Post-Exertional Mayonnaise

Bear Lawrence joins Daniel to tell us about his recent debut fiction publication: The Embleton Murders, A DCI Parrish Crime Thriller.

In this episode Daniel chats to Sacha Kenton, a screenwriter from New England living with ME who has written a dark comedy tv series called 'I Meow Back'. A proof of concept is being recorded this summer and it is hoped that a large streaming service will pick up the series to produce it going forward. Sacha is passionate about portraying disability in the mainstream. If you would like to support the project financially please check out the fundraiser here:

Dan and Dov catch up. We talk about the impact of recent deaths within the ME community, delve further into the Dragons' Den debacle and review recent episodes of the podcast and our grief series.

We end our Grief Stories series with a conversation with Emily Bazalgette who set up and runs GriefSick: a project exploring and bearing witness to chronic illness grief. Emily saw the need to provide a space where chronically ill people could explore the subject of grief, and is training in grief tending. Emily shares her own story and explains some of her findings from her research into grief and how models around grief may or may not apply to the unique experience of chronic illness. We talked about the importance of collective witnessing of grief and how as a society we need to become more grief literate. 

On the 18th January an episode of Dragons Den was aired in the UK. A pitch was made to business people asking for an investment into a company which sells acupuncture ear seeds. A claim was made by the entrepreneur that the ear seeds had aided her recovery from ME. Daniel is joined by Hollie-Anne Brooks, a journalist with ME who responded quickly with an article in Digital Spy which stressed why the segment was so damaging for people with ME. We talk about the episode, holistic therapies, media coverage, the role of the BBC and the hope that some positives might come from what has been a very difficult week for the ME community.

In the summer of 2023, Judith who lives with Severe ME and her partner, Matthias, a visual and performance artist, organised an exhibition in a prestigious gallery in Vienna, Austria. Here, over a period of months, Judith and Matthais recorded video responses to Daniel's questions about ME and the creative process, and about arranging the exhibition with contributions from severe ME patients from all over the world.

Rebecca talks to Daniel from Senegal about her experience of becoming ill with ME and adjusting to a new way of life, having to adjust when being a single parent and the guilt that ME brings. Rebecca places importance of living in the present and aiming to replace negative emotions with peace, calmness, joy and kindness. We had some technical issues, so apologies for the sound quality and drift.

Michael Brooks from Chat with M.E. podcast joins Daniel for a joint episode where we talk about the challenges of getting through Christmas/Hannukah/Yule whilst living with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.