Review: Women, Work and Autoimmune Disease

I read Women, Work and Autoim­mune Dis­ease by Ros­alind Joffe and Joan Fried­lan­der a few months back, but for some rea­son, my review on Ama­zon took a while to show up, and I did­n’t think to keep a copy for myself. It seems to final­ly be there now, so I’ll put it here, too (slight­ly expanded).

This book is one of the best I’ve ever found for those of us who have chron­ic ill­ness­es but want to con­tin­ue work­ing. It goes beyond the stan­dard “cop­ing tips” to talk blunt­ly about pac­ing your­self, search­ing for a job, keep­ing a job, nego­ti­at­ing with your employ­er for accom­mo­da­tions, and being self-employed. Top­ics like “when do I dis­close a disability/illness?” are cov­ered by authors who have exten­sive per­son­al expe­ri­ence build­ing their careers despite chron­ic illnesses.

The title does refer specif­i­cal­ly to women, but I think the book can also be very use­ful for men. Like­wise, there’s no rea­son to lim­it read­er­ship to peo­ple with autoim­mune diseases.

I’ll be buy­ing copies to send to some of my friends. I don’t plan to let mine out of my sight! I hope to get a copy of the accom­pa­ny­ing work­book soon, as well.

Jof­fe’s blog, Work­ing With Chron­ic Ill­ness, is also good reading.