Product Description

You Don't LOOK Sick! chronicles a patient's true-life accounts and her physician's compassionate commentary as they take a journey through the three stages of chronic illness—Getting Sick, Being Sick, and Living Well. The authors address such practical aspects as hiring a doctor, managing chronic pain, coping with grief, and much more. Using stories, dialogue, humor, examples, and analogy, this heartfelt guide helps you focus on building a meaningful life that contains illness as opposed to a life of frustration and fear. Designed for patients at all stages of the chronic illness journey, this book will also be illuminating for caregivers and loved ones.

A USABookNews Award Finalist (Health Category)!

The authors are experienced public speakers. If you wish to inquire about their availability to speak to patients or health care professionals, please contact Joy Selak by email at JoyWrites@austin.rr.com.

To view an excerpt online, find the book in our QuickSearch catalog at www.HaworthPress.com.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #496066 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 145 pages

Review
"This is a POIGNANT, EASY-TO-READ chronicle of the journey of a person afflicted with a chronic illness." -- Bob Crittenden, MD, MPH, Chief of Family Medicine, Harborview Medical Center, Seattle

"Will benefit not only patients with chronic illnesses, but also their health care providers and family members." -- Roberto Patarca-Montero, MD, PhD, HCLD, Author of the Handbook of Cancer-Related Fatigue and the Concise Encyclopedia of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Customer Reviews

"You Don't Look Sick. Living Well with Invisible Chronic Illness"
Having lived with a wicked case of Fibromyalgia for years, I wish this book had been around in the beginning. Until I was officially diagnosed, family and friends thought I was some kind of pathetic sympathy-seeking hypochondriac. Now they understand; but at the time, it was most definitely a case of "You don't look sick. What's up with THAT?!" I recommend this book for anybody diagnosed with a non-visible chronic illness who needs to take care of themselves, treat themselves well, and deal with all those nay-sayers who take a seeming eternity to get on-board with the diagnosis. This book is a winner!

A friend inside the pages.
This book had me nodding in agreement, laughing out loud, and finally crying that someone else actually understood what I have been living with. It is a mixture of personal essay from a patient's view and advice on chronic illness from a doctor's view. I will be handing out copies of this to my mother and my friends just so they understand better what life is like for me. The tone of the personal essays is both upbeat and friendly. Even in the section where she is clearly ticked-off, the anger is told from the perspective of a woman who has lived and learned. She passes on her wisdom in a "Girlfriend's Guide" style that is easy to read again and again and again... It made me feel better than any of my recent doctor's visits! Thank you Joy!

Required Reading ...
I just finished "You Don't Look Sick" and it is fantastic!! I am going to make it required reading for my Medical Family Therapy graduate students. It is the only book I know that has a clear and compelling view of the patient's process from symptoms to thriving, woven together with the physician's wisdom and voice. The process of reading the book creates for the reader an experience of collaboration and punctuates in it's evocative nature, the imperative of integrated and recursive care.