Allie the Allergic Elephant helps children learn about food allergies and how to be a good friend when you can't share snacks.

Written by a debut author who wore a brace of her own, Braced is the first contemporary novel about a disease that bends the lives of ten percent of all teenagers: scoliosis. Rachel Brooks is excited for the new school year: She's finally earned a place as a forward on her soccer team, her best friends make everything fun, and she really likes Tate - and she's pretty sure he likes her back. After one last appointment with her scoliosis doctor, this will be her best year yet. Then the doctor delivers some terrible news: The sideways curve in Rachel's spine has gotten worse, and she will need to wear a back brace that wraps her in hard plastic from shoulder blades to hips, twenty-three hours a day. The brace changes how her clothes fit, how she kicks a ball, and how everyone sees her--even her friends and Tate. As Rachel confronts all the challenges the brace presents, the biggest change of all may lie in how she sees herself.

Brianna gets the lead in the Thanksgiving school play - she'll be Hero the Hen! Brianna loves practicing her leaping and flapping so much that she almost forgets about the coughing and breathing trouble she's been having. But at the dress rehearsal, a bad coughing attack and a tightness in her chest send Brianna to the hospital, where she's diagnosed with asthma. Brianna begins to learn about her disease and how to manage it. Things are soon under control, and she's back on stage for her debut! A breathless experience that can be very frightening for children is populated with helpful caregivers and conveys the possibilities of comforting control.

The author, who herself lives with Tourette's syndrome, movingly draws from her own experience in her debut middle-grade novel. Budding astronomer Calliope June has Tourette syndrome, so she sometimes makes faces or noises that she doesn't mean to make. When she and her mother move yet again, it isn't long before the kids at her new school realize she's different. Only Calliope's neighbor, who is also the popular student body president, sees her as she truly is--an interesting person and a good friend. But is he brave enough to take their friendship public? Calliope must also face her mother's new relationship and the fact that they might be moving--again--just as she starts to make friends and finally accept her differences. Partially in verse and partially in prose with two intertwined voices, this realistic, character-driven message about friendship and acceptance speaks to a wide audience about being true to oneself.

A cancer survivor must readjust to "normal" middle school life in this hopeful novel from the author of Star-Crossed and Truth or Dare. After two years of treatment for leukemia, Norah Levy is ready to go back to the "real world" of middle school. She knows it'll be tricky--but like the Greek mythological characters she read about while she was sick, Norah's up for any challenge. But seventh grade turns out to be trickier than she thought. Norah's classmates don't know what to make of her. Her best friend, Harper, tries to be there for her, but she doesn't get it, really--and is hanging out with a new group of girls. Norah's other good friend, Silas, is avoiding her. What's that about, anyway? When a cute boy encourages her love of Greek mythology and art, Norah wishes she weren't "that girl" who had cancer. But when something happens to make secret-keeping impossible, can Nora take her cue from her favorite Greek myth? And then, once she finds the words, can she move forward with a whole new "normal"?

From debut children's author Vanessa Bayer and illustrator Rosie Butcher, How Do You Care for a Very Sick Bear? is a sweet picture book with advice for children--and adults--for dealing with a sick friend. When someone dear is dealing with illness, it's difficult to know what to do or say. The actor Vanessa Bayer experienced this firsthand when she was treated for childhood leukemia. In her first children's book, she offers gentle, reassuring advice that people of all ages will appreciate.

Help little ones learn to show love for the people around them, no matter how they look, sound, pray, love, or think, with a sweet, tender poem about loving and accepting others, no matter what they look like, where they come from, or what their age and abilities are.

2018 Pura Belpre Award! In this unforgettable multicultural coming-of-age narrative--based on the author's childhood in the 1960s--a young Cuban-Jewish immigrant girl is adjusting to her new life in New York City when her American dream is suddenly derailed. Ruthie Mizrahi and her family have recently emigrated from Castro's Cuba to New York City. Just when she's finally beginning to gain confidence in her mastery of English--and enjoying her reign as her neighborhood's hopscotch queen--a horrific car accident leaves her in a body cast and confined her to her bed for a long recovery. As Ruthie's inability to move shrinks her world, it also sharpens her powers of observation and grows her heart grow larger, as she comes to understand not only human fragility and vulnerability but also how friends, neighbors, and the power of the arts can sweeten even the worst of times.

