Life Support: Surviving Guillain-Barre Syndrome

Holly Frances was three weeks postpartum when Guillain-Barré syndrome left her paralyzed and on life support within 72 hours. Her memoir is one of the most honest accounts of this condition that you will find anywhere — not because it offers easy answers, but because it tells the truth about what it's like to be conscious inside a body that has stopped responding, and what it takes to come back.

If you've been diagnosed with GBS or AMAN, or you're caring for someone who has, this book will give you something that clinical texts can't: the emotional reality of the experience, from the terrifying onset through the long plateau before recovery begins. Frances also weaves in practical information throughout, including questions to ask your medical team and things she wishes she had known earlier. She writes for patients who deserve to understand what they're facing.

Reading this book won't make the illness easier, but it may make you feel less alone in it. Frances's survival is not presented as triumph so much as honest, hard-won adaptation — and that kind of honesty is exactly what many patients need most.