How I Turned Up Missing
San Francisco was my destination in 1992 , now it's the site of one of many May 25 protests around the world about ME/CFS, and the "millions missing," of which I am one. This May is also my 24th anniversary of getting sick, coinciding with my 25th Oberlin College reunion. In May of 1992, I was waiting around for Oberlin Commencement (I had graduated officially in December of '91) and I had suddenly contracted the ME/CFS "flu-like illness" that harkens the onset of the disease, though I had experienced what is known as "prodrome" (early, shadowy, pre-illness symptoms) in the years before, and in fact almost dropped out of Oberlin and stayed around the Bay Area in the Fall of 1998, when my body seemed to be saying to me stay but I didn't listen. But let me backtrack to the "prodrome" which -- if research would help us -- could become useful foreshadowing for patients and doctors: I had left Oberlin for a semester off in the Fal...