Nothing can stop Wyatt and Rosie in this heartwarming tale about having a parent with a chronic illness. Wyatt thinks his mom is a superhero even when she isn't feeling her best, as together they build cozy and magical every day. And on one super-special day, the whole family heads to town for the big "funraiser"! Warm and uplifting, Some Days is the perfect story to share with your child about life with multiple sclerosis or any chronic illness. Some days are fast and some are slow, but Rosie and Wyatt fill each one with love, excitement, fun, and ice cream!

2018 Bank Street Books Best Children's Books of the Year! A mysterious magic and unforgettable friendship fill The Someday Suitcase, written by the critically acclaimed author of Rules for Stealing Stars. Clover and Danny are the kind of best friends who make each other even better. They're so important to each other that Clover believes they're symbiotic - her favorite science word, which describes two beings who can't function without the other. So when Danny comes down with a mysterious illness that won't go away, and doctors can't figure out what's wrong with him, Clover decides to take matters into her own hands by making lists--list of Danny's symptoms, his good days, his bad days. Just as it becomes clear that Danny is only better when Clover is around, suddenly it feels like time is running out for the pair to do everything they've planned together: to finally see snow, and to go on a trip with the suitcase they picked out together. Will science be able to save Danny, or is this the one time when magic can overcome the unthinkable?

Boldly claiming a space where people with disabilities tell the stories of their own lives--not other's stories about them--About Us captures the voices of a community that has for too long been stereotyped and misrepresented. Speaking not only to people with disabilities and their support networks, but to all of us, the authors in About Us offer intimate stories of how they navigate a world not built for them. Echoing the refrain of the disability rights movement, "nothing about us without us," this collection, with a foreword by Andrew Solomon, is a landmark publication of the disability movement for readers of all backgrounds, communities, and abilities.

For any woman who has experienced illness, chronic pain, or endometriosis comes an inspiring memoir advocating for recognition of women's health issues. In Ask Me About My Uterus, Norman describes what it was like to have her pain dismissed and diminished, only taken seriously when she was accompanied by a boyfriend who confirmed that her sexual performance was, indeed, compromised. In the fall of 2010, Abby Norman's strong dancer's body dropped forty pounds and gray hairs began to sprout from her temples. Doctors insisted that the excruciating pain that repeatedly hospitalized her was a urinary tract infection and sent her home with antibiotics. Unable to get out of bed, much less attend class, Norman dropped out of college and embarked on what would become a years-long journey to discover what was wrong with her. It wasn't until she took matters into her own hands - securing a job in a hospital to educate herself over medical library lunchtimes - that she found an accurate diagnosis of endometriosis. Putting her own trials into a broader historical, sociocultural, and political context, Norman shows that women's bodies have long been the battleground of a never-ending war for power, control, medical knowledge, and truth. It's time to refute the belief that being a woman is a preexisting condition.

Cripping / Crip Up: A term used by disabled disability rights advocates and academia to signal taking back power, to lessen stigma, and to disrupt ableism as to ensure disabled voices are included in all aspects of life.
The kitchen is arguably the most ableist room in the house, so when Jules Sherred discovered the Instant Pot(R) multicooker, he was thrilled - and incensed: How had no one told him what a gamechanger this could be, not only for any home cook, but in particular for those with disabilities and chronic illness? And so the experimenting--and the evangelizing--began. With 50 recipes that make use of three key tools--the electric pressure cooker, air fryer, and bread machine--Jules has set out to make the kitchen accessible and enjoyable, with pantry prep, meal planning, shopping guides, kitchen organization plans, and tips for cooking safely when disabled, all taking into account varying physical abilities and energy levels. With rich accompanying photography and food histories, complete nutritional information and methods developed specifically for the disabled and neurodivergent cook, Crip Up the Kitchen is at once inviting, comprehensive, and accessible. If you've craved the economy and satisfaction of cooking at home but been turned off by the ableist approach of most cookbooks--this one's for you!

