Understanding Severe ME: Essential Guide For Family & Friends - Softcover

Saunders, C.H.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1973344459 ISBN 13: 9781973344452

Publisher: Independently published, 2018

Synopsis

A must-read to understand Severe ME/CFS

ME/CFS (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) is a cruel and physically disabling illness that wrecks lives. For Family & Friends, it is a terrifying time, and with Long Covid bearing a worrying resemblance to ME/CFS, even more families need help.

In this book, Catherine draws on her own experience of being a severely affected ME patient to address the many questions, worries, and fears that Family & Friends have and suggest ways to help Patients and their Carers, practically and emotionally.

• If you know someone with Severe ME and don't know what to do or say, this book will guide you.
• If you're a Patient or Carer living with Severe ME, this book will explain things to your family and friends.

Reviews

• "If only we had had this kind of information when our daughter-in-law was so very ill...we would have understood what she was going through...we could have saved her from so much of the pain and suffering she endured through our ignorance...we would have known who to turn to".

Mother-in-law of Very Severe ME Patient

• "Thrilled to hear how well you are doing - you are a real inspiration. I would be very interested in your Book - there is simply not enough information around relating to Severe ME"

Former Specialist ME Outreach Nurse

• "I learned so much about Severe ME from you and gave my student OT one of your pieces to read - your knowledge and experience is already touching others. Keep going"

Occupational Therapist ME/CFS Unit

An Inspiring Story

Catherine knows first-hand the hidden and truly terrible world of a Severe ME Patient:

"Before I became very severely affected back in the 1990s, I used to think, like many others, that Severe ME/CFS was just about being tired. How blissfully ignorant I was. Severe ME may not be a terminal illness, but it takes people’s lives; I know, because it took mine for several years.

For the best part of 2 years I was little more than a breathing corpse. All I could do was lay in a blacked out room in constant pain, unable to talk, walk or tolerate a glimmer of light. I had to be spoon-fed, watered, washed, dressed and nursed by my husband and family, just like a baby.

And one of my promises to myself was to do all I could, once strong enough, to help family and friends understand what it is that their loved one is going through, what Patients and their Carers have to battle against every day, and how their understanding, support, and compassion can make such a dramatic difference to a patient's chances of improving. Severely affected ME Patients can improve but only if we are given the right advice and the right support, at the right time and I firmly believe that the understanding of friends and family can make a real difference. It's why I wrote this book."

Edition details

• Publisher: Independently published
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1973344459
• ISBN 13: 9781973344452
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 141