{"product_id":"the-million-dollar-misdiagnosis-9781764791427","title":"The Million-Dollar Misdiagnosis","description":"\u003cp\u003eFor nearly fifty years, Suzanne Visser lived with severe lower back pain without knowing its cause. Doctors, specialists, therapists and alternative practitioners offered explanations: posture, childbirth, muscle tension, anxiety, wear and tear, repressed emotion, even the joints in her face. None of them named the condition she had been born with: Bertolotti Syndrome.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBy the time the diagnosis finally arrived, the cost of not knowing had been immense - physically, emotionally and financially. Suzanne estimates that approximately $1.2 million had been spent, lost or diverted through decades of misdiagnosis, treatments, equipment, medication, special shoes, lost opportunities and the ordinary economic leakage of chronic pain.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYet this is not only a story about illness. It is the story of a life built under constraint: a writer who changed languages, a poet, painter, cook, publisher and legal scholar who learned to work in fragments, often lying down, often in pain, and often within windows of only fifteen minutes. Through motherhood, migration, Japan, Australia, law, publishing, art, cooking, friendship and late diagnosis, Suzanne's story asks what can still be made when the body will not co-operate.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Million-Dollar Misdiagnosis: Living, Writing and Creating with Bertolotti Syndrome\u003c\/em\u003e is a memoir about chronic pain, medical dismissal, time, creativity and survival. It offers recognition to those still searching for a name for their pain, and a clear-eyed account of how a restricted body can still contain an intellectually and creatively expansive life.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Clear Mind Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/15\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781764791427\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 170\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.62lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.27h x 5.83w x 0.46d","brand":"Suzanne H. Visser","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52934224904373,"sku":"9781764791427","price":30.59,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/the-million-dollar-misdiagnosis-9781764791427","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}