One in five people in the United States lives with a disability. Some disabilities are visible, others less apparent - and all are underrepresented in media and popular culture. Disability rights activist Alice Wong presents an urgent, galvanizing collection of contemporary essays by disabled people, just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. From Harriet McBryde Johnson's account of her debate with Peter Singer over her own personhood to original pieces by authors like Keah Brown and Haben Girma; from blog posts, manifestos, and eulogies to Congressional testimonies, and beyond: this anthology gives a glimpse into the rich complexity of the disabled experience, highlighting the passions, talents, and everyday lives of this community. It invites readers to question their own understandings, celebrates and documents disability culture in the now, and looks to the future and the past with hope and love. Disability Visibility brings tough conversations to the forefront of society with an anthology that sheds first-person light on the experience of life as an individual with disabilities.

Ten million Americans experience the widespread muscle pain, profound fatigue, and fuzzy brain ("fibrofog") that have long frustrated both patients and doctors. If you suffer from fibromyalgia and are struggling to get help from your doctor, you're far from alone: Many health care providers have limited fibromyalgia expertise or may even be reluctant to acknowledge the condition's medical validity. The most up-to-date, comprehensive treatment guide to fibromyalgia, by a renowned physician who herself has the condition, The FibroManual includes a thoroughly sourced "health care provider guide" that enables readers to help their doctors help them. In this unique resource, Ginevra Liptan, M.D., also shares a cutting-edge new approach that goes far beyond mainstream medical knowledge to produce dramatic symptom improvement, incorporating clinically proven therapies from both alternative and conventional medicine, along with the latest research on experimental options like medical marijuana. This accessible and empowering resource provides essential information about understanding and treating fibromyalgia from a physician who, as both patient and provider, understands the illness from the inside.

When ten-year-old Alyssa is diagnosed with the rare genetic connective tissue disorder Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, she vows not to let it stop her. Unfortunately, her efforts to avoid being "too sensitive" lead her to neglect not only her health but other aspects of her life as well. Twenty years later, she's finally forced to confront the reality of her condition head on. When she finds herself tangled in an unwieldy combination of chronic pain, a library job for which she is particularly ill-suited, and her wife's mystifying health problems, her body starts to unravel in ways she can no longer ignore. If pushing through is not the answer, what does homecoming to her floppy body even look like?

In 2008, after a record-breaking career as a D1 college baseball player, Emil DeAndreis was twenty-three, in great shape, and had just been offered a contract to pitch professionally in Europe. Then, his body fell apart. It started with elbow stiffness and progressed to swelling in his wrist, and soon, his fingers were too bloated to grip a baseball. He was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, a disease that causes swelling and eventual deterioration of the joints, mostly targeting older people and women. Hard to Grip tells the story of a young man's body giving out when he needs it most, in a series of humorous anecdotes that chronicle an ascending sports career, the ups and downs of life in the NCAA, and the challenges of letting go of pro baseball due to a dehumanizing condition. From striking out future major leaguer All Stars, to sitting in support groups; from breaking university records, to barely making it up the stairs; from navigating language barriers with Chinese healers to figuring out how to be employed as a vegetable, this memoir is an honest, rueful and at times hilarious story about a young man grappling with an "old woman's disease," and an inspiring account of how Emil learned to run with the disease and not from it.

After years of dismissive doctors and misinformation, Bridget Hustwaite finally received a diagnosis for her intensely heavy periods, pulsing headaches, and the excruciating abdominal pain that makes her ovaries feel like they are on fire. A whole-of-body experience with the potential to infiltrate every aspect of a person’s life, endometriosis takes an average of six and one-half years to diagnose, meanwhile accruing additional debilitating effects, including gastrointestinal distress and the undermining of one’s sense of self and mental health. Hustwaite’s reportage - part illness memoir and part health care system wayfinder - validates and witnesses the significant pain and suffering that so often accompanies endometriosis, acknowledging the difficulties in seeking diagnosis and in facing down the gender and race biases entrenched in the medical field. The resulting resource includes recommendations on the questions to ask and the treatments to consider, preparing to navigating your health care system, advocating for your own experiences, and seeking a diagnosis, in order to understand how best to live with a chronic condition, including suggestions for more inclusive and respectful language when discussing this field of sometimes nightmarish, very personal pain. Conversational, light-hearted, and completely honest, How to Endo is the essential guide to navigating this sucker punch of a chronic illness, for everyone on the endo spectrum: the battle-hardened warriors, the newly diagnosed and those still searching for answers.

