Customer Reviews

If You Would Just Get Out of Bed

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As other reviewers have noted, this is an unshaped narrative, badly in need of an editor, not just to organize the material, but to bring it to a deeper level.

I've been dealing with CFS for fifteen years, and the biggest challenges are 1)financial 2)Getting across the life-altering nature of the condition to family and friends. This book is not going to help me in either area. The author, only 30 years old, comes off as somewhat of a spoiled daughter -- at one point, she said something like "my parents indulged my every whim". She had emotional problems long before symptoms of CFS set in -- wild mood swings that caused her to "find a new set of friends" every few months in high school. One could easily get the sense that the health problem did indeed mutate from an organic mental disorder.

She was/is lucky enough to have parents who helped her out every step of the way and believes she's met a "Knight in Shining Armor" in her new husband.

Most of us have families who at best ignore us or freeze us out. This book offers nothing, advice-wise or spiritually, to help us with that situation. Also --thinking that some man is going to save you? Please. I have the sense this girl is going to be in for a rude awakening in terms of the stresses this is going to put on her marriage. She says she's stopped working. How many of us, sick or well, have the option of being totally dependent on someone else financially? And how fair is this to the spouse? With multiple health problems, severe gyno conditions and heavy medications, she also thinks she's going to get pregnant. Well, I hoped to, as well. A book on dealing with this particular loss would be well in order.

As someone who's "been there, done that", I wish I could give this a better review. The author mentions nothing about medical research, or finding a good specialist. This is key to dealing with the illness.

I should applaud her attitude of "I wont' let this ruin my life" -- we all feel that, but she doesn't offer any practical tools for the reader, and one wonders how long this sentiment will last.

This book is explains CFS to those of us with friends struggling with this illness. Stephanie's descriptions are so real that I almost felt as if I knew her. I truly felt as if I understood this illness in a personal way and I never realized previously what a huge impact this can have on someone's life. I would recommend this book to anyone who has this illness, and especially to friends and family of people with CFS.

I was so thrilled to see that someone with such a debilitating disease could actually have the fortitude to write about her story. I could relate to much of Stephanie's life and felt the same feelings of guilt and shame that she went through. Thank you for finally having a book about what it is like to actually suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome!

If you are the parent, relative, or friend of a person diagnosed with chronic fatique, you need to read this book to understand what frustration and depression this person is going through. This illness is difficult to accept because the person doesn't appear sick -- just lazy. If only that were the case........

This book has helped me understand the frustration, pain and lonliness my daughter has suffered! What insight into a world those around these victims rarely see. Thank you, Stephanie, for sharing your life with this disease to help others and their families.

Its an honest insight of someone's experience not only with FMS/CFS but with other conditions. The author endures many ups & downs & its a ride you wont forget.

This book could be helpful to give to loved ones to try to let them see how CFIDS/FMS sufferers live their lives, but it is not very detailed on explaining the side effects Ms. Kelley suffered. The continuity of her story is very ragged, as chronologically it jumps all over the place. The many pages and lengthy details on her problems with endometriosis may lead some readers to believe it is tied to CFIDS, but (having both myself) it is not. So Ms. Kelley's book is more of a diary than an explanation of life with CFIDS and FMS. I have had both CFIDS and FMS for many years, and I found "Parting the Fog" by Sue Jones to be a much better book. It is more detailed on living with these illnesses and the numerous side effects, yet it is only 116 pages. It is written with humor and yet there is no doubt on how much she (and others like her) suffer and struggle daily. After having read both this week, I am giving "Parting the Fog" to my family, so they may finally see the whole picture of what my own life has become.