The Book

The Devil Is in the Details

A testimony, a reference, and a call to action about the disease the world keeps overlooking.

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Book cover: Myalgic Encephalomyelitis — The Devil Is in the Details
✦ New Release · Non-fiction

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis

The Devil Is in the Details

The Devil in the Details takes the symptoms of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and examines them individually, explaining them in language that patients can understand and, more importantly, use to help explain their illness to family, friends and healthcare professionals.

I’ve been advocating for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis since I was diagnosed in 2009. I understand what it means to have your life radically changed by ME. I understand the losses, the adaptations, the desperation, the uncertainty, and the enormous effort required simply to live within the limitations this neurological disease imposes.

It is a disease that too few people truly understand. That is why I wrote this book. Not simply to write another book about ME, but to give patients something they can use.

Something they can point to when their words are lost. Something their family can read when they don’t understand. Something they can take with them into the doctor’s office when explaining their illness becomes too difficult. This book is for the patient. But it is also for everyone who needs to understand the patient.

★★★★★ — A vital, unflinching read
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Inside the Book

What you'll find within

Open notebook and writing “The details are where the truth lives.”

“The details are where the truth lives.”

Woven from lived experience and careful research, the book moves between the personal and the practical.

  • ✶ The science, made human.
    What ME actually is — and why “chronic fatigue” was never the whole story.
  • ♡ Living the reality.
    Honest accounts of the symptoms, the crashes, and the quiet strength of daily life with ME.
  • ☼ Stigma & the system.
    How dismissal and misdiagnosis compound the harm — and what must change.
  • ➜ A tool for advocacy.
    Clear information and references readers can take to doctors, labs, and insurers to be believed.
Praise

What readers are saying

“

So, today I visited my new GP “armed” with an ICC definition, details of this group and Wendy’s book. I had a list of my current symptoms typed out as well for him to read. My wife explained that it had taken me many hours between rest periods and that I wasn’t able today to communicate very well.

He was absolutely brilliant! He was grateful for the information and was going to do some reading up. He was gentle and caring and at last I have a prescription to try. My sleep issues are horrendous at the moment.

This group and the work Wendy has put into it has transformed the way I manage and live with my ME. Everything is “easier” to deal with when I understand why. Thank you Wendy.

Anonymous
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Thank you so, so much for these important, and “importantly repeated”, reminders. I wish I had encountered you (or someone like you, if such a person exists) years ago.

I had very mild ME/PAIS years ago — 70–90 on the Bell scale: scarcely ill at all — and was able to manage running even. “And if I can ‘manage’ it, I must do it! Exercise is Good!! Push it!” I just didn’t realise the consequences involve more than paying — only a bit, for me, back then — for exercise with slightly swollen glands, fatigue, weird body temperature fluctuations, and so on, for maybe a day or two; there is the likelihood that one is doing long-term damage.

Thanks to you, I’m finally taking pacing seriously. (Better late than never.) Total sea change for me. You may have rescued a life here. Thank you!

Group leader in Ireland
“

We are delighted to share this wonderful news from one of our global community’s dedicated and highly respected ME advocates in Canada.

Wendy’s new book is the result of many months of hard work, careful research, and an unwavering commitment to improving understanding of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME). It is a remarkable achievement and a valuable contribution to the ME community.

For anyone living with ME, supporting someone, or wanting to gain a better understanding of this complex disease, this will be a book well worth reading.

Congratulations to Wendy Boutilier on the publication of ‘Myalgic Encephalomyelitis — The Devil is in the Details’ 👏 We hope it reaches everyone who can benefit from the knowledge, experience, and dedication that have gone into creating it.

MEAI