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By Shannon Sollinger
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
Elly Brosius was a working physicist when it started. Myra Hays was training for her first mini-triathlon and working full time in human resources. Mahsa Mehryar was finishing her degree in psychology at George Mason University, ready to start work on her master’s.
Today, they are virtually housebound. They are three of the millions of Americans - perhaps 4 million, according to new data - who cope daily with a devastating disease that has robbed them of the ability to go to work, to raise children, to enjoy friends. Sometimes just to get out of bed.
They have chronic fatigue syndrome. It’s not “yuppie flu,” and chances are it is not going away.
It struck Hays, of Leesburg, in 1988. Mehryar, who lives in Cascades, was on a pre-graduation trip to Florida with classmates in 1998 when a bad cold and swollen lymph glands sent her to the hospital.
Mehryar spent nearly two years in bed. Food allergies prevented her from eating nearly everything - on one screen of 100 foods, she was allergic to 80.
“I had no idea what was happening,” Mehryar said. “I just felt horrible. I started having all the symptoms — food allergies, concentration problems, bad fatigue, I couldn’t get out of bed.”
She went to a different doctor
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