Sam McKenzie has had ME since she was sixTeenager Sam McKenzie, who has suffered from ME since she was six, hopes new funding will stop others in Oxfordshire facing the problems she has encountered.

Sam, 15, has not attended school for more than two years because of the disabling illness -- myalgic encephalopathy -- which causes severe exhaustion, muscle pain, frequent headaches and sleeplessness. She is sensitive to light, and has to use a wheelchair because she can walk only short distances.

The illness, for which there is no cure, first emerged in the 1980s but was dismissed by many doctors until relatively recently.

Sufferers still struggle against a popular view of ME as laziness or 'yuppie flu'.

The Cherwell Vale Primary Care Trust estimates there could be more than 2,000 people with the illness in Oxfordshire, many of them housebound. As reported in the Oxford Mail last week, the trust has been given £170,000 by the Department of Health for specialist doctors and nurses to visit ME sufferers at home for the first time, to give advice and to diagnose new patients faster. Sam, from Witney, was diagnosed two years ago, more than six years after she started showing symptoms of ME. Both she and her mother, Flora, talk about feeling isolated as they struggled to understand a widely misunderstood illness.

Mrs McKenzie said: "This money is going to come into its own, because you're constantly searching for information and help. I used to sit up all night in tears researching on the Internet, not knowing what was wrong with Sam. ME is a constant battle and a struggle, it's shattered our household, I've had to pack up work and I'm not half the woman I was."

Sam said: "I'm 15, but I'm not like a teenager because all my friends are going out partying, shopping and having a laugh, and I can't do that.

"It shows you who your real friends are, I've got some really good friends, they'll come round and talk on the phone and they know I can't go out and do normal things, but then you get those who don't really understand, or their family doesn't understand, which then rubs off on them."