If ME/CFS & Fibromyalgia Were On Trial…

The death of Caylee Anthony in 2008 has tugged on the heartstrings of many Americans.  Now that her mother, Casey Anthony, is on trial for the muder, we find ourselves unable to pull ourselves away from the case.  I’ve been watching the trial when time permits & I’ve spent much of it in disbelief as to how a mother could behave in such a manner.  As a mother myself, I keep wondering how could she go 31 days (or go even ONE day) without reporting her daughter missing?  How could she live it up during that time knowing her daughter was gone?  Worse yet – how could she behave like that and be her own daughter’s alleged murder? 

The problem with this whole trial is that all of the evidence is circumstantial.  There is nothing that definitively links Casey Anthony as the murderer.  There’s a lot of evidence that sure points in that direction & common sense tells us that she is guilty.  But I would not want to be on that jury.  Their job is to decide whether she is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt; and without actual, hard core, written-in-stone evidence that she committed the crime, will they have to acquit her of the charges? 

When I’m watching the trial, I can’t help but think about what if ME/CFS & Fibromyalgia were on trial.  Would they get their fair day in court?  If a jury had to decide whether CFS & Fibromyalgia were legitimate illnesses or not, I think there would be reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors.  I know those illnesses exist; as fellow sufferers you know they exist as well.  But you can’t see either illness under a microscope.  There isn’t a blood test yet to say that X = CFS or Fibromyalgia.  I think a jury would need that proof in order to say yes – they are real.  Or could it go the other way?  If enough of us patients testified to the same symptoms, problems, coping skills, loss of life, etc., would that be enough?  In the Casey Anthony trial I keep hearing testimony after testimony that the smell in the trunk was human decompisition.  If enough people give the same testimony, that becomes extremely powerful in the minds of the jury I would think. 

Thank God this is just a scenario I’m running through my mind while watching the real trial but I do feel like I am on trial a lot of days.  I’ve felt many times like I have to answer, explain & respond to assanine questions regarding my health.  There are those who try to be judge and jury when they know nothing about what I deal with everyday.