In the autumn of 2014, Marabai Rose is a healthy thirty-eight-year-old mother of two. Then an unknown illness ravages her body, sending her into respiratory failure and full paralysis. As Rose desperately searches for the cause of her disability, she is misdiagnosed and left to fight for answers in a healthcare system that repeatedly dismisses her as mentally ill. When she finally gets an accurate diagnosis of Lyme disease, the relief is short lived, as she quickly realizes that treatment is brutal and does not guarantee recovery.
Yet she and her family do heal, finding a new normal until another crisis takes hold: her husband Scott's mental health spirals out of control, putting Rose in a battle to find him care while living through the heartbreak and terror of his violent, psychotic episodes. When she finally accepts that Scott is lost to her, she begins the painstaking process of sorting through her past and building a new life for herself and her children.
Holding Hope is, at its heart, about resilience. Though this memoir spotlights the sexism and dysfunction of a system that allows so many to be persistently ill, it concludes with a path forward and hard-earned wisdom. Any reader facing similar struggles will find insight through Rose's journey.