A revelation and an inspiration for millions of women whose legitimate health complaints are institutionally ignored, The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness is a memoir with a mission: to help all who suffer from unnamed or misunderstood conditions--autoimmune illnesses, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic Lyme disease, chronic pain, and many more. In her harrowing, defiant, and unforgettable memoir, Sarah Ramey recounts the decade-long saga of how a seemingly minor illness in her senior year of college turned into a prolonged and elusive condition that destroyed her health but that doctors couldn't diagnose or treat. Worse - and outrageously ubiquitous - as they failed to cure her, they hinted that her devastating symptoms were psychological in origin. Ramey's pursuit of a diagnosis and cure for her own mysterious illness becomes a page-turning medical mystery that reveals a new understanding of today's chronic illnesses as ecological in nature, driven by modern changes to the basic foundations of health, from the quality of our sleep, diet, and social connections to the state of our microbiomes.

"Reports suggest that over 100m people around the world are living with Long COVID (more than 1.5m in the UK), yet reliable, clear information and guidance remains scarce. This book is the definitive guide to understanding, managing and treating the condition. Written by the world's leading immunologist Professor Danny Altmann and expert patient Gez Medinger, The Long COVID Handbook translates cutting-edge science, patient-led research, and practical guidance with clarity. This book will equip you with expert information and advice on:
- Long Covid's 200 symptoms, which include fatigue, brain fog, breathlessness and more
- Tips for recovery
- Which treatments are most effective and why
- Who is most susceptible to the condition and why
- What we can learn about Long COVID from other chronic illnesses
- The impact on mental health
This is the essential guide for anyone living with the condition, as well as clinicians seeking to better understand this little-understood illness." - Publisher's synopsis.

"[A] powerful account of the sexism cooked into medical care ... will motivate readers to advocate for themselves." - Publishers Weekly STARRED Review
In Pain and Prejudice, acclaimed investigative reporter Gabrielle Jackson takes readers behind the scenes of doctor's offices, pharmaceutical companies, and research labs to show that - at nearly every level of healthcare - men's health claims are treated as default, whereas women's are often viewed as atypical, exaggerated, and even completely fabricated. Almost all medical research today is performed on men or male mice, making most treatments tailored to male bodies only, and even conditions that are overwhelmingly more common in women, such as chronic pain, are researched on mostly male bodies. Doctors and researchers who choose to specialize in women's healthcare are penalized financially, as procedures performed on men pay higher. The impacts of these biases? Women are losing time, money, and their lives trying to navigate a healthcare system designed for men, while reporting feeling ignored and dismissed at their doctor's offices on a regular basis. Jackson interweaves these and more stunning revelations into her own story of suffering from endometriosis, a condition that affects up to 20 percent of American women but is poorly understood and frequently misdiagnosed. An up-to-the-minute epilogue provides more detail on ways that COVID-19 can impact women differently and sometimes more enduringly than men. A rich combination of journalism and personal narrative, Pain and Prejudice reveals a dangerously flawed system and suggests solutions for a safer, more equitable future.

Diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at the age of three, Mallory Smith grew up to be a determined, talented young woman who inspired others even as she privately raged against her illness. Despite the daily challenges of endless medical treatments and a deep understanding that she'd never lead a normal life, Mallory was determined to "Live Happy," working hard to make the most out of the limited time she had, graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University, becoming a cystic fibrosis advocate well known in the CF community, and embarking on a career as a professional writer.
For more than ten years, Mallory recorded her thoughts and observations about struggles and feelings too personal to share during her life, leaving instructions for her mother to publish her work posthumously. She hoped that her writing would offer insight to those living with, or loving someone with, chronic illness. What emerges is a powerful and inspiring portrait of a brave young woman and blossoming writer who did not allow herself to be defined by disease. Her words offer comfort and hope to readers, even as she herself was facing death. Salt in My Soul is a beautifully crafted, intimate, and poignant tribute to a short life well lived--and a call for all of us to embrace our own lives as fully as possible.

