"Along with their caregivers, people suffering with ME/CFS will find great comfort, compassion, and urgently important information on the illness…as well as great hope for the future. But even for readers with no personal investment, there’s enormous fascination and even horror in this indictment of a health care system that denies the reality of an illness suffered by millions, simply because what it is can’t be ascertained."
-Rhonda Hayter, editor
"What’s also enormously effective and makes what you have to say about the illness absolutely irrefutable, are the myriad perspectives you bring to it with the other contributors’ essays. Though each is unique, when they are all put together, they form a blood-curdlingly chilling picture of a terrible disease, for which there is not only very little help, but a horrifying resistance on the part of the Health Care establishment to want to deal with it at all. It’s nightmarish, and these personal accounts bring it home with shocking verisimilitude."
-Rhonda Hayter, editor
"As one testimonial after another details a full and active life derailed by devastating illness, all the societal prejudices a reader might have about the “yuppie disease” are blasted to smithereens. And from this reader’s perspective, there’s shock and remorse about having fallen prey to the dismissiveness…given these agonized and agonizing accounts of what ME/CFS really is. It’s a mystery and an utter disgrace that the disinformation that’s in the world about the illness has been so effective at undermining compassion for it and curtailing research on it."
-Rhonda Hayter, editor
"As we read about one thriving creative life after another, curtailed and shut down, one can only imagine what a comfort it will be to sufferers who have been discounted and ignored for years, to see their experience reflected over and over again in these pages. And it’s absolutely impossible not to feel horror and outrage at the inequities in funding for ME/CFS, with budgets that are miniscule compared to illnesses with far fewer sufferers."
-Rhonda Hayter, editor
These personal accounts give visceral impact to the cruelty of this illness, which won’t allow its sufferers to push their limits to try to live their lives, without punishing them with debilitating crashes. For those who believe, as did Matthew Fairman that “One only had to pull oneself together and rise above the obstacle,” the harsh reality is entirely counter-intuitive and must be devastating. It’s certainly devastating to read about it."
-Rhonda Hayter, editor
"Almost every testimonial provides some powerfully relevant perspective: How do you encourage someone to get up and fight a disease when there is no fight in them? (Doris Fleck) These essays create a complete picture of the illness, from what it’s like physically, mentally and emotionally from onset and beyond, how it is viewed in the world, what possibilities for treatments are, and how to live with it, cure or no. But there’s hope too in the exciting news from Dr. Peterson about what is actually happening in efforts to understand and treat the disease and the common sense breakdown of the financial costs to society of failing to find a cure or effective treatment. And through ... testimonials from Carruthers and Starke, you show that even without a cure or better treatments, there’s hope for learning to live with ME/CFS."
-Rhonda Hayter, editor
"Anyone who didn’t know what ME/CFS is before will be fully acquainted with it now and feel a sense of horror and outrage at the state of affairs that exists. At the same time, anyone suffering from the illness or caring for someone who is, will be supported, educated, comforted, and imbued with hope."
-Rhonda Hayter, editor
"This book is poised to become an absolutely invaluable resource for ME/CFS sufferers, their caregivers, and interested readers who wish to educate themselves about how a devastating, highly prevalent illness could be disrespected and disregarded by the medical establishment and society at large. It’s meticulously comprehensive in addressing all pertinent aspects of the subject, easy to read, intelligently structured, and imbued with righteous outrage, which the reader will undoubtedly soon share."
-Rhonda Hayter, editor
-Rhonda Hayter, editor
"What’s also enormously effective and makes what you have to say about the illness absolutely irrefutable, are the myriad perspectives you bring to it with the other contributors’ essays. Though each is unique, when they are all put together, they form a blood-curdlingly chilling picture of a terrible disease, for which there is not only very little help, but a horrifying resistance on the part of the Health Care establishment to want to deal with it at all. It’s nightmarish, and these personal accounts bring it home with shocking verisimilitude."
-Rhonda Hayter, editor
"As one testimonial after another details a full and active life derailed by devastating illness, all the societal prejudices a reader might have about the “yuppie disease” are blasted to smithereens. And from this reader’s perspective, there’s shock and remorse about having fallen prey to the dismissiveness…given these agonized and agonizing accounts of what ME/CFS really is. It’s a mystery and an utter disgrace that the disinformation that’s in the world about the illness has been so effective at undermining compassion for it and curtailing research on it."
-Rhonda Hayter, editor
"As we read about one thriving creative life after another, curtailed and shut down, one can only imagine what a comfort it will be to sufferers who have been discounted and ignored for years, to see their experience reflected over and over again in these pages. And it’s absolutely impossible not to feel horror and outrage at the inequities in funding for ME/CFS, with budgets that are miniscule compared to illnesses with far fewer sufferers."
-Rhonda Hayter, editor
These personal accounts give visceral impact to the cruelty of this illness, which won’t allow its sufferers to push their limits to try to live their lives, without punishing them with debilitating crashes. For those who believe, as did Matthew Fairman that “One only had to pull oneself together and rise above the obstacle,” the harsh reality is entirely counter-intuitive and must be devastating. It’s certainly devastating to read about it."
-Rhonda Hayter, editor
"Almost every testimonial provides some powerfully relevant perspective: How do you encourage someone to get up and fight a disease when there is no fight in them? (Doris Fleck) These essays create a complete picture of the illness, from what it’s like physically, mentally and emotionally from onset and beyond, how it is viewed in the world, what possibilities for treatments are, and how to live with it, cure or no. But there’s hope too in the exciting news from Dr. Peterson about what is actually happening in efforts to understand and treat the disease and the common sense breakdown of the financial costs to society of failing to find a cure or effective treatment. And through ... testimonials from Carruthers and Starke, you show that even without a cure or better treatments, there’s hope for learning to live with ME/CFS."
-Rhonda Hayter, editor
"Anyone who didn’t know what ME/CFS is before will be fully acquainted with it now and feel a sense of horror and outrage at the state of affairs that exists. At the same time, anyone suffering from the illness or caring for someone who is, will be supported, educated, comforted, and imbued with hope."
-Rhonda Hayter, editor
"This book is poised to become an absolutely invaluable resource for ME/CFS sufferers, their caregivers, and interested readers who wish to educate themselves about how a devastating, highly prevalent illness could be disrespected and disregarded by the medical establishment and society at large. It’s meticulously comprehensive in addressing all pertinent aspects of the subject, easy to read, intelligently structured, and imbued with righteous outrage, which the reader will undoubtedly soon share."
-Rhonda Hayter, editor
