Happy Father's Day 2022
Happy Father’s Day! I want to first honor all the fathers out there with ME/CFS who are fighting to survive and sacrificing so much of the time they should have with their family and children. It is a thankless, unimaginable sacrifice that should not have to be made. But so many fathers endure despite having such severe limitations.
And I would like to acknowledge the unique suffering fathers with ME/CFS face in not being able to work like they would like to in order to provide for their families. This is of course something mothers face as well, but there is much more instinctual and societal burden on fathers to be the providers and protectors of their families. And for so many fathers, they cannot do this at all, or not to the extent that they want to and would be capable of if it weren’t for ME/CFS. I’m so sorry. Remember that you are loved for who you are, not for what you do.
Personally, and from all ME/CFS patients around the world I want to celebrate my father, Ron Davis, who not only does anything and everything he possibly can to take care of me, but devotes every waking minute even in his dreams while sleeping to trying to figure out the cause of ME/CFS and find a cure. No one else in the world is so devoted to finding a cause and cure, and no one else in the world is so capable of finding a cause and a cure. I’m so grateful for all of his efforts and I think I can speak for the global ME/CFS community when I say this. It is a true blessing that he is working on this disease and bringing other brilliant minds with him to work on it as well. In many ways I am glad I am so sick so that he has a reason to figure this disease out for the millions of suffering people out there.
In this picture, my father cuts off pieces of my hair to send in for testing in one of endless experiments and tests and ideas he has to try to make me better.
I also want to celebrate my sister’s husband Theo Haugen. I have been sick for their entire relationship, even when they first met which was a gathering in the summer out on the patio outside my room and i remember watching the electricity between the two of them during that gathering from my room and smiling with joy for my sister. They wound up getting married in the backyard of my house and I was too sick to even go out there for a moment. I wrote a speech in my head which I never gave but hope to share someday.
Theo is an amazing husband to my sister and an incredible father and I’m so grateful that Ashley found him and that he is in her life loving her and taking care of her in such an incredible way. It means even more to me since I can’t be a part of my sister’s life - to know that Theo is there by her side as a partner in this life. I am eternally grateful for this. He is also a wonderful father to their 2 beautiful children who are turning out to be the most precious little people.
Thank you dad, and thank you Theo for being such amazing fathers and such beautiful people in general. It helps me to know you are both out there even if I am completely absent from your lives and this life in general.
To fathers. To sacrifice. To survival. To love.
love,
Whitney
And I would like to acknowledge the unique suffering fathers with ME/CFS face in not being able to work like they would like to in order to provide for their families. This is of course something mothers face as well, but there is much more instinctual and societal burden on fathers to be the providers and protectors of their families. And for so many fathers, they cannot do this at all, or not to the extent that they want to and would be capable of if it weren’t for ME/CFS. I’m so sorry. Remember that you are loved for who you are, not for what you do.
Personally, and from all ME/CFS patients around the world I want to celebrate my father, Ron Davis, who not only does anything and everything he possibly can to take care of me, but devotes every waking minute even in his dreams while sleeping to trying to figure out the cause of ME/CFS and find a cure. No one else in the world is so devoted to finding a cause and cure, and no one else in the world is so capable of finding a cause and a cure. I’m so grateful for all of his efforts and I think I can speak for the global ME/CFS community when I say this. It is a true blessing that he is working on this disease and bringing other brilliant minds with him to work on it as well. In many ways I am glad I am so sick so that he has a reason to figure this disease out for the millions of suffering people out there.
In this picture, my father cuts off pieces of my hair to send in for testing in one of endless experiments and tests and ideas he has to try to make me better.
I also want to celebrate my sister’s husband Theo Haugen. I have been sick for their entire relationship, even when they first met which was a gathering in the summer out on the patio outside my room and i remember watching the electricity between the two of them during that gathering from my room and smiling with joy for my sister. They wound up getting married in the backyard of my house and I was too sick to even go out there for a moment. I wrote a speech in my head which I never gave but hope to share someday.
Theo is an amazing husband to my sister and an incredible father and I’m so grateful that Ashley found him and that he is in her life loving her and taking care of her in such an incredible way. It means even more to me since I can’t be a part of my sister’s life - to know that Theo is there by her side as a partner in this life. I am eternally grateful for this. He is also a wonderful father to their 2 beautiful children who are turning out to be the most precious little people.
Thank you dad, and thank you Theo for being such amazing fathers and such beautiful people in general. It helps me to know you are both out there even if I am completely absent from your lives and this life in general.
To fathers. To sacrifice. To survival. To love.
love,
Whitney