The impact of ME/CFS can be devastating, leaving 25% of patients housebound or bedbound, with many people unable to work or participate in community life. People living with ME/CFS often feel invisible due to the unknown cause of the condition, lack of effective treatments and limited community awareness, leading many to ‘go missing’ from their own lives.
ME/CFS is such an impactful illness for the way it debilitates and restrains people from going about parts of daily life that to most is seen as normal. Things like keeping clean, brushing hair and teeth, and showering are often unable to be completed as effortlessly due to fatigue.
My older brother Zach has been suffering from ME/CFS since he was 12 years old. He is now 20, and is completely bed bound, with tasks such as brushing teeth and eating dinner done from his bed, and has been done so for a very large portion of this time period. The effects of ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are very damaging mentally and physically, and with very little funding for research and even less awareness it is very difficult to search for ways to reduce the impacts of the illness and find a cure.
I have decided to shave my head in order to raise awareness for the impact that ME/CFS and alike post infection illnesses have on people’s everyday lives and to show the way it restricts the freedoms of those suffering from it, and hope to raise funds to go towards finding a cure to the illness.
Funds raised go to Emerge Australia, the national body working to help people living with ME/CFS.
My goal: $1000 raised by Easter Saturday (Saturday the 8th of April)
Thank you for the support!
