What happens when your child becomes someone you don't recognize? When you watch them go from living a typical life of attending school, playing with friends and enjoying activities to becoming overwhelmed with debilitating psychiatric, cognitive and physical symptoms? What if they were suffering from an autoimmune disorder so woefully misunderstood that kids often go misdiagnosed and untreated for years? And, once finally diagnosed, how do you maintain faith that they'll eventually heal and thrive when you're not even sure how they'll get through the day?
Throughout this book, parents of kids with PANDAS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Strep) and PANS (Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome) share their answers to these questions and more. In stories of heartbreak and healing, they describe how the symptoms of these disorders really look behind closed doors and how relentlessly fighting for the right diagnosis and treatment led their kids to heal, slowly. They describe what it's like now to watch their children take part in and enjoy life's smallest and biggest joys, and the lessons they've learned along the way. Through words and art, kids themselves explain how it feels when you can't control your body or mind, and share their messages of encouragement to others. The stories in this book are dedicated to the countless kids still suffering, and to the parents who cling to the reminders that their child is still in there, somewhere.