A Multi-List Best of the Year! For as long as author Porochista Khakpour can remember, she has been sick. For most of that time, she didn't know why. Several drug addictions, some major hospitalizations, and over $100,000 later, she finally had a diagnosis: late-stage Lyme disease. Sick is Khakpour's grueling, emotional journey--as a woman, an Iranian-American, a writer, and a lifelong sufferer of undiagnosed health problems--through subsequent struggles with both mental illness and the addiction to doctor-prescribed benzodiazepines that both aided and eroded her ever-deteriorating physical health. Divided by settings, Khakpour guides the reader through her illness by way of the locations that changed her course--New York, LA, Santa Fe, and a college town in Germany--as she meditates on the physiological and psychological impacts of uncertainty, and the eventual challenge of accepting the diagnosis she had searched for over the course of her adult life. A powerful, beautifully rendered memoir of chronic illness, misdiagnosis, addiction, and the myth of full recovery, Sick candidly examines the colossal impact of illness on one woman's life by not just highlighting the failures of a broken medical system but by also boldly challenging our concept of illness narratives.

Do you live with a chronic, debilitating, yet invisible condition? Contemporary culture’s kale-mindfulness-and-multivitamins “self-help” response to “hidden” chronic and debilitating illness such as postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), fibromyalgia, multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), Lyme disease, lupus, dysautonomia, or even multiple sclerosis (MS) may leave you feeling alienated, isolated, out of step, judged, lonely, or misunderstood--and that's on top of dealing with the symptoms of your actual illness. Take heart: You are not alone, although sometimes it can feel that way. Popular blogger Ilana Jacqueline, who suffers from an invisible chronic illness, offers smart and savvy advice, humor, and practical tips for living an active, engaged life while suffering with an illness no one can see. Surviving and Thriving with an Invisible Chronic Illness offers peer-to-peer support for anyone living with a complicated, invisible condition--from how to balance sex, dating, and relationships to handling the unavoidable absences from work and school. You'll also learn to navigate judg-y or skeptical relatives and strangers and--most importantly--manage your medical care.

It begins with numbness on her left leg. Then it spreads. Even though an MRI finds a "mass" on her brainstem, it takes two more years for Meredith O'Brien to learn what is causing that numbness.
Months after her 65-year-old mother dies from a fast-moving cancer, weeks after her father is hospitalized and she experiences an unexpected job change, she learns she has multiple sclerosis. Suddenly, Meredith, a married mother of three teens, has to figure out how to adjust to the restrictions MS imposes on her, reimagine her life as a writer and an educator, as a mother and a spouse, and move forward into a life she no longer recognizes. Losing one's life as it was once imagined evolves to the ultimate, uneasy peace that's achieved with the permanent uncertainty that accompanies living with a chronic illness.

Thoroughly revised and updated! You Don’t Look Sick: Living Well With Invisible Chronic Illness chronicles the four stages of chronic illness - getting sick, being sick, grief and acceptance, and living well - through one person’s true-life story and her physician’s compassionate commentary. The authors address such practical aspects as hiring a doctor, managing chronic pain, coping with grief and loss of function, winning battles with health and disability insurers, countering the social bias against the chronically ill, and recognizing the limitations of chronic illness care and charting a path for change. Responding to feedback from readers of the first edition, the authors have added a new section on grief and acceptance, address the passage of the Affordable Health Care Act, and practical travel tips that bring organization and focus to each phase of the journey. Illuminating for those suffering and their caregivers and loved ones all alike, You Don’t Look Sick offers guidance and compassion to those at all stages of the chronic illness journey, to help transform what could be a life of frustration and fear to a focus on building a meaningful life.