This ground-breaking book explores and explains the day-to-day realities of living long-term with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME). ME is an acquired complex disorder characterised by a variety of symptoms affecting multiple systems of the body. Marked fatigue and weakness, sickness, cognitive dysfunction and symptom flare-up can follow any physical or cognitive exertion. It is estimated that there are 17-24 million sufferers worldwide. The author has lived with moderately severe ME for the last 18 years. Utilising autoethnography as a methodology and drawing on multidisciplinary social science theory, the book tells the story of the author’s own lived experiences of the illness, and how she sought to reimagine a ‘self’ or a life living alongside the illness, that could still be considered a ‘good life’. This autoethnographic book is beautifully and evocatively written. It is a work of scholarship that will be highly accessible to academic and other readers. It is also a comprehensive introduction to autoethnography as a methodology, but it is much more. The images and poetry complement the narrative discussion, and are exemplary as part of an approach that integrates creative work with academic argument. It illuminates the struggles of living with ME and how there can be sanctuary.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many coronavirus-positive patients faced myriad health issues during treatment and post treatment. Many people who lost their lives due to COVID-19 infection were also prone to other, previously established health issues including heart diseases, diabetes, hypertension, and more. It is essential to explore these different health issues and complications that patients face during and after COVID-19 treatment with respect to a global treatment group and the methods employed by healthcare professionals to help them overcome these complications with medicine and other treatments and precautions. Clinical Practice and Post-Infection Care for COVID-19 Patients creates a platform for healthcare professionals to share their experiences and treatments while handling COVID-19 patients during the pandemic and post-pandemic periods. The case studies and issues with heart patients and related diseases during the pandemic mentioned in this book can help medical care providers guide patients to take appropriate precautions well in advance of any adverse conditions, preserving their health and ability to recover. This book is ideally designed for medical practitioners, medical teachers, medical students, researchers, hospital administrators, nurses, and heart patients.

I hope that if you have Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) (or know someone who has) you will find this book useful. M.E. can affect different people in different ways. Some people are able to carry on with a normal life as long as they pace themselves, others are housebound or even bedridden. This book is about my story, how I developed M.E. and how I have tried to search for an answer and treatment for the symptoms I experience.

A guide to the problems of living with M.E. (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis).

This book shows researchers how ethnography can be carried out within human service settings, providing an invaluable guide on how to apply ethnographic creativeness and offering a more humanistic and context-sensitive approach to generating valid knowledge about today’s service work.