LISETTE Grout is curled up on the sofa happily chatting about her boyfriend, her part-time social work and how her masters degree is going. The 26-year-old from Darlington enjoys going out with her boyfriend, meeting friends, driving her own car and planning a career in youth work.
All of these things seem pretty normal for a bright, articulate twenty-something young woman.
But only Lisette knows how much all of these things mean to her and how far she has progressed since she was suddenly laid low with a frightening illness.
Four years ago Lisette was down-and-out and struggling to cope with the mysterious and disabling condition known as Myalgic Encephamyelitis, or ME.
She is not certain when she contracted ME, which is now thought to be some unidentified form of infection which strikes when the body's immune system is at a low ebb.
But from being a bit of 'wild child' at Leeds University - working all day and partying all night - she was reduced to a pain-wracked, shattered husk within a few weeks.
It started with sickness and dizziness and led to her having to give up her independent life and return to her parents' home in Darlington.
From planning to work as an English teacher in Peru, she went to a wheelchair-bound recluse whose highlight of the week was being pushed around a supermarket.
As her condition deteriorated, she suffered muscle pains, loss of appetite, blurred vision and memory loss, as well as crippling fatigue. Even when she was resting she found it difficult to sleep because of insomnia.
A diagnosis of ME added to the gloom for Lisette and her family.
Despite an estimated 250,000 people suffering from ME, including about 30,000 children, it is still little-known and little understood.
Only this week - ME Awareness Week - a survey commissioned by the charity Action for ME found that a third of the general public had never heard of ME when prompted, despite there being almost three times as many people with ME as the degenerative disease Multiple Sclerosis.
In 2002, the British Government gave formal recognition to the illness, along with the World Health Organisation.
Despite the increasing willingness of doctors to diagnose ME, there is still no effective treatment for the condition, which is also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).
It is only in the last few months that multi-disciplinary teams have been set up in Chester-le-Street, Bishop Auckland, Sunderland and Gateshead to help ME patients manage their condition. Unfortunately there is no team on Teesside after a bid for funding was unsuccessful.
It was this grim situation that Lisette and her family found themselves in back in 2002.
But despite the uphill task facing her, Lisette has managed to recover a great deal of her personal independence.
By learning to conserve her energy and pace herself, she has gradually been able to rebuild her life and do more and more of the activities most other people take for granted.
The Internet has played a vital part in helping Lisette's partial recovery.
By sharing her experiences with other young ME sufferers - largely through a network of contacts with the charity AYME (Association of Young People with ME) - Lisette has been able to devise her own way of winning back her independence, step by dogged step.
"It was good learning from others because you realised you were not the only one trying to figure out how to cope," says Lisette, who now has friends with ME all over the UK.
"The difficult thing is getting the balance right. I know my illness is still there and if I do too much the symptoms can come back with a vengeance," she says.
"I have realised that pacing yourself is the only thing that really helps. You just have to learn to live with it and try to tune yourself in to how you are feeling on a particular day."
It was an article about Lisette, which appeared in this newspaper in September 2002, that played an important role in getting her back on the road to recovery.
"My old junior school read about it. They asked me to come in because they wanted to do a sponsored skip to raise money for people with ME. My sister, Madi, pushed me over in my wheelchair. That was great, it felt that people were on my side," says Lisette.
Another spin-off from that article was that an old friend from a drama group she was involved in got in touch.
"Mark saw the article and recognised my name. He came to see me and before long we were going out. He was the first person I blurted all my feelings out to," says Lisette
"Before Mark got in touch I was really depressed and worried about the future. I was virtually housebound and I thought I would never make friends or have a boyfriend.
"It was so good for my confidence and helped me come to terms with who I was rather than who I had been."
Another big step forward was making contact with the Council for Voluntary Service in Darlington to see if she could do any voluntary work with local youngsters.
While at Leeds University, Lisette had enjoyed working with young people and young prison inmates as part of her degree in drama and performance arts.
"It was a huge thing for me. I went in by myself to try and sort something out. I am a bubbly sort of person and I was really missing human contact."
Keen to re-establish contact, she tentatively agreed to work a few hours a week at a young people's drop-in centre in Darlington.
Starting with four hours every fortnight, Lisette gradually built up the amount of time she devoted to youth work.
In order to cope with the extra energy now demanded, Lisette cut back on other activities.
"I stopped seeing friends for a while. I stopped doing stuff around the house like emptying the dishwasher and cooking. I just tried to conserve my energy as much as I could."
Growing in confidence and feeling increasingly able to cope, Lisette enrolled at Teesside University to study for a masters degree in youth work and community development.
This involved her travelling to the campus in Middlesbrough every week, which was another important landmark in the road to recovery.
"When I drive to uni on a Monday, it means that nothing happens on Sunday. I have to have a really relaxing day. Mark is very understanding because he knows that is another day he won't be able to see me."
While Lisette has clearly made a huge amount of progress, she still lives in fear that her illness will suddenly get worse.
"No matter how well I get, there is always the fear that it will come back. You just have to learn to live with it," she says.
Remarkably, Lisette believes that there is even a positive side to having ME.
"Without ME, maybe I wouldn't have appreciated what I have now as much as I do.
"I certainly appreciate life in general. I am savouring every minute."
* To contact Action for ME visit www.afme.org.uk or ring the helpline 0845 1232314 to contact AYME visit www.ayme.org.uk or ring the helpline 0845 1232389.
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