Invisible Illness
As many as 2.5 million Americans suffer from ME/CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and fibromyalgia), devastating chronic illnesses that to date has no test for diagnosis. A lesser-known condition, hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, considered to be a genetic connective tissue disease, affects every system of the body, particularly the nervous system. These debilitating diseases can be so difficult to properly diagnose that patients, often bedridden with pain, exhaustion, and many other symptoms, go through further hell when they are not believed that they’re sick.

Lauren Saikkonen, a former high school teacher, wife, and mother of two, struggled through most of her life with pain in one form or another as she tried to fit into a world in which she often felt like an outsider. The cruel irony is this. As quickly as she began to come into her own, she was violently stricken with these catastrophic, mysterious illnesses that at every turn have threatened to dismantle her life. Prepare to be moved, shocked, and educated as an average girl poignantly shares her incredible journey through light and darkness in a relentless push for a diagnosis, a cure, and the courage to endure with dignity what no human should have to go through -- the debilitating pain of “invisible illness” that just won’t go away.

Trigger Warning: This book contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners. Discretion is advised.