Leigh Hatcher’s journey through Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Book Launch
The week starting Monday May 9th 2005 was Chronic Fatigue Awareness week in Australia – and was the occasion of the launch of “I’m Not Crazy, I’m Just A Little Unwell”.
Below is a selection of photos from the launch and a number of media interviews during the remainder of that week.
Leigh and Dr. John D’Arcy speaking about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and ‘I’m Not Crazy, I’m Just A Little Unwell’, on the Seven Network’s ‘Sunrise’ Programme.
A Review published in 'Southern Cross' - June 2005
(Southern Cross is a monthly newspaper published by the Sydney Anglican Diocese)
Struck down with an utterly debilitating ‘mystery’ illness, Sydney Anglican Leigh Hatcher falls from the high-flying, adrenalin fuelled life of one of Australia’s best known television journalists to an anonymous welfare recipient in a matter of months.
Previously the picture of impeccable health, exercising regularly and revelling in an industry where many others would have opted out long ago, Hatcher’s dramatic and catastrophic fall leaves everyone baffled – his doctors, his friends, his family, and most of all himself. How could someone doing so well fall so drastically? Couldn’t he take the pressure? Was some emotional turmoil to blame? Was it all in his mind?
Weighing in at just 120 pages and dealing with a 2 year battle with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), “I’m Not Crazy, I’m Just A Little Unwell” is a remarkable book for its size. Hatcher encapsulates the deeply personal experience of chronic illness with clarity, authenticity and honesty, wrapping it up in a punchy, exhilarating, rollercoaster of a story.
Hatcher’s story is filled with irony. The most devastating case occurs when Hatcher is at his sickest and most in need of support and understanding. His family instead has to face the ‘collateral damage’ that comes from the ignorant and misguided speculation anyone facing CFS is forced to confront. The clichéd questions arise: is this all in his mind? Does he somehow want it?
The hurt this nonsensical notion causes Hatcher merely burdens him and his family further.
Hatcher’s response to his and his family’s suffering as he loses his health, his relationships, and his very identity is inspiring and stubbornly optimistic. His life-shaping experience of God in the midst of all this is profoundly real. The God of absolute trustworthiness reveals more of himself to Hatcher the harder things get. However, the church’s response to his personal crisis, save for a few select individuals, is anything but inspiring. Hatcher’s insights into how we as a Christian community can care for the sick will be of particular interest to Southern Cross readers.
“I’m Not Crazy” is an enormously captivating and enthralling read that should be accessible to just about anyone.
Verdict: A passionate, gripping tale of survival.
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An article written by Leigh Hatcher for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Awareness Week, 2005
At the start of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Awareness Week, TV newsreader Leigh Hatcher explains the devastating reality of the illness and urges greater acceptance for CFS sufferers and those with long term chronic illness.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome claimed more than two years of my life. It began as a simple virus that went to my liver, diagnosed as ‘viral hepatitis’. It sent my body into an entirely baffling new zone. It was like something toxic was flowing through my blood – like I was on a permanent dose of the flu. Each day also brought what
felt like wave after wave of ‘blood sugar crashes’.
It was much more than just being tired. For 25 years I had worked as a radio and television reporter and foreign correspondent. Chasing often impossible deadlines and schedules, I well know what it was like to be tired. In the wilderness of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome I felt like my body and brain were running on empty – such overwhelming fatigue and weakness. Before the illness struck, I would swim up to six kilometres a week and do 15 minutes weight training each morning. In the midst of CFS, my 11 year old daughter could beat me in an Indian arm wrestle. I was unemployed and unemployable for 2 ¼ years.
The worst suffering – beyond the considerable pain and suffering and loss, was all the misunderstanding and misjudgement of CFS, and therefore the sufferer. Too often it’s regarded as ‘all in the mind’, as a cop-out or freak-out – that you’re lazy, lost the plot, or worst of all, a fraud. I had everything to lose and nothing to gain from 2 ¼ years of this terrible illness. There were some days I wondered if all the pain and feeling SO crook was what it felt like to die. To imagine that as a cop out, a con, or a life-style choice piles suffering upon suffering.
Many of the misunderstandings and misjudgments stemmed from the baffling nature of CFS. Because it’s a Syndrome, to many, it has ‘dodgy’ written all over it. They forget that SIDS and SARS are also Syndromes, yet no-one doubts or misunderstands their devastating consequences.
Yet I also know that many with long-term chronic illness also struggle to gain acceptance and understanding from those who often look on puzzled, even intolerant of a long-haul ‘wilderness’ experience.
Most are driven by a good heart to help and an earnest desire to see the suffering brought to an end. The trouble comes when they rush to judgment or ill-informed speculation that makes it sound as if the ill person is somehow responsible for their own predicament.
In the depth of the dreadful Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and many other long-term illnesses the greatest gift that can be offered a sufferer is simple acceptance – an ability to meet the sufferer where they are. We struggle to do that in the rush and crush of life in 2005. Our breathtaking achievements in medical science lead us to think there’s a solution for everything. We are wonderfully made and sustained, but also vulnerable and not invincible. We’ve lost a sense of the reality laid out by the ancient Hebrew poet in Psalm 90 – ‘The length of our days is seventy years— or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.’ This naturally offends our obsession with control and self-sufficiency – perhaps that’s why there’s such shock when major illness, or ultimately death intervenes.
When we are able to leave our opinions, expectations, even our own experiences aside and truly meet those in need where they are, it is a great gift of love, compassion and acceptance. A piece of wisdom I heard on a taped talk during my illness says it all: ‘Most people don’t want their problem solved, they want it understood.’
There were some truly golden people, often new friends, who were alongside me and my family every step of the way. They accepted me. They trusted me. They listened—much, much more than they spoke. This was what I needed most. And in the midst of what for me was a deep and profound spiritual journey – they were confident, as I was, to leave the future to God. From the perspective of eternity, it was OK, even if it wasn’t OK.
Leigh Hatcher has written of his battle through CFS in a book published today, ‘I’m Not Crazy, I’m Just A Little Unwell’. Also available in a Talking Book. Strand Publishing $19.95. Go to www.notcrazy.net
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