Surviving and Thriving with an Invisible Chronic Illness: How to Stay Sane and Live One Step Ahead of Your Symptoms (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781626255999)

Ilana Jacqueline is author of the award-winning blog Let's Feel Better. She started the blog at age twenty-two to share her humbling, hilarious, and heartfelt experiences coping with chronic illness. From full-contact fights with skull-cramping migraines to making peace with being a human pincushion, she writes boldly and unabashedly about breaking down, getting back up, and pulling off the bandage that is "coming out" about the shame and frustration of living with chronic illness.

Jacqueline is a health journalist and professional patient advocate whose work has included writing for publications like Cosmopolitan and The Huffington Post on the patient experience, as well as working for health care companies and patient advocacy groups as a consultant and advisor. She has a personal connection with the patient community, as she has been a patient with complex chronic illnesses throughout her life, including immune deficiency, dysautonomia, gastroparesis, and an adhesion disorder.

As a health advocate and regularly interviewed expert on chronic illness, Jacqueline looks to help patients advocate for themselves at their most vulnerable moments. She is currently working on multiple projects to help connect chronically ill patients with remote employment opportunities, financial and emotional support, as well as creating new programs for patient empowerment and awareness efforts. Jacqueline lives with her biochemist husband and literally the cutest apricot poodle you've ever seen in Boca Raton, FL.