Don't mind me, I'm just making sure my most recent entry isn't the last one because it was too damn depressing. I hate for the first or last note on things to be one of self indulgent woe. So yeah, I'm more cheery.

I think what I wrote is true, it's just a question of how much you let it get to you.

After yesterday's display of maudlinacity I decided to walk to the Post Office. Just as I was heading out, my beloved 10B got home. We went together. After we got home Big Sister rang! So I sprawled on the couch and chatted to her for nearly an hour, it's ages since we've spoken. My nephew is doing well and was squeaking cheerfully in the background throughout. And their house is now solar-powered, how cool is that? They're going to visit sometime soon.

I went to bed early last night, read for a bit and had a very good sleep until about 5:30ish. Will be toddling off back for the second shift in a little while.

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In other news, our microwave seems to have gone kablooey.

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The other day I was searching the PubMed database for a few specific things to do with ME/CFS. I observed that in the early 1990's there were still articles being published in reputable journals about whether or not this problem did exist. You don't get articles like that now. Not in reputable journals anyway.

But it's not all that simple. It's possible that strategies have changed but idealogy remains the same, and I really wish I had the beans to sort this one out for myself. What we have now is a distinction between people who argue and look for biological causes and solutions, and people who look for social and behavioural explanations. There's a not a whole lot of crossover and from what I've gleaned so far (skimming the surface over the last several years) that arises because the latter group of people were the ones who were arguing against it's 'realness' in the early days and now say that it's real, but in the sense of 'very real to the sufferer/a very real problem in the community'. They were still quite willing to actively discourage other forms of research and argued (still do argue) against sub-typing and more strict inclusion criteria in research projects. Indeed, I get the impression (and damn but I wish I had time to find out if I'm right) that for this group, giving up on the debate about realness is more of a strategic response than anything else.

Plenty of people have done what amounts to lit.reviews on this topic. I guess it's just that there's certainly no consensus and I'd rather work it out myself.

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The other thing I found myself musing on is the degree to which researchers in any given field are committed to the advancement of their specialty, compared to their degree of commitment to seeing a particular problem(eg-ME/CFS) resolved. Not sure how you test this one out.

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I'm off to have breaky. With a bit of luck, later today there will be another brief trip out. I'm going to do a medical update sometime soon too. Then I have to hunker down and sift through the little pile of abstracts I've got, so I can reduce the number to something manageable... then my brain will explode. Hopefully not before, because this really needs to get done.