http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/backissues/2009/10/back-issues-laura-h
illenbrand.html
Timely notes from The New Yorker's archive.
October 15, 2009
Back Issues: Laura Hillenbrand
As reported in the Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/health/13fatigue.html?_r=2&8dpc=&pagewante
d=all and elsewhere, the journal Science this week published a study linking
chronic fatigue syndrome to a possibly contagious retrovirus that has also
been implicated in an aggressive form of prostate cancer. (The Science study
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1179052 is available only to
the journal's subscribers.)
C.F.S. is debilitating to those who suffer it, but while research has
identified a host of physical abnormalities in patients, the cause of the
disease has proved elusive. In 2003, Laura Hillenbrand wrote about her
experience of C.F.S. in The New Yorker. Her essay, "A Sudden Illness,"
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/07/07/030707fa_fact_hillenbrand
recalls the earliest manifestations of the disease while she was a student
at Kenyon College and the long process of receiving an accurate diagnosis.
In the piece, Hillenbrand also describes the demands of writing her book,
"Seabiscuit," while suffering from C.F.S.
Hillenbrand lives in Washington, D.C., and is currently completing work on
her second book. She kindly agreed to a brief telephone interview earlier
this afternoon.
How has the C.F.S. been since the publication of your essay in The New
Yorker in 2003?
The C.F.S. is far worse, unfortunately. I had a catastrophic relapse in 2007
that sent me back to square one. It has been two years since then and I have
only been able to leave my house twice. I've only recently begun getting
down my staircase every day. It's the way the disease works. Everybody gets
relapses. Mine tend to be really bad.
How does the news about the Science study make you feel, and do you have a
sense of how it has been received in the C.F.S. community?
The C.F.S. community is all abuzz. I've never seen people this excited. And
it is for good reason. As for myself, I am guardedly optimistic. I've been
around this block before. The findings are very preliminary and they do need
to be replicated. It needs to be demonstrated that this virus is a cause and
not a bystander. But, with that said, the findings are stunning. All of us
with C.F.S. have long felt that a virus is involved. The symptoms are so
viral. You get fevers and chills and aching, a very sore throat, huge lymph
nodes, and all the things you would get with flu, times ten, and they never
go away.
The researchers have said that in a follow-up study, ninety-eight per cent
of some three hundred C.F.S. patients tested positive for this new virus. If
replicated, that's a stunning finding, a potential blockbuster for patients.
It could be, finally, the thing that makes treatment and, eventually, a
cure, possible. But you have to be circumspect with any medical study, and
this is very preliminary. We'll all be waiting eagerly for the results of
follow-up research.
What are you working on now?
I'm just finishing my second book, a biography of the 1936 Olympic runner
Louis Zamperini, who became a bombardier in the Second World War. He crashed
in the Pacific and floated on a raft for forty-seven days across two
thousand miles before being captured by the Japanese. I've been working on
that since I finished "Seabiscuit."
Has it been easier or harder to work on this book than on "Seabiscuit"?
It has been much more difficult than the first book, which is disappointing
because "Seabiscuit" was very hard. It's been tremendously difficult to find
the strength to write, and a big part of this relapse has been a return of
vertigo. Right now I'm doing the citations and the hardest thing to do while
suffering from vertigo is to look at the page numbers and things like that.
The text of the book is just about finished and I'm just annotating now. I
will finish it!
Do you have a title and publication date for the book yet?
The book is tentatively titled "Unbroken" and will be published by Random
House next year.
Laura Hillenbrand; Seabiscuit; chronic fatigue syndrome; science
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