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SICK

Porochista Khakpour

A Memoir

A harrowing memoir of chronic illness, misdiagnosis, addiction, and the myth of full recovery that details author Porochista Khakpour's struggles with late-stage Lyme disease

For as long as writer Porochista Khakpour can remember, she has been sick. For most of that time, she didn't know why. All of her trips to the ER and her daily anguish, pain, and lethargy only ever resulted in one question: How could any one person be this sick? Several drug addictions, three major hospitalizations, and over $100,000 later, she finally had a diagnosis: late-stage Lyme disease.

Sick is Khakpour's arduous, emotional journey—as a woman, a writer, and a lifelong sufferer of undiagnosed health problems—through the chronic illness that perpetually left her a victim of anxiety, living a life stymied by an unknown condition.

Divided by settings, Khakpour guides the reader through her illness by way of the locations that changed her course—New York, LA, New Mexico, and Germany—as she meditates on both the physical and psychological impacts of uncertainty, and the eventual challenge of accepting the diagnosis she had searched for over the course of her adult life. With candor and grace, she examines her subsequent struggles with mental illness, her addiction to the benzodiazepines prescribed by her psychiatrists, and her ever-deteriorating physical health.

In the tradition of Brains on Fire and Darkness Visible, Sick is a candid, illuminating narrative of hope and uncertainty, boldly examining the deep impact of illness on one woman's life.
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Published 2018-06-01 by Harper Perennial

Comments

UK: Canongate;

Khakpour's decision to avoid explicit claims to scientific or literary authority is a bold move, one that draws attention to the ways in which women are expected to tell stories of sickness - and the ways in which their storytelling can affect their chances of accurate diagnosis and effective treatment -....Sick isn't written like a manifesto - no cool marshalling of the evidence and no polemical tone - but it is one. Read more...

In the end, [Khakpour] produces a book that might one day join the shelf of, for lack of a better term, sick lit classics, including The Bell Jar, Illness As Metaphor, and Brain On Fire. -- The AV Club Read more...

I loved this book before I started it. I loved that the whole thing is dedicated to the story of her body. The premise is so brave, and I felt in awe of her fearlessness at the story.... Sick is a really big deal Read more...

There are many lessons that Porochista Khakpour offers to her readers and one of them is this: Injustice needs to be resisted - not only to create a global impact but also to help heal the individual. Read more...

Khakpour's prose is beautiful, at once silky and scorching, like the curls of smoke rising from a fire that's just starting... Khakpour has written an unsettling book. But it's one of lasting merit. It's something to keep by our desks rather than our bedside tables: not a consolation but a provocation. Read more...