Accepting ME

Louise shares her personal story in hopes of helping others who have been diagnosed as well as their loved ones, which makes for an inspiring read.

Mother of two, Louise was diagnosed with ME 6 years ago and worked extensively in the financial industry for many years. Following being signed off from work in 2017/2018, Louise moved to the Algarve with her family in 2021. “We were homeschooling the children at the time and we had been to Portugal the year before, which was the first time with the children and they absolutely loved it. It had always been a dream of ours to move to Portugal and our youngest, who was five at the time, said why are we home-schooling here and why don’t we go to Portugal?”

“We thought, you only get one life and let’s see and everything kind of just fell into place. We have settled now and the boys are more or less fluent in Portuguese now, which makes things a lot easier. It is a brilliant place!”

Louise kindly shared a short synopsis of her book which reads “What do you do when your life is turned upside down by an illness? Learning to adapt and cope with illness is extremely difficult and can lead even the most confident person to becoming vulnerable. Follow Lou through her fascinating true journey of how she learned to live with her illness and how she discovered a way to live again.”

ME/CFS, is described as a “mysterious illness which is extremely complicated and debilitating, where the severity of symptoms can fluctuate from day to day. It causes extreme fatigue that lasts for at least six months. Symptoms worsen with physical or mental activity but don't fully improve with rest.”

Offering Support

Louise shared “The symptoms of ME are limited and they can change with time, which makes it really hard to understand and get the grasp of but I wanted to make sure there was support for those who need it after I was diagnosed.”

Adding, “The information out there can be really overwhelming so the objective of my book was that if you do have friends or family suffering from ME, you can understand them better and then if you have ME, it can be difficult to retain information so I made it a small book so you can take in the information better.”

Louise went on to explain, “Beforehand, I had always been very confident when I was out, I’ve run business meetings and if I wanted something to eat, I would go into a restaurant by myself. I was extremely confident, and even as I am now, I accept it which has made it a lot easier for me. There are days that I can’t go into a supermarket by myself or I want to take the rubbish to the bins and I will take one of the children with me because sometimes the feelings become overwhelming and the confusion just kind of happens so you become quite scared of living life in a way.”

Writing Process

Louise also shared that the writing process “has been quite difficult because I am quite a private person but I kept in my head that it is to hopefully help others. I think it has been quite good to do as it has helped the acceptance part but I faced some difficulties because I have ME, so sometimes I would start to write but by the time I had written a chapter I couldn’t remember the beginning of it so it was a long process in that respect.”

Adding, “I got my husband to write the last chapter just so that it shows a different perspective and it is from the perspective of someone where they see this illness happen to someone they love. I wanted to share how it can feel and to say that you are not alone and it is hard.”

Acceptance

When asked what helped Louise accept her diagnosis, she told The Portugal News “I just came to terms with it but even if I think about how my life was, it is quite upsetting because I was happy with my life and all of a sudden, it is all ripped away.”

Adding “For me, the acceptance has come, from sitting down and thinking, this is a new life now, I have to put the old life behind me because that is not who I am and I’ve got to stop fighting to try and get back to that because it is not going to happen. I have just accepted it by embracing that this is my life and that has made it easier.”

Future Works

Louise told The Portugal News that she has actually got two more novels lined up, “The last year has been quite full on with settling the boys but I started two novels so I am going to pick up where I left off.”

If you would like to purchase Accepting ME, you can get a hold of a copy on Amazon UK & Spain as well as at wook.pt. Additionally, if any bookstores or local businesses would like to support the author and stock Louise’s book in the Algarve, please email Louise at louisehl75@hotmail.com.

Following undertaking her university degree in English with American Literature in the UK, Cristina da Costa Brookes moved back to Portugal to pursue a career in Journalism, where she has worked at The Portugal News for 3 years. Cristina’s passion lies with Arts & Culture as well as sharing all important community-related news.

Cristina da Costa Brookes