"At twenty-one, just starting to comprehend the usual puzzles of adulthood, Sarah Manguso was faced with yet another: a wildly unpredictable autoimmune disease that appeared suddenly and tore through her twenties, paralyzing her for weeks at a time, programming her first to expect nothing from life, and then, furiously, to expect everything ... Manguso recounts her struggle: blood cleansings, collapsed veins, multiple chest catheters, depression ... and worst of all for a writer, the trite metaphors that accompany prolonged illness."--Back cover.