A difficult, but important and uplifting read.
I received an e-Galley ARC of When Force Meets Fate: A Mission to Solve an Invisible Illness, authored by Jamison Hill, edited by Avalon Radys and Sarah Nivala, for review consideration. What follows below is my honest review, freely given.
I rated this memoir 4 stars. A read like this is not easy, there is no miraculous cure at the end, everyone is healed and back to living their stuttered lives. It highlights how little the healthcare system, and the general public understand about ME\CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome), one of the invisible illnesses that affects an estimated 2 million Americans, though most have not been properly diagnosed.
Jamison leads us through his life during 2009-2017, in an inner monologue tone which made the reading very smooth, I finished it in just a few days. His story shows how quickly your life can be changed, how you can be thrown in free fall without warning, for years when it comes to your health, before and after a diagnosis. Without over dramatization, he gives a glimpse at how isolating and scary it feels being trapped in your own body, unable to communicate, complete simple movements, or even stand light and sound. He does not clean up the more messy parts of having this illness either, he lays bare the discomfort of relying on his parents to take care his personal grooming and bathroom tasks, all while remaining bedridden. He shares the times depression crept in, and how he dealt with feelings of suicide. He also gives us the times that he was able to laugh with family, connect with other members of the ME/CFS community, even meeting his girlfriend Shannon online. It is not an easy read, it was not meant to be, but it is an uplifting one. He has been dealt a difficult hand, but still finds joy and love in life, he has not given up. He wrote this memoir to help make his condition more widely known, to help others that suffer too, get the help, the empathy they need and deserve. That's pretty amazing.
