COMING IN 2026
I Believe You
When Doctors Won't, a Mother Must
I Believe You validates the experience of families like Galen's throughout the world, dealing with ME/CFS/Long Covid and other hidden chronic illnesses in the face of skeptics, gaslighting, and a profound lack of support. It is a wake-up call to all those in denial of the distressing symptoms their friend or family member may be trying to explain to them.
It is a plea to radically rest if you have the telltale symptoms of ME that doctors were clueless about as Galen's son James declined for ten years to become bedridden one hundred percent.
Excerpt from the Foreword
by Dr. William Weir, FRCP, FRCP (EDIN), London
... Such evidence can be reduced to a simple statement: objective scientific truth invariably replaces the hypothetical nature of subjective dogma. The process involved can however be painful. At this point it is worth quoting Schopenhauer (1788-1860) who said the following:
“All truth passes through three stages: First it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident”.
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This is very much the case with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). What Schopenhauer perceived is very easily applied to the way the scientific understanding of ME/CFS is progressing—with difficulty—through the stages he described. In this excellent book, Galen provides a haunting account of how she and James, suffering severely from ME/CFS, have encountered the first and second stages of Schopenhauer’s statement. This is due to those medical professionals who adhere to the dogma that ME/CFS is a psychological disorder and still deny that it has an identifiable scientific basis. This, despite the WHO defining it in 1969 as a physical, neurological disorder with the scientific truth underpinning this definition beginning to emerge in the 1980s.
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The result has been enormous suffering affecting untold numbers of patients with a scientifically demonstrable physical illness, being treated for a non-existent psychological disorder. ...
About Dr. Weir
As an examiner for the Royal College of Physicians from 1987 to 2000, Dr. Weir saw a large number of patients with serious infectious disease. A small minority of them remained unwell even after appropriate treatment and resolution of the acute symptoms of their infection. This was his first encounter with ME/CFS. During that time he met Dr Melvin Ramsay, one of the most important figures in the history of this condition, enabling him to develop important insights into the nature of its underlying physical pathology. Subsequently, he established a clinic at the Royal Free dedicated to the care and management of patients with ME/CFS. Over the years his many academic studies have appeared in the medical literature.
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Since retirement from the NHS he has remained actively involved in ME/CFS and a very substantial proportion of his present practice comprises patients with this condition. His contributions to the medical literature have also continued, and he has been a vocal advocate for further research into the physical nature of this condition. He was a member of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) Guideline Development Group for ME/CFS whose guidelines were published in October 2021. More recently he has developed a keen interest in Long Covid, the pathological cause of which is very similar to that of ME/CFS.
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“With millions who have long COVID potentially worsening, her book is an urgent warning for our times.”
Ronald W. Davis, PhD
Professor of Biochemistry and of Genetics Stanford University
Founder and Director, Stanford ME/CFS Collaborative Research Center
Director, Open Medicine Foundation Scientific Advisory Board
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“I have come to know Galen as an amazing mother, caregiver and advocate. Patients, families, caregivers and medical professionals will benefit from her lived experience and effectiveness.
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"People need to know that their friends and acquaintances with ME are not mentally ill or malingering, and to support them in resting rather than trying to get them to "try harder" and go beyond their energy limits and crashing.
"Her book is a highly effective clarion call to anyone with ME or long COVID to just rest, and to their loved ones to support them.
I believe it’s what the world urgently needs right now.”
Janet L. Dafoe, PhD
Licensed Psychologist
