Rain on a Distant Roof: A Personal Journey Through Lyme Disease in Canada

by Vanessa Farnsworth

By 2020, it’s estimated that more than 80 percent of the population of eastern Canada will be living in regions that are endemic for Lyme disease and the numbers of infections are expected to soar. Yet what remains unknown about this debilitating illness continues to trump what is known, placing the health of Canadians increasingly at risk.

Rain on a Distant Roof uses the latest in scientific and medical research to explore the considerable challenges that have placed Lyme disease at the center of the most fractious debate in modern medicine. Those challenges include the inability of doctors to properly diagnose the illness, the absence of reliable medical tests, the reliance on controversial treatment guidelines, and a public health response that is, at best, problematic.

Along the way, readers are introduced to the bizarrely intelligent bacterium at the root of the Lyme disease – a bacterium so strange that scientists describe it in terms normally reserved for the creatures found only in science fiction - by the author, whose own terrifying battle with the disease unfolds before the reader’s eyes.

This groundbreaking book, a compelling mixture of biography and scientific discovery, is a must-read for anyone who spends time in nature or even their own backyard.

Genres: Emotional

320 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2013

About the author

Vanessa is the author of Rain on a Distant Roof: A Personal Journey Through Lyme Disease in Canada, The Haweaters, and The Things She'll Be Leaving Behind.

Reviews

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good memoir of a journey through a horrible disease. Well written and researched. Information on the disease was easy to digest.
I found the personal hallucinations a bit boring but understand their importance to the telling of the journey.

[Yycdaisy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating read. The memoir parts can be a bit hard to take but the information on ticks, Lyme disease and co-infections is not to be missed.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently suggested this book to someone who had been documenting the misdiagnosis that altered the course of her life.
I explained that this book is the most profound take on medical negligence I've found so far. The authors experience with lyme disease and relapsing fever nearly killed her, and yet she insists that the humiliation she suffered at the hands of the medical professionals left her with much longer lasting symptoms of deep distrust and fear.
I think of her experience so often, the way she articulates the experience that so many of us had while navigating treatment for a tick-borne illness. I opened it back up again recently and was reminded that the debt I've spent the last few years paying off is a result of this, and I should be a lot more angry than I am. I think I'll read it again. I wish the "controversy" that is lyme disease was more widely understood, and I hope this will one day become a film.
Highly recommend.

[Sjm · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is so well done. It combines memoir with non-fiction in a way that is digestible, despite how heavy the issue is. Great read if you want to understand what it's like to have Lyme Disease in Canada.

Read my interview with the author here: http://cookiesbookclub.blogspot.ca/20...