Open Letter to the Ellen Degeneres Show

Hi,

I have sent this letter via snail mail to Ellen's office in California.

Dear Ellen’s Team,

I am asking for your help. I am under no illusion that this letter will be seen by Ellen herself and so I am writing to you as Ellen’s representatives.

I am an advocate for and sufferer of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (M.E). You will probably know it by its other name – Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (C.F.S). This October marks my 11-year M.E birthday! Not that it’s anything worth celebrating. Despite my own personal hardships, traumatic events, and ill health, I have made it my life mission to help those worse off than myself.

M.E/C.F.S affects 17 million people (very low estimate) worldwide. That figure includes at least 1 million Americans. M.E/C.F.S is the most common illness that no-one really knows about or understands.

I have been contacting you via Twitter though I’m sure my tweets get lost in the thousands you probably receive every day and so I have chosen snail mail to reach you now. I would love Foggy, my charity brand figure, to be on the Ellen Show. I have the following reasons for this:

-      -   I am a huge fan and watch most days when I am able. I was ecstatic when ITV2 started showing current episodes!

-      -   It is the biggest TV chat show in the world (I think)– I want to raise awareness in a big way – I can’t get much bigger! I would like to use your show as a platform to reach as many people as possible.

-       -   This is the most important reason. Many of Foggy’s Followers are bedbound. They write to me personally with their personal M.E stories. Every single American and Canadian M.E/CFS sufferer that I have been contacted by watches Ellen. They tell me it is usually the only time in their day when they turn their TV on and ‘enjoy life’. These people suffer from extreme light and noise sensitivity and so watching Ellen on TV is a HUGE deal. Ellen means so much to them. If I get Foggy onto your show then I am reaching out to those people. Those sufferers who believe they are forgotten about. I want them to know that I haven’t forgotten about them, that YOU haven’t forgotten about them.

Everybody knows somebody with M.E/CFS. It is an illness we should all know about. It does not discriminate regardless of age, race or gender. The youngest sufferer ever recorded was just 2 years old. The M.E ‘crisis’ is the equivalent to the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 80s and yet trying to get people to engage and understand is a very difficult task. We face prejudice on a daily basis and many in the healthcare profession don’t even consider it a real illness.  I am managing to raise awareness one person at a time but need help to reach even further. We desperately need research, trying to get research funding is an ongoing issue. Advocates and fundraiser like me work hard to raise funding as most Governments don’t spend much money on researching M.E. THERE IS NO TREATMENT.

I would encourage you to watch the film Unrest, directed by Jen Brea. I will be holding a screening here in Portsmouth myself. This award-winning documentary shows the severest form of M.E/CFS in the form of a real-life love story. Well worth a watch. It is an American film and there are screenings all over the U.S.

Please take a look at mefoggydog.org to see what my work is all about. Foggy is a soft toy. Foggy is an AWESOME globetrotting adventurer. He was ‘born’ in 2014 and has raised over £8k for the ME Association in the UK. All money raised goes to M. E Research. Foggy is currently on his 2017-18 World Tour and is on a mission to raise £10k and travel 250,000 miles around the world spreading love and awareness. He is currently in California and has travelled around 30,000 miles so far. His current campaign ends in July 2018. An appearance on your show is on Foggy’s bucket list…please help to make his dreams come true!

What drives me to do it? One day I want someone in a white lab coat to tell me why I feel dreadful every single day.

I hope you can help.

Best wishes.