Robert Radovich
Las Cruces, NM

CFS came to Robert Radovich late in the life.

The 84-year-old retired postal worker suddenly began having problems sleeping in the early spring of 2009. At the time, he thought it was because he knew he was going to lose his brother. “I did lose him two years ago,” says Radovich. “I was sleeping badly for about nine months and then I caught a cold. I thought it would be gone in three days. Seven days later, I got very, very tired – tired like I’d never been before. That cold lasted seven months. I started to feel a little better, but then it came back and lasted five months. Then I lost my brother and it came back and I never lost it.”

He was diagnosed with CFS when he went to the doctor after not being able to shake the first cold. He asked for a viral count to be done and she tested him for Epstein Barr virus. “She said I had CFS. I never thought I’d get that,” he says.

Lately, Radovich’s “cold” has been accompanied by leg pain and a headache. The headache scares him.

“What unnerves me is the term ‘encephalomyelitis.’ If it involves the central nervous system, it scares me. I always thought this [illness] was from stress, from losing my brother,” he says. “I went to the ENT and he did a scan of my sinus cavity. He said I had an infection and gave me a steroid and an antibiotic. The antibiotic did nothing. When I was taking the steroid, the headache was gone. I went off the steroid, the headache came back. If I have encephalomyelitis, that’s not good.”

Radovich learned about the Association from an article in a “Bottom Line Health” newsletter that mentioned the organization and noted that there are CFS specialists across the country. He contacted the Association to find out if one was located near him, and began receiving the “SolveCFS” publication. It was there that he learned about The Catalyst Fund.

“I made a donation to help sustain the research, in the hope that they’ll come up with something,” he says. “I’m not doing this out of the goodness of my own heart. I want to find something that will get me well, and if not help myself, help others with CFS.”

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