Rhode Island Comedian’s New TV Special Shines a Light on Chronic Illness

Doug Ouimette performing stand-up comedy at Mohegan Sun. (Photo courtesy of Doug Ouimette)

Doug Ouimette remembers the moment everything changed for his family.

About six years ago, the Coventry resident, who works as a career education specialist for the University of Rhode Island, got a call from his wife, Christina, saying she didn’t feel well. Christina worked in the event industry for the American Mathematical Society and frequently traveled the country putting on conventions. Her regular schedule had her walking thousands of steps each day. But on this day, none of that mattered.

“She calls me from work and says that she’s very lightheaded. She could barely stand up. Just a really weird feeling and it wouldn’t go away,” Doug recalls.

For the next several months, the Ouimettes went from one doctor to another looking for the answer to Christina’s mysterious symptoms. She was perpetually exhausted and couldn’t stand up without getting lightheaded. The symptoms seemed to ease when she laid down, but returned as soon as she got up again. Some doctors told her it was stress from relocating to Rhode Island — the couple had just bought a house in Doug’s home state as they prepared to start a family. Another said the problem was a desire not to go to work manifesting as physical symptoms. (Christina loved her work in the event industry and that it allowed her to travel.) Still others prescribed antidepressants that didn’t provide any improvement.

After seeing a new doctor in Boston, they began to get answers. The doctor diagnosed Christina with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), a long-term disorder characterized by overwhelming exhaustion that doesn’t improve with sleep. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 836,000 to 2.5 million Americans have ME/CFS, about 90 percent of them undiagnosed. The disease can present with a range of symptoms, including brain fog, muscle or joint pain, memory problems and dizziness upon standing. People with ME/CFS can also experience a “crash,” a worsening of symptoms after physical exertion or everyday activities like showering or folding laundry.

Doug and Christina with their now-two-year-old son, Hayden. (Photo by All Things C Photography/Courtesy of Doug Ouimette)

“She went from doing thousands and thousands and thousands of steps a day, up and down stairs, and [being] the most active woman I knew, to she couldn’t do more than 300 steps in a day,” Doug recalls. “I had a wife who was extremely active who was suddenly just spiraling into illness.”

The disease altered the couple’s life dramatically. Christina was forced to quit her job and began using a wheelchair to get around. She would later go on disability, but in the meantime, the couple worried about how to pay their mortgage. Doug, now the primary income earner, began seeing a therapist to cope with the stress. His therapist told him to find an outlet to talk about his experience. After sharing the story with his coworkers, they encouraged him to seek a larger audience.

“They had always encouraged me to try stand-up comedy,” he says. “They said if you need to talk to people, maybe you should just do it with a microphone on a stage and tell everyone how you’re feeling.”

His first foray into comedy was at an open mic night in Cranston. With his wife’s blessing, he combined his signature sense of humor about the family’s experience with chronic illness with quips about Rhode Island and married life, giving voice to the stresses that had shaped his and Christina’s lives for the previous six months. Unbeknownst to him, in the audience that night was John Perrotta, a comedian and promoter behind John Perrotta’s Comedy Factory. Perrotta approached him after the event and offered to book him for a few upcoming shows.

“I started doing these shows, and people would come up to me after the shows and say it was so nice to hear someone finally talking about this,” Doug recalls. “And I realized this thing I was doing for my own therapy was therapy for people who were going through it.”

Though evidence of large-scale outbreaks of ME/CFS can be traced back to the 1930s, a lack of awareness among both the public and the medical community and disagreement about the disease’s cause has left many patients without adequate care. It’s rarely portrayed in popular media, and Doug points to a routine by Ricky Gervais in which the comedian likens individuals with ME/CFS to those who “don’t feel like going to work today” as characteristic of the disease’s public perception. He hopes that by talking about his wife’s experience in a mainstream format, he’ll be able to bring awareness to a disease that’s largely gone unnoticed and misunderstood.

“We’ve done it in a way that’s brought laughter, and we hear the stories of people who’ve cried from it because it’s like, ‘Thank you, someone’s finally telling this story,’” he says.

After several years doing stand-up comedy at clubs around Rhode Island, Doug decided last year to release his first comedy special, both to reach a wider audience and so that those with more severe forms of the disease, like his wife, would be able to watch his routine without leaving their homes. The special, recorded at the Knickerbocker Music Center in Westerly and released on Amazon in January, has garnered positive feedback from ME/CFS patients throughout the United States and in Ireland, Sweden and the UK, he says. Many of his friends and family came out to support him during the special’s filming, including his wife, who traveled to the venue in her wheelchair.

“I still choke up when I think about how she got to be there,” he says.

Christina in her motorized wheelchair while visiting Atlantic City. (Photo courtesy of Doug Ouimette)

Doug runs all of his material by Christina and emphasizes while the disease has deeply affected their lives, his wife doesn’t allow herself to be defined by it. Two years ago, after consulting with doctors, Christina became pregnant and gave birth to their now-two-year-old son. Their son has brought new joy and purpose to their lives, he says, and particularly enjoys riding around with Christina on her motorized wheelchair.

“CFS isn’t her identity. It’s just an added thing she has to go through in her life,” he says. “She hasn’t let this illness defeat her, she’s just learned to live her life as how this new reality is.”

Recent developments have also brought new hope to ME/CFS patients. Four years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the syndrome known to many as Long COVID has gained widespread recognition as a long-term complication of the disease. The similarity in symptoms and fact that both can be triggered by a viral illness has led many to compare Long COVID and ME/CFS, or even argue they are the same disease. Many ME/CFS patients hope the newfound interest in Long COVID research may uncover a cure to both diseases.

Doug stresses that the experience of ME/CFS is unique to each patient. While some, like his wife, are unable to work, others go through life with few outward signs of the disease. He encourages viewers to do their own research and interpret his comedy routine as one family’s experience rather than an authoritative portrayal of ME/CFS.

This summer, the family plans to make their biggest move yet. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Christina became a patient at the Autonomic Dysfunction Center at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. Doug and Christina are in the process of selling their home in Coventry and moving to Tennessee so Christina can be closer to treatment. As part of the move, Doug plans to become a K­–12 health and physical education teacher and is pursuing his teaching certification through a URI master’s degree program. He hopes to continue his comedy work in Nashville.

“Coincidentally, it’s not a bad place to go if you’re trying to break into the entertainment business,” he says.

Despite the struggles of the last several years, Doug says if given the opportunity, he wouldn’t change a thing.

“Managing our life, it’s work. But there are a lot of areas in our life where we’re very blessed, and I wouldn’t change any of it,” he says. “[Christina] said to me two weeks ago that she’s the happiest she’s every been because our son gives her purpose and raising him is all she wants to do.”

To learn more about ME/CFS, visit the Open Medicine Foundation at omf.ngo/what-is-mecfs. For upcoming show dates, visit dougouimette.com.

Christina takes Hayden for a walk in her motorized wheelchair. (Photo courtesy of Doug Ouimette)

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