I Had an Autoimmune Disease. And Learned to Live with It.

Autoimmune diseases are not as well-known as other illnesses. They don't start suddenly, like a heart attack. Most people - like the author of this essay - get ill "gradually and then suddenly"- like Hemingway said one goes broke. The author was feeling ill for years before any doctor realized she was ill. Determining the diagnosis and the cure took even more time. 

In her story, Meghan O'Rourke talks of how the illness came to be the determining force in her life; of her search through all the advice and the fad diets found in online communities, and of how she finally came to accept that her health will, from now on, always be "80%". 

This story shows such shortcomings of the modern medicine as narrow specializations that stop doctors from seeing the bigger picture. It also addresses such issues as the fine line the patients have to walk between beeing aware of their symptoms and exaggerating them, and of the strange world of online communities that are so easy to get lost in.