“The documentary, which takes a serious, though often humorous, look at the illness, was shot over an 18-month period with director/co-producer Lisa Pontopiddan, and follows Abod as she visits her doctors, works with meditation (the illness’ symptoms worsen with stress, which is in keeping with some researcher’s beliefs that it may be caused by a retrovirus), and tours her environmentally “safe” house. In fact, part of Abod’s quest during the film is to locate a new apartment that literally won’t make her sick(er). As she takes viewers on a tour–showing us the refrigerator (which can’t stay in the kitchen because of the chemicals), the out-gassing room (for new clothes that need to lose the dye smell that brings on an allergic reaction in Abod), and her bed in the living room (which is situated far enough away from her neighbor’s driveway and attendant gas fumes), we begin to appreciate the peculiar problems that apartment-hunting would pose for someone who can’t be around carpet, pets, fresh paint, or new varnish. Although derisively dismissed some years back as the “yuppie flu” (and still the subject of a lot of skepticism from ignorant medical practitioners), CFIDS has recently been moved by the Center for Disease Control (remember those weird-suited folk in Outbreak?) to a priority one status on the list of new and emerging diseases. Researchers in the field are only now beginning to realize that the prevalence of the condition amongst the general population is much higher than was imagined and a whole body of literature is appearing in bookstores on the subject.

Susan Abod’s story puts a human face on this debilitating illness which robs people of their energy and plays havoc with their immune system responses. When Abod wistfully lists pleasures she misses–afghans, coffee, browsing through the mall–we begin to comprehend both the magnitude of the losses and how much we take for granted. But, as Laurie Garrett’s popular and frightening new book The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance suggests, we ignore these human health signals (like CFIDS and MCS) at our collective peril. An excellent and very affordably priced documentary. Highly recommended.”
~(R. Pitman) Video Librarian Volume 11 No. 1