Rather than success, here we see the author defined by sickness as she grapples with mysterious symptoms that disrupt her life so fully that even moments that should be celebratory become riddled with anxiety and doctor visits. Although known in literary circles as a gifted and successful writer with a string of impressive accolades, Khakpour shows a very different side of her experiences. In her new memoir, author Porochista Khakpour delves into her own history of illness and addiction to craft a harrowing tale of sickness in all its forms and an unflinching look at health care in the United States. 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.Ī story about survival, pain, and transformation, Sick is a candid, illuminating narrative of hope and uncertainty, boldly examining the deep impact of illness on one woman's life.New York. 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.ĭivided 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. 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. For most of that time, she didn't know why. In the tradition of Brain on Fire and Darkness Visible, an honest, beautifully rendered memoir of chronic illness, misdiagnosis, addiction, and the myth of full recovery that details author Porochista Khakpour's struggles with late-stage Lyme disease.įor as long as writer Porochista Khakpour can remember, she has been sick. The Coil's Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2018 Vol.1 Brooklyn’s : A Literary Preview for the Year to ComeĪuto Straddle Most Anticipated 2018 Preview The Rumpus’s What to Read When 2018 Is Just Around the Corner Huffington Post’s 60 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2018īitch’s 30 Most Anticipated Nonfiction Books of 2018 Nylon’s 50 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2018Įlectric Literature’s 46 Books to Read By Women of Color in 2018 Boston Globe's 25 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2018īustle’s 28 Most Anticipated Nonfiction Books of 2018 list

Sick porochista