A young woman with chronic illness takes matters into her own hands in this debut novel the story does an excellent job of portraying the relentless difficulties of suffering from hard-to-treat, chronic illnesses a sometimes-exhausting but realistic portrait of life under physical duress. Kirkus Reviews While writing in her journal, Adrea Drea Ragnason visualizes a creative way to deal with the increasing complications in her life even though it wont provide immediate results. In the meantime, she lives her life as simply as possible. Drea enjoys spending time with her aunt and young niece, but doesnt enjoy the time spent at doctors offices; yet she does it so she will no longer be asked the question, Youre still sick? With her aunts help, Drea finds an apartment that includes an empathetic landlord. The new space gives her much needed peace and quiet, plus the freedom to easily monitor her hopeful plan of making her doctors walk a mile in her shoes. Helene Gundersen is a psychologist with a new practice. The daughter of a doctor, she isnt surprised that many of her clients are doctors, yet she is startled they share similar symptoms. Her comments and suggestions nudge them toward research. Meanwhile, she attempts to remain detached as she helps a chronically ill client; however, Helene is hopeful when learning about POTS, a condition caused by a malfunctioning autonomic nervous system, and one of several conditions listed under the broad term of dysautonomia.

Imagine you marry the love of your life. A few years later you have two beautiful children. You struggle together as all young couples do to establish careers, set up a home and raise children. Life is happy and your faith is strong. Then one day you wake up to soul shaking news. Everything you worked for, believed in and dreamed of are suddenly in jeopardy. For the first time you're not exactly sure how to make it through each day. Your trust in God's goodness and the promises of His Word are shaken to their foundations. You begin to wonder if God cares at all. Follow the story of Dan and Lori as they navigate the daily struggle of suffering and disease. Watch as God intervenes in miraculous ways, some of which are seldom experienced these days. Share in the emotion of the struggles and triumphs as you consider your own experience with suffering and hardship. Search God's Word with the included bible study to discover the answers to life's most pressing questions. Gain powerful insights about the life and healing God offers to all. This is a story about a God who brought blessing out of brokenness, holiness out of heartbreak, and miracles out of misery. Rev. Dan Gottwerth (B.A. Eastern University; M.Div. Biblical Theological Seminary) has served in pastoral ministry for over 20 years and is currently finishing his D.Min. at Biblical Seminary. In addition to his doctoral studies, he serves at Christ Community Church in West Chester, PA in the men's ministry and speaks at conferences and retreats. Dan is married with three children and resides in the Philadelphia area.

The anticipated final volume of the whirlwind office romance is here! Akane and Makoto grow closer, as Makoto is finally able to realize her dream with someone who loves her and believes in her by her side. Are the two women finally able to confess their feelings to one another?

About 100 million Americans live with some form of chronic pain—more than the combined number who suffer from diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. But chronic pain has always been a mystery. It often returns at the slightest provocation, even when doctors can't find anything wrong. Oddly enough, whether the pain is physical or emotional, traumatic or slight, our brains register all pain as the same thing, and these signals can keep firing in the nervous system for months, even years. In Total Recovery, Dr. Gary Kaplan argues that we've been thinking about disease all wrong. Drawing on dramatic patient stories and cutting-edge research, the book reveals that chronic physical and emotional pain are two sides of the same coin. New discoveries show that disease is not the result of a single event but an accumulation of traumas. Every injury, every infection, every toxin, and every emotional blow generates the same reaction: inflammation, activated by tiny cells in the brain, called microglia. Turned on too often from too many assaults, it can have a devastating cumulative effect. Conventional treatment for these conditions is focused on symptoms, not causes, and can leave patients locked into a lifetime of pain and suffering. Dr. Kaplan's unified theory of chronic pain and depression helps us understand not only the cause of these conditions but also the issues we must address to create a pathway to healing. With this revolutionary new framework in place, we have been given the keys to recover.

After finding out that her coworker Akane used to be a manga creator, Makoto encourages her new friend to recapture that dream. As an amateur comic artist herself, Makoto looks up to Akane and tries to help her overcome the difficulties that made her give up that profession in the past. Although Akane is often her own worst critic, Makoto inspires her to try reshaping her attitude toward her art. But matters become more complicated when Makoto realizes that, somewhere along the way, what started out as a professional friendship over a common interest has developed into... a serious crush!

A Best Book of the Year: Real Simple, Entropy, Mental Floss, Bitch Media, The Paris Review, and LitHub. Time Magazine's Best Memoirs of 2018 • Boston Globe's 25 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2018 • Buzzfeed's 33 Most Exciting New Books • GQ Best Non Fiction Book of 2018 • Bustle’s 28 Most Anticipated Nonfiction Books of 2018 list • Nylon’s 50 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2018 • Electric Literature’s 46 Books to Read By Women of Color in 2018 “Porochista Khakpour’s powerful memoir, Sick, reads like a mystery and a reckoning with a love song at its core. Humane, searching, and unapologetic, Sick is about the thin lines and vast distances between illness and wellness, healing and suffering, the body and the self. Khakpour takes us all the way in on her struggle toward health with an intelligence and intimacy that moved, informed, and astonished me.” — Cheryl Strayed, New York Times bestselling author of Wild A powerful, beautifully rendered memoir of chronic illness, misdiagnosis, addiction, and the myth of full recovery. For as long as author Porochista Khakpour can remember, she has been sick. For most of that time, she didn't know why. Several drug addictions, some major hospitalizations, and over $100,000 later, she finally had a diagnosis: late-stage Lyme disease. Sick is Khakpour's grueling, emotional journey—as a woman, an Iranian-American, a writer, and a lifelong sufferer of undiagnosed health problems—in which she examines her subsequent struggles with mental illness and her addiction to doctor prescribed benzodiazepines, that both aided and eroded her ever-deteriorating physical health. Divided by settings, Khakpour guides the reader through her illness by way of the locations that changed her course—New York, LA, Santa Fe, and a college town in Germany—as she meditates on the physiological and psychological impacts of uncertainty, and the eventual challenge of accepting the diagnosis she had searched for over the course of her adult life. A story of survival, pain, and transformation, Sick candidly examines the colossal impact of illness on one woman's life by not just highlighting the failures of a broken medical system but by also boldly challenging our concept of illness narratives.

This life-affirming, instructive and thoroughly inspiring book is a must-read for anyone who is--or who might one day be--sick. And it can also be the perfect gift of guidance, encouragement, and uplifting inspiration to family, friends, and loved ones struggling with the many terrifying or disheartening life changes that come so close on the heels of a diagnosis of a chronic condition or even life-threatening illness. The author--who became ill while a university law professor in the prime of her career--tells the reader how she got sick and, to her and her partner's bewilderment, stayed that way. Toni had been a longtime meditator, going on long meditation retreats and spending many hours rigorously practicing, but soon discovered that she simply could no longer engage in those difficult and taxing forms. She had to learn ways to make "being sick" the heart of her spiritual practice--and through truly learning how to be sick, she learned how, even with many physical and energetic limitations, to live a life of equanimity, compassion, and joy. And whether we ourselves are sick now or not, we can learn these vital arts of living well from "How to Be Sick."