Having a Disease Doctors Can't Diagnose

I actually enjoy watching TEDTalks in my free time, I think they're fascinating. One day I came across a TEDTalks called "what happens when you have a disease doctors cannot diagnose”. It's about a woman named Jennifer Brea, 33, and how she has a disease called chronic fatigue syndrome. She began by speaking about her life five years before that day and how she was a PhD student at Harvard, she loved traveling, and was engaged. One day she had a fever of 104.7. She didn't think anything of it and one day her fever broke, she became so dizzy that she couldn’t even get out of bed or walk to the bathroom. She went to the doctor and he told her nothing was wrong, but it got worse and she lost ability to write certain letters or draw complete circles. Sometimes she couldn't speak or move and she went to multiple specialists for everything you could think of. One day she walked 2 miles home from the neurologist and when she walked in the door she collapsed and her brain and her spine were burning in pain. She spent two years in bed and found that there were 1 million people in the U.S. with the same symptoms as her, 15-30 million in the world. That's when she was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis). It is basically when people with ME apply themselves to anything they could be in bed for weeks. When a healthy person would take a run and may be be sore afterward she would be in bed for weeks and weeks. ME usually happens through infections and is most common in women, according to Jennifer.

She emphasized the importance and recognition of how ME is not as prioritized as MS, AIDS, etc. This bothered her because it is very common and very painful and very hard to live with. She thinks it deserves more funding per patient than $5, and I agree. She described it like being a prison. Everyday she has to make decisions like if she wants to wash her hair or sit in the garden for 15 minutes. She doesn't know if she will ever be able to walk or run again but she has hope. She has hope because she knows doctors want to help and that there is new research happening everyday.

In her speech, Jennifer Brea, wanted to express what it's like to live with ME and spread awareness for it. She used pathos throughout the entire speech touching the hearts of the audience and myself. But I also noticed she used ethos a lot by using statistics, professional opinions, and doctors assessments of her in her talk. She was very good at gaining attention of the audience through her tragedy. But, she also directed the attention off of herself many times by making sure that everyone knew there are people with a lot more severe symptoms of ME than herself. It is because of them and the hope for a brighter future for everyone with ME that she is so passionate about spreading awareness and fighting for more funding for ME patients and a cure for the disease.