Super Sick: Making Peace with Chronic Illness

Superheroes aren't sick.

This has been Allison Alexander's observation, anyway. They don't lie in bed all day because they're in too much pain to get up. They don't face the challenges of the chronically ill--difficulties that include socially inappropriate topics like mental illness, sex, and diarrhea. The latter, of course, would be exponentially worse in a spandex suit.

Alexander, who has struggled with a chronic illness since she was a child, wants to see herself in her heroes and uses examples from pop culture to demonstrate how sick characters should be portrayed in fiction. Weaving her own painful experiences with stories from other chronic sufferers, Alexander explores the various challenges of living with a never-ending illness. She engages with how society values healthiness, how doctors don't always have answers, and how faith, friendship, and romance add pressure to already complicated situations.