Heal Me: In Search of a Cure

by Julia Buckley

Julia Buckley needs a miracle. Like a third of the UK population, she has a chronic pain condition. According to her doctors, it can't be cured. She doesn't believe them. She does believe in miracles, though. It's just a question of tracking one down.

Julia's search for a cure takes her on a global quest, exploring the boundaries between science, psychology and faith with practitioners on the fringes of conventional, traditional and alternative medicine. From neuroplastic brain rewiring in San Francisco to medical marijuana in Colorado, Haitian vodou rituals to Brazilian 'spiritual surgery', she's willing to try anything. Can miracles happen? And more importantly, what happens next if they do?

Raising vital questions about the modern medical system, this is also a story about identity in a system historically skewed against 'hysterical' female patients, and the struggle to retain a sense of self under the medical gaze. Heal Me explains why modern medicine's current approach to chronic pain is failing patients. It explores the importance of faith, hope and cynicism, and examines our relationships with our doctors, our beliefs and ourselves.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Health

353 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 25, 2018

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Julia Buckley can pinpoint the very moment when her battle with chronic pain began: it was a Tuesday morning in May 2012, and she was reaching across her desk for a cold cup of coffee. Although she had some underlying health issues, the “fire ants” down her arm and “carving knife” in her armpit? These were new. From there it just got worse: neck and back pain, swollen legs, and agonizing periods. Heal Me is a record of four years of chronic pain and the search for something, anything to take the pain away. “I couldn’t say no – that was a forbidden word on my journey. You never know who’s going to be your saviour.”

Having exhausted the conventional therapies available privately and via the NHS, most of which focus on cognitive behavioral therapy and coping strategies, Buckley quit work and registered as disabled. Ultimately she had to acknowledge that forces beyond the physiological might be at work. Despite her skepticism, she began to seek out alternative practitioners in her worldwide quest for a cure. Potential saviors included a guru in Vienna, traditional healers in Bali and South Africa, a witch doctor in Haiti, an herbalist in China, and a miracle worker in Brazil. She went everywhere from Colorado Springs (for medical marijuana) to Lourdes (to be baptized in the famous grotto). You know she was truly desperate when you read about her bathing in the blood and viscera of a sacrificial chicken.

Now the travel editor of the Independent and Evening Standard, Buckley captures all these destinations and encounters in vivid detail, taking readers along on her rollercoaster ride of new treatment ideas and periodically dashed hopes. She is especially incisive in her accounting of doctors’ interactions with her. All too often she felt like a statistic or a diagnosis instead of a person, and sensed that her (usually male) doctors dismissed her as a stereotypically hysterical woman. Fat shaming came into the equation, too. Brief bursts of compassion, wherever they came from, made all the difference.

I was morbidly fascinated with this story, which is so bizarre and eventful that it reads like a great novel. I’ll be cheering it on in next year’s Wellcome Book Prize race.


(Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck, along with an author Q&A. We talked about invisible disabilities, the gendered treatment of pain and whether she believes in miracles.)

[Alex Linschoten · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful book, clearly the product of a great deal of suffering. Anyone who has been in pain for more than a short acute period will recognise not only the descriptions of pain in different guises but also the internal dialogue that runs alongside.

Julia Buckley goes in search of a 'cure' for her pain. This quest takes her around the world and more than once I found myself wincing in anticipation as she set out on yet another run at her 'cure'.

I imagine this book will resonate best with fellow sufferers of chronic conditions and pain -- it did with me. I won't spoil the ending, but suffice it to say that this was the most satisfying part, delivering the emotional payoff you were hoping for.

[Helena · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Heal Me" raises a number of interesting questions about the state of modern medicine: for example, why is it not better at tackling the causes of chronic pain? The author Julia Buckley is a travel writer, whose long-term condition (Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a collagen disorder) led to acute pain which left her unable to work. She cites the horrifying statistic that once you’ve been out of work for two years, you’re unlikely ever to go back. However the author refused to accept this fate for herself, and went in search of a cure, from remote parts of China, via Bali and Haiti, to South Africa and South America.

She was in a privileged position due to her previous work and contacts, able to travel the globe in search of healers, and has therefore seen more, tried more, than most of us ever will. What is valuable about this book is the way she kept stumbling up against herself, and how the same issues repeated, the issues she struggled with repeatedly: How do you reach a level of acceptance about your current state? How do you have faith that things can change?

"Heal Me" is a warts and all portrait of a woman desperate to believe that something can cure her, but initially hesitant and holding back from the “alternative” healing world. She acknowledges early on that the only things that had really helped were massage and reiki, so understood that there was healing to be found outside the conventional medical establishment, but she certainly had to kiss a few frogs to find her prince. Her scepticism is constantly at war with her ability to be open, and only at the end is she finally able to suspend the doubt for long enough to see a change.

Ultimately this is a positive book. The author is not saying “Do what I do”, but rather “These are all the things I tried”, and a lot of her experiences weren’t a resounding success, so phew, that’s saved on a plane fare to Bali. I enjoyed the description of a healing hospital in southern Italy, and found it interesting that the book ends with the author's experiences in group settings, at Lourdes and in South America, which left me wondering if the power of the group can make up for an individual lack of faith. For anyone struggling with the answers to a medical condition, the sheer doggedness of the author in searching for a cure will provide a flash of recognition. Anyone interested in how people heal will find considerable food for thought in these pages.

Full disclosure: received an advance copy in a Goodreads giveaway.

