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       #Post#: 992--------------------------------------------------
       SAVING EACH OTHER: A MYSTERY ILLNESS... [about neuromyelitis
       optica]
   DIR By: agate
       Date: November 3, 2015, 9:30 am
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       Victoria Jackson and Ali Guthy
       SAVING EACH OTHER:  A MYSTERY ILLNESS, A SEARCH FOR THE
       CURE, AND A MOTHER/DAUGHTER LOVE STORY (2012)
       Neuromyelitis optica, once known as Devic's disease and now
       called the neuromyelitis optica spectrum of disorders,  is a
       particularly grim neurological horror that unfortunately is
       often mistaken for multiple sclerosis.  In this book Victoria
       Jackson and her daughter Ali Guthy take turns telling about the
       years 2008-2011, when Ali was diagnosed with "NMO" and began
       coping with it.
       Victoria Jackson and her husband happen to be very prosperous. A
       line of cosmetics known as "no-makeup" makeup has been quite
       successful, and both Victoria and her husband have also been
       entrepreneurs in infomercials.
       When their daughter at 14 was diagnosed with "NMO" and given
       perhaps only a few years to live, her mother left no stone
       unturned in her attempt to find answers. At one point in the
       book she catalogs a staggering number of MRIs and doctor visits
       Ali had had in those years.
       Reading about the concierge doctor who was a close personal
       friend of the family and who seemed always to be available for
       them, and about the trips to Mayo Clinic and any other medical
       facility they decided to visit, I couldn't help thinking of the
       many neurologically impaired people whose reduced circumstances
       oblige them to make do without much (or any) medical care.
       However, research is often generously funded by people with deep
       pockets, and Victoria Jackson has been concerned enough about
       everyone who is afflicted with NMO to set up a foundation that
       appears so far to have been filling a genuine need. By its very
       existence it draws attention to this little-known disorder, and
       it has been responsible for funding research into NMO. (There
       are some 20,000 NMO patients worldwide but that figure is
       probably much too low since many have been misdiagnosed with MS
       or some other disorder, as Jackson points out.)
       If the author seems to be blowing her own horn just a little too
       often and patting herself on the back a bit too resoundingly,
       the reader will probably overlook it because of the important
       story she has told and the good results promised from the
       foundation she established.
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