A little light at the end of the tunnet

billygean ♦ June 8, 2008 ♦ 5 Comments

“Hello,” Cousin says.

“Ooh, hello,” I say down the phone.

“How’re you doing?”

“Ooh, okay,” I say, a bit intimidated. Cousin is Very Smart.

“Well I don’t know if you know I had chronic fatigue?” he says, and my mouth opens.

“No.”

“Well I dropped out for a year,” he says.

“Ooh,” I say, “I’m glad it was only a year, I hear so many horror stories…”

“Well, yes,” he says, “mine wasn’t chronic fatigue in the end.”

“I see,” I say.

“Do you have any like – stomach symptoms?”

“Yes, I was plagued with stomach things all last year,” I say. “I missed my graduation because of them, threw up on my bank manager’s shoes…”

“Right,” he says. “And you’re exhausted and – dizzy?”

“Yep,” I say.

“Hungry?”

“Starved,” I say, “eating more than when I didn’t lie down all day.”

He hmms. “Well what was wrong with me was coeliacs – gluten intolerance,” he says.

My interest is pricked. “And the chronic fatigue went – when you gave it up?”

“Yep,” he said. “Well I was like awfully unfit, but basically I deferred a year and then I was okay after that.”

I smile slightly.

“Get a blood test,” he urges.

I roll my eyes. “I faint after and I get this horrible rash.”

“I got the same thing,” he says, “when I was still eating gluten.”