[Tim Atkinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like Julia Buckley, I suffer chronic pain. Like her, it's not something I do passively; nor do I take for granted what the so-called experts tell me. It's my body, after all. My pain. Unlike her, though, I don't travel the world in search of a cure. I don't go to Lourdes on a pilgrimage, or China to seek out the "world-famous" Dr, or Brazil for a healing week with John of God. Can't afford to, for one thing. But I'm also fundamentally at odds with the approach that seeks a permanent solution "out there", that invests everything in what someone else might be able to do to, or for, you. That's emphatically not how this frustratingly mysterious thing called 'pain' works. And she knows it. Nevertheless, an advance needs spending and a book needs writing. And it's not exactly a bad book. It's just that I can't help thinking, on every other page, how much better it could be, both as a book about pain and as a book per se. I found myself constantly confused by the cast of characters for a start: where has Kevin come from? why are we suddenly taking to Mike? if Thabiso is the South African healer, who is Otiss? Who cares? It could, of course, be my lack of concentration. Or it could be a fault of a narrative who main protagonist (Buckley herself) is so big and so all-pervading that no-one else stands a chance at being fleshed out on the page, of becoming even a minor supporting character. This is a world of names (some of which have been changed) and what they either tell or do or don't do to Julia. Her pain is a bigger character than any of the human walk-ons. Her pain. Her. We're so much in the mind of someone so utterly unlike anyone else I've ever met with lived experience of chronic pain that the book might as well be some kind of fantasy fiction. Bring on the odd dragon and we've got it covered.
I suppose I can't really complain, though. After all, the title is "Heal Me". Not us; not "Heal Me and Here's What I Found Out Along the Way That Might Help Others". No. Me. Me me me. All the way home.

[Rachel DuBois · Rating 5 out of 5]

I sped through this book, enjoying delicious relief at someone who had experienced the same crushing self-doubt, anger at the medical industry, and manic jumps between extreme scepticism and soaring hope over yet another alternative medicine technique that maybe, please, please, maybe would heal me. I admit I secretly hoped it would give me the answer, the solution to cure myself when everything else had failed. And perhaps, in a way, it did. Hope, listening to your self, and never giving in to "Just accept that you're sick and always will be" are all part of the solution.

I would recommend this for anyone suffering from illness, particularly the kind where doctors can't figure out what's wrong with you or imply, if not outright say, that it's all in your head. Because reading her journey, you remember that it's NOT in your head, it's NOT your fault, and you are NOT alone. That's worth the price of admission alone.

[Michelle B · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an absolutely amazing book that gives hope to anyone suffering with chronic pain. To be clear, reading this book will not cure your chronic pain; but it will inspire you and may give you hope.
It documents Julia on her weird and wonderful journey around much of the world seeking a cure for her chronic pain after being told that there was nothing more that the NHS or conventional medicine could do for her. Imagine being told that and being strong enough to continue fighting for an answer. Julia is a strong and determined woman and was not prepared to accept this (especially as she did not even have a satisfactory diagnosis in place).
Julia does make it very, very clear that she is in no way recommending that people follow her journey nor seek out a cure from the same place she did.
A wonderful read so funny in places and yet such an important commentary on conventional medication, the way women and chronic pain sufferers are treated (‘just accept it’) and in places very moving.
Thank you so much to NetGalley for a Kindle Copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.

[Nicola · Rating 3 out of 5]

Julia Buckley has wrote a very good book and does an amazing job at describing her chronic pain, however I suffer with chronic pain also and I know I would not be able to travel the world looking for a cure. She is quite privileged in many ways and probably doesn’t realise. It was interesting to read her symptoms and a lot were relatable but like I say if you have chronic pain you just don’t have the energy to be travelling the world. I know everyone is different I was just hoping for something out of this book and unfortunately I didn’t get anything.
I found it very contradictory as in the beginning she was angry at the doctors for not helping find a way to help with her pain and yet the book ended with her having no pain and basically saying everyone must believe. I am not and never will be religious and I have no beliefs so it felt like a middle finger to all the chronic pain sufferers who don’t have any beliefs. I am happy Julia got rid of her pain but it won’t work like that for everyone. Everyone is unique and individual.

[Sally · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this book as a free giveaway and I found it a fascinating read. Julia Buckley writes well. She is intelligent, clear and searingly honest about her experiences. It took me a long time to read and I learnt a lot about life with chronic pain.
When I began my nurse training (35 years ago) we were told that stomach ulcers were caused by stress. Now it is accepted that they are caused by bacteria. When doctors (especially male doctors) have no straighforward scientific cause and treatment, they tend to blame stress and a certain weakness on the part of the patient for the illness. I hope that in the future there will be better advice for sufferers of chronic pain than 'learn to accept it'.
The book made it clear that a holistic view is essential.

[Penny Harper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read. I really felt for the author with her painful, long-term, seemingly incurable condition. Fascinating ending, particularly in light of the revelations about the successful healer after this book was published (deserved or not? perhaps a setup by interested parties trying to discredit him?)

[Becc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely crazy but also crazily good! Written with such ease and in a relatable voice, this spoke to me on many levels. So much of her journey is familiar; from the doctors who label her pain as 'inexplicable things that happen to women of a certain age',(I was 26 when this was first said to me) to the exhausting search for a cure.

[Deborah Du · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anybody who has ever been through any kind of pain, this is a riveting must read. i was blown away.

[Janet Homes · Rating 4 out of 5]

An inspiring journey of faith, hope and healing. A must Read!

[Fiona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Julia's quest for a treatment for her chronic pain.

Reading another person's inner dialogue that so nearly mirrored mine was strangely energising.

You won't find a cure in this book, but you will get understanding and hope.
CBD, raw cacao seeds, neuroplasticity, meditation, and imagery are all things that work/help.