just put a smile on my face.
