Unknown: A memoir - Guillain-Barré Syndrome

by Meg Lumsden

At the age of twenty-six Meg believes she is happy. Blessed with good health, a devoted family and a career that she loves, she possesses everything a young woman could want. Her diary is awhirl with social engagements. A passionate traveller with a taste for adventure, she is forever jetting off to exotic locations and keeps an ever-expanding list of countries she wants to visit before she turns thirty. When a new relationship with a dream man beckons, the sky is the limit. But then suddenly, on holiday in Asia, the unthinkable happens when she succumbs to a mystery illness that reduces her to a state of utter helplessness and dependency on others. Miraculously revived after being left to die in a Vietnamese hospital, she is diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare but potentially life-threatening neurological disorder offering no clear outcome. As her world is turned upside-down, Meg must fight not only her rebellious body but also a frightening element of uncertainty about the future. Will she recover? Nobody - least of all the doctors who treat her - is able to say. Unknown is about being pushed to the brink and coming back again, about the power of the human spirit and about discovering through adversity a new and more rewarding way to live.

250 pages, Paperback

Published July 13, 2021