In the Kingdom of the Sick

In the Kingdom of the Sick: A Social History of Chronic Illness in America Paperback – July 8, 2014

Author: Visit Amazon's Laurie Edwards Page | Language: English | ISBN: 1620406284 | Format: PDF, EPUB

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In the Kingdom of the Sick: A Social History of Chronic Illness in America – July 8, 2014
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*Starred Review* The scariest revelation for anyone with a chronic illness is the realization that it isn’t going to go away. Ever. Edwards, a health and science writer, recalls endless doctor and hospital visits when she was a child. As an adult with lung and autoimmune diseases, her visits continue. But she is not alone. According to Edwards, almost 130 million Americans suffer with some kind of chronic illness. Her book is a hybrid, a combination of research, literature, and personal stories from patients. Edwards addresses such important issues as the long-standing gender biases in the treatment and diagnosis of pain, how technology will change the doctor-patient relationship and empower patients, and the implications of what it means to be sick. She discusses what the ancients thought about the nature of disease, patient rights and medical ethics from the 1950s to the ’70s, disability rights and the chronically ill, the women’s health movement, the early HIV–AIDS movement, chronic fatigue syndrome, prevention and the stigma of chronic disease, and chronic disease and health-care reform. An indispensable book for anyone with or concerned about chronic disease, and everyone interested in the health professions. --June Sawyers
--This text refers to the

Hardcover
edition.

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“An informative primer on chronic illness.” —The Wall Street Journal

“An indispensable book for anyone with or concerned about chronic disease, and everyone interested in the health professions.” —Booklist (starred review)

“A timely call to attention to a global health problem.” —Kirkus Reviews

"Wise, generous and a terrific storyteller." —Publishers Weekly

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Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; Reprint edition (July 8, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1620406284
ISBN-13: 978-1620406281
Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #807,777 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

You have to take Kingdom of the Sick for what it is - a cry of frustration. If you're looking for answers, you won't find them. If you're looking for breakthroughs, you won't find them. If you're looking for reinforcement that you are not alone, there's tons of it.

Laurie Edwards is not a doctor or a scientist, so there should be no expectations along the lines of solutions. She does a fine job of chronicling the miasma of chronic disease through history. But she also misses the greater picture: 1) Chronic disease has been increasing exponentially since the 1950s in western society, and 2) Those with one chronic disease are extremely likely to develop others (co-morbidity). But the book is too heavily focused on the doctor/patient relationship to notice.

The frustration comes from doctors being unable and then unwilling to understand chronic disease, like Edwards'. She says they withhold information and minimize the symptoms. They get their patients to do the same, creating a downward spiral of miscommunication. Sooner or later they tell the patient it's all in her head - it's stress, anxiety, fear - instability in her brain, not her body. The result is the patient gets nowhere, but becomes self doubting - and stressed.

At the root of the problem is the medical framework itself. Doctors are rigorously trained to treat an organ. Everything they know is focused on tracking down the culprit organ and treating it. But what if there are multiple organs involved? What if a matrix of organs are the victims and not the problems? At that point, docs are at a loss. And that's precisely where chronic disease patients find themselves.

About 30 years ago, in her book "Illness as Metaphor," the noted writer Susan Sontag said: "Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick.... Sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place."

Author Laurie Edwards, who has been chronically ill most of her life, is intimately acquainted with being a citizen of "that other place." She uses Sontag's famous quote as a jumping off point for her new book, "In the Kingdom of the Sick: A social history of chronic illness in America."

Although the author's personal experiences (with celiac disease and a genetic lung disorder) are interwoven throughout, the book mostly takes a "big picture" look at how chronic illness is viewed in our society. More than 130 million Americans now live with such conditions as HIV, various cancers, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, chronic fatigue, asthma, and Lyme disease. Most of the healthcare dollars spent in the US go for the treatment of chronic illness. Yet many of the chronically ill are viewed with mistrust by doctors and the public at large. Either their largely invisible symptoms are disbelieved entirely (such as with CFS or Lyme) or they are blamed as being the cause of their own illness due to perceived lifestyle choices (HIV and type-2 diabetes).

"In the Kingdom of the Sick" examines the rise of the disability rights movement, AIDS activism, the women's health movement (with its emphasis on breast cancer awareness), gender bias in the treatment of pain, and patient activism in the digital age. The book reports on academic research as well as the stories of individual patients from across the spectrum of chronic illness.