MSI Press Blog

    Recently released: audiobook book edition of  Living Well with Chronic Illness  by Joanna Charnas. Book description Living Well with Chronic Illness is a self-help guide for anyone who has a chronic illness or who knows and cares about someone else who does. The 20 chapters concisely address a comprehensive range of issues including daily routines, relationships, medical and legal services, a joyful life, and much more. In our hectic, information-laden world where the Internet places billions of contradictory facts at our fingertips, the straightforward content of this book is an alternative resource for people who want to feel better and don't want to spend hours searching for answers. The tools inside, presented with compassion, humor, and a wealth of knowledge, are for those who want to apply and enjoy new health-promoting ideas immediately. Living Well with Chronic Illness evolved from the author's personal experience with chronic illness and 26 years as a ...

Joanna Charnas’s  latest book,  100 Tips and Tools for Managing Chronic Illness,  recently came to my attention. This book is short and filled with tips and ideas.  Library Journal  calls it, “An excellent resource worthy of multiple reads. For those with a determined spirit during discouraging times.” Actually, after reading through the book, I think that most of us are “chronically human” and can benefit from most, if not all, of the suggestions. It would even by a nice Mother’s Day or birthday gift. Joanna has personal experience with chronic illness, have been ill for seventeen years before she learned it was a condition that had no cure. Following the publication of her first book, Joanna spent two years as a  Huffington Post blogger, and she currently writes articles for an international health website. Her first book,  Living Well With Chronic Illness,  was an American Book Fest Finalist in the “Health: Gener...

  Today's back story is about the book, Living Well with Chronic Illness by Joanna Charnas From the author: In the mid to late 1990s, I was particularly sick with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, an illness I’d lived with since I was nineteen. During these years, I had several run-ins with large bureaucracies, including the Massachusetts Department of Motor Vehicles and Harvard Community Health Plan, the largest HMO in the state. After I’d successfully obtained the services I needed, I’d tell my father about these confrontations, carefully leaving the distress they’d caused me out of the narrative. My father repeatedly responded, “You ought to write about that.” I was a Social Worker for a large AIDS service organization at the time, and my reply was always, “My experiences aren’t unique. My clients often encounter these same problems.” We had some version of this conversation for a couple of years. At the same time, I had an otherworldly feeling I should be writing something. I’d been p...

 In honor of Caturday, we are sharing a picture of Joanna Charnas's foster failure. It probably is difficult to give up a foster cat -- one gets attached. To get a better understanding about Joanna, read her book, A Movie Lover's Search for Romance .  A diverting and informative story of searching for love in mid-life by a divorced social worker, who intertwines entertaining stories of successful love interests with well-known movies containing similar plots and themes. Written as diary entries covering a 15-year period, the author shares openly, in detail, and with insights her experiences with dating, friendships, affairs, and relationships. Written candidly with a light hand and turns of phrase that reflect her personality and make the book hard to put down. Joanna has also written award-winning non-fiction about coping with chronic illness. Check out: Managing chronic illness demands constant mindfulness and management. It’s a process that constantly evolves over a lifetim...

  Excerpt from Living Well with Chronic Illness (Charnas) - Hard Decisions, Mistakes, and Choices What was I doing, sitting on the floor in a short, white skirt in the jury room of the Boston courthouse? I’d lost my mind. I’d been called for jury duty and badly wanted to serve. I thought if I dressed up a little, I might improve my chances. I hadn’t been feeling well, but I disregarded this in my desire to sit on a jury. I put on my knee-length skirt and sweater set and merrily set off.  The chairs in the jury-pool room were hard and uncomfortable. I sat there for a long time. After a couple hours, I began to feel lightheaded and weak. This should’ve been my clue to request dismissal from the jury pool. Instead, I thought I might feel better if I put my feet up, so I rested them on an empty chair. That didn’t help. I continued to feel worse and began having trouble sitting up. Other people were sitting on the floor, so in my short, winter-white outfit, I lowered myself and lea...

Being sick is the pits! The authors of these recommended books know. They are not only experts; they have also lived the experience. Read one, read them all! They are available at discount from MSI Press webstore (use code FF25 for a 25% discount). All are available on Kindle. How to Be a Good Mommy When You're Sick Soon after receiving her Bachelor's Degree, Dr. Emily Graves was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis and given a prognosis that she would be confined to a wheelchair within ten years. Shortly thereafter, pregnant with her first and only child, Emily's kidneys shut down. Thus, began a new chapter in Emily's life: balancing chronic illness, motherhood, and the professional ambitions that had caused her to excel as an academic and meet her husband. Today she is still fighting chronic illness, but she has found some answers as to how to manage that fight while being a good mother and spouse and continuing to pursue her professional ambitions. In this...