A Struggle That Saved a Life: One Man’s Battle With Chronic Fatigue

I am no longer a young man. I have been privileged to see a great deal in my life, and above all, to see Hashem’s kindness toward me at every step. I have married off children, and thank God, I am a grandfather. I have been young, and now I have grown old. So when I came down with yet another cold, I wasn’t particularly concerned. I had encountered plenty of viruses over the course of my life.

But three days after I first began feeling ill, I realized that this was different. The virus seemed to be raging through my body with an intensity I had not experienced in years. My family doctor thought it was probably the flu and advised me to take medication for the pain and fever, get plenty of rest, and rely on the usual home remedies. There was nothing more to do.

An Exhaustion That Wouldn’t Go Away

It took about two weeks for the illness to release its grip on me. But even when I was supposedly recovering, an overwhelming exhaustion descended upon me. I climbed into bed and slept for at least twelve hours straight, something completely unlike me. When I woke up, I could hardly believe how much time had passed. Even more bewildering was that I still felt utterly exhausted, as though I had not slept at all.

My entire body was heavy. My legs felt like lead, and my mind was buried beneath a thick fog. I could barely think, listen, or speak. All I wanted to do was sleep. Whenever I was able to think clearly, I reassured myself that the exhaustion must simply be the aftermath of the illness. My body had fought a difficult battle. Surely it made sense that it needed time to recover. Everyone around me said the same thing: rest, sleep, give yourself time.

Another two weeks passed, and I was still trapped in the same cycle. I barely ate. I barely got up. My wife finally became alarmed and made an appointment with the doctor. I have no idea how I managed to get there. Moving one leg felt like lifting a weight. The doctor was visibly concerned and sent me for blood tests, fearing that something serious might be wrong.

But the results came back perfectly normal. He prescribed vitamins and nutritional supplements, hoping they might strengthen me, but nothing changed. I went back to bed.

No One Could Explain What Was Wrong

I had gone from being a healthy, highly active man who functioned at a level far beyond what people might expect for my age to someone who felt like a rag doll whose only desire was to disappear beneath the blankets and surrender to sleep. It affected my life, my family, and my friends, but I felt powerless to change it.

Every so often, I heard whispers that perhaps the problem was psychological and that I should have it checked. That frightened me. Deep inside, I felt certain that something real was happening to my body. I did not believe this was psychological.

By nature, I am an optimistic and cheerful person, and that helped me tremendously. It kept me from falling into despair. I prayed often, in my own words, because I no longer had the strength to walk to synagogue. That hurt deeply. I missed my spiritual world, my study partners, and learning Torah. I asked the Creator for one thing: Please give me the strength to go to synagogue, even for a single prayer.

The Battle to Get to Synagogue

Then one morning, I woke up and felt a slight easing of my symptoms. I managed to get out of bed and look at myself in the mirror, and a battle began inside me. Should I try to go to synagogue? No one knew better than I did what even the smallest physical effort now cost me.

I had endless reasons not to go. One of them was the hour. It was already late in the morning, and I had always been someone who prayed at sunrise. I had always been among the first to arrive for the early minyan. I barely knew what a late morning minyan looked like. If I am honest, I had sometimes even privately criticized younger people who seemed to arrive for Shacharit just before it was time for Minchah.

And now I was one of them. People were already wondering what had happened to Reb Dovid. Why had he stopped coming to prayers? Why was he no longer seen in public? And now I was supposed to appear at synagogue at such a late hour? On the outside, I looked perfectly healthy. How could I explain how difficult even the simplest things had become?

It was a fierce internal struggle, but eventually, I won. I dragged myself up, fighting for every movement. For the first time in what felt like forever, I picked up my tallit and tefillin bag and set out for the synagogue. With every step, I congratulated myself. I knew exactly what each one of those steps was worth.

A Baby Alone

By then, I had noticed that the exhaustion came in recurring attacks and that stress could intensify them. So I refused to rush. I told myself: I am going. However long it takes me, it takes me. One tiny step at a time.

