"Women, Work, & Autoimmune Disease" by Rosalind Joffe, M. Ed
This book is great!! I have Lupus, and have found myself struggling with my job, because I need a nap at the most inconvenient times, I get frequent fevers, and infections and just generally get lost in the mire of my self-pity.
This book was both an eye-opener and an inspiration. i wish it had been geared more towards lupus but neither of the authors have lupus so they can't talk about what they don't personally understand. They did use a lot of stories to illustrate their points which made taking the information a whole lot easier than if they had simply "lectured" the reader on what to do. The book is a quick but excellent read on evaluating your career goals and your real health needs, and how to balance the two.
Negatives of the book: most of the women they discussed had diseases that were foreign to me so even though I understand them on a professional level(meaning i know what they are but have never personally experienced them), so unfortunately on a personal level their scenarios really didn't help me. (You can only empathize so much in any given situation before it seems like your pitying the person or situation, since you have no really experience with it)
2) I wish she had given more resources, for life coaches & the career coaches she suggests.
3)She focused more on women in professional setting and rarely discussed anyone not in those fields.
This bothered me because many of the younger women I know who have Autoimmune Diseases aren't all college students or professors. I understand this book can't cover everyone's circumstances but a few women who worked retail would have helped my friend who has been recently diagnosed with the disease.
Despite those few (more like my personal opinion of ) drawbacks this book was well thought out and equally well written. The questions she included are also very good and really get you thinking.
I would recommend this book for women who are learning to juggle their disease and their lives as well.
happy reading my loves
That's so interesting - one of my good friends has an autoimmune disease (I can't remember if Lupus was one thing her doctors were considering or if it's what she actually has though). It's very unfortunate that the majority of jobs don't have flexible scheduling. Being a professor, or a student especially, does come with flexible scheduling more often than other jobs so it really makes sense that they should have talked about more jobs. Thanks for reviewing and thanks for the follow! I'm your follower too now :)
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