As I walked slowly, trying to absorb the city, the air, and the people around me again, I noticed a car parked beside the sidewalk. Something seemed strange. I took a few steps back and looked again. There was a small baby in the back seat, completely alone, with every window closed.

I tried the door. It was locked. I immediately screamed for help. The sun was already high in the sky, and the day was growing hotter. Every passing moment could be dangerous. I banged on the window, but the baby did not respond. Was he sleeping, or was it something far worse?

People began running toward me when they heard my cries. Everyone had an idea of what to do, and together we managed to break the front window. Someone reached inside and unlocked the doors, and a young man pulled the baby from the back seat. The child was barely conscious, hovering on the edge of fainting.

Emergency volunteers came running and examined him. Then the baby began to cry. It was one of the most beautiful sounds I had ever heard, like the cry of a newborn child. It was a cry of new life. Before my eyes, it felt as though I were watching a child come back to life.

Someone called out that we needed to find the baby’s parents. Within seconds, I saw a figure in the distance running toward us, wrapped in a tallit. It was the baby’s father.

For a long time, he had not been the one responsible for taking the children to school and childcare in the morning. That day was the first time he had done it in at least two years. He had dropped off the older children and then gone inside to pray. The shouting outside suddenly reminded him of the baby. He had forgotten to take him to the caregiver.

He arrived breathless and devastated, with only one question: “What happened to my child?” One of the emergency volunteers told him that the baby had regained consciousness. He had been found just in time.

A moment later, the ambulance arrived. The father and his baby were about to climb inside when he stopped and asked who had found his son. Everyone pointed at me. I was embarrassed. I am not someone who enjoys drama or recognition. I prefer walking quietly at the side and allowing others to stand in the spotlight. With tears in his eyes, the father thanked me. Then he climbed into the ambulance, and it disappeared with its siren wailing behind it.

A Different Kind of Prayer

I eventually reached the synagogue, physically and emotionally dazed. I hoped I would still manage to catch a minyan, probably the final one of the day. But something had changed inside me.

I felt that God had sent me a message. He wanted the effort. He wanted the act itself, not all the small calculations and excuses that had been weakening my resolve. That realization was like a ray of sunlight breaking through heavy clouds. I held on to it. It was exactly what I needed.

That prayer came from somewhere very deep inside me. I felt like a small child learning to pray for the first time. I returned home by taxi, completely exhausted and unable to walk another step.

Finally, an Answer

Just before I went back to bed, my wife told me that my longtime family doctor had left the clinic. A new doctor, a young woman, had taken his place. She had been reviewing her patient list and had called to ask how I was doing. When my wife told her about the relentless exhaustion and everything that had been happening to me, the doctor strongly urged me to come in.

Fortunately, after a long rest that day, my symptoms eased somewhat. The following day, with considerable difficulty, I managed to make it to the clinic. After examining me, the doctor said she suspected I might have a condition called chronic fatigue syndrome and referred me to a colleague who specialized in diagnosing it.

The process of getting there was long and exhausting, but it was worth every bit of effort. After hearing my history and asking his initial questions, the specialist concluded that there was no doubt that I had chronic fatigue syndrome.

For me, the diagnosis was an enormous relief. At last, someone was telling me that what I was experiencing was real. It had a name. There was a medical explanation and information about it. I was not imagining things. I was not pretending. I was not looking for excuses. I really was exhausted. Simply knowing that changed my life.

The Struggle That Saved a Life

I cannot help believing that the beginning of my own salvation was somehow connected to that morning when I fought so hard to go to synagogue despite everything. On the way, I was privileged to save a life. And perhaps that merit helped lead me toward the answer I desperately needed for my own condition.

There is still a great deal of work ahead. This illness is not simply going to disappear, and I will need to learn how to live alongside it with acceptance and dignity. It will not be easy.

But now I understand something I did not understand before. I know how precious every effort is before Hashem. So I will keep fighting the urge to give up.

Sometimes the struggle that keeps you moving is the very thing that gives you life. And sometimes, without even knowing it, it can save someone else’s life too.