Seized: Searching for Health in the United States

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Seized: Searching for Health in the United States

By: Holly Eckert

 

About the Book

Millions of Americans have epilepsy. At age 34, Holly Eckert joined them. From the day she discovered that, through many years, her life became a journey of personal growth and self discovery. Why was this happening? What should she do? Who was she now that she seized? These were only a few of the questions she asked herself in the face of her new reality.

Holly’s walk with chronic illness became one of awakening and healing. In it, she learned many lessons in life while confronting the flaws, failures, ignorance, and corruption permeating the American medical industry and sensing, first hand, the resiliency of the human mind and body. Daily tending to the chores of chronic illness, she scoffed at the paradox between the medical industry's responses and her own life's experiences. Over time, Holly realized that illness can play important, positive roles in a human life. Traveling her path where health and illness intertwine, it became clear to her that illness can give as much as it takes away. This convinced her that when allowed the time and space to be ill, a person can find true health again, a real life phenomenon rarely discussed by doctors and patients.

In Seized – Searching for Health In the United States, Holly tells the story of her journey with illness. That well-told, personal tale provides a lens through which a reader can explore the common experience of searching for health in the United States. Who would have imagined that it would be a dance artist who does so well exploring the many dimensions of illness and the failures of the United States’ healthcare system, but that’s precisely what happens here in Seized.

About the Author

Holly Eckert grew up in a small town in the mountains of Idaho where she learned to dance from a former ballerina with the New York Ballet who also lived there. After high school, she took her scholarships and went to The Evergreen State College. There she combined dance and social sciences to create her own integrated studies program. Her education prepared her to go to Seattle and pursue her artistic mission of exploring substantive topics inside the art of dance. Winning awards and praise for her artwork, Holly pursued her passion with passion and made choreography about things like the experience of fear and the injustices of the US prison system. She was healthy and strong into her mid-thirties, when one day, she suddenly began seizing uncontrollably. Epilepsy quickly overwhelmed her life. It sent Holly on a diverse, personal journey. On her travels, she discovered many new things about herself, and as she did, she learned more and more about the potentials for healing that exist inside the human body.  She also learned a great deal about the tragic failures of the United States' medical system that often inhibits these possibilities from being realized.  Knowing that she liked to write as well as dance, Holly decided to tell this story through words not movements.  Her readers continually give her praise for her efforts.

 

(2024, paperback, 350 pages)

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Reviews

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  • 5
    SEIZED - Searching for Health In the United States

    Posted by Kayaking Kim on Oct 29th 2024

    A skillfully woven and engaging account of waking up one day to discover your mind and body are no longer functioning normally and probably never will again. How does somebody deal on a day to day basis with the knowledge that they may cause themselves or someone else harm at any given moment without any warning? Where does someone like this go for help they can trust? I strongly relate to the author's constant battle inside her new life with illness as she tries to negotiate the everyday world we live in while embodying a life altering disease, one that affects her work, relationships, hobbies, and basic life skills. How does she navigate her life as she works to find resolutions to the conflicts that rage inside her body and mind as she tries to make peace with a strange, chronic illness? I too live with an illness that affects my day-to-day life, and I've also learned the benefits of healthy eating and exercise, and the many surprising causes contributing to my illness. And while I share the author's distrust of doctors, reading her experience was eye-opening to say the least. Discovering the extensive and outright shameful relationships many doctors have with pharmaceutical companies was alarming. While reading, I applauded the author's courage to confront the many doctors who thought they were in charge of her healthcare and not the other way around. I applauded her courage to stand up to the doctors who used fear and intimidation to subdue patients into submission and compliance. I applauded her willingness to challenge the existing healthcare system's corrupt and ludicrous overcharging for services not needed and often never rendered. I found courage in the book and from the author to continue doing my own research for my own illness. It encouraged me to stop trying to find a "magic pill" to take away all my pains, and instead, to look for the actual cause or causes of my illness and to treat those. The author gave me hope that a person can live a happy and "healthy" life even when their life is affected by illness. She showed me how important it is to trust in yourself.

  • 5
    SEIZED - Searching For Health In the United States

    Posted by Dr. Donna J. Andrews on Oct 7th 2024

    "SEIZED - Searching for Health In the United States" is the unique account of one person's odyssey through the many realms of self-discovery associated with the advent of a seizure disorder. I believe that it it may bring both comfort and enlightenment to others who are seeking to understand this ancient malady."

  • 5
    SEIZED - Searching for Health In the United States

    Posted by Physicians for National Health Program Western WA on Oct 7th 2024

    With a background as a dancer, in her book, "SEIZED - Searching for Health In the United States", Holly documents her experiences as she dealt with a 12- year history of a seizure disorder, onset at age 34. The book describes in real time, the harrowing and enlightening experiences of her personal journey of living with chronic illness in the United States. She shares with the reader its frustrations, confusions, joys, failures and successes and the evolution of her insights as they develop over time. "SEIZED" is not a story of hopelessness.; rather it tells the story of a spiritual journey through illness towards health. It's a story of wisdom and hope and the immense resiliency of the human mind and body that is, unfortunately, not fostered by the current United States' corporate healthcare system. In her book, Holly illuminates the unfolding health crisis in the United States - how the current system fails those in need as well as the providers trying to help. Its systemic dysfunctions become more tangible by becoming more personalized. She has come to believe that the healthcare industry preys on people with chronic illness, playing a role in sustaining the illnesses in people it claims it is trying to treat. In "SEIZED", it becomes clear that universal healthcare is fundamental to solving the deep dysfunctions in the system, and it advocates for universal healthcare in the United States.

  • 4
    SEIZED - Searching for Health In the United States

    Posted by Elizabeth Maupin on Oct 7th 2024

    Holly has a talent for writing and the courage to be vulnerable and self-revealing. She reflects on her own experiences with and shares her feelings about the current medical model in her book, "SEIZED - Searching for Health In the United States". It is quite eye-opening for someone who has never had those kinds of experiences. Her passion for life is unmistakable, whether one encounters her in the flesh or in print. She is a very gifted lady.

  • 4
    SEIZED - Searching for Health In the United States

    Posted by Elizabeth Maupin on Oct 7th 2024

    Holly has a talent for writing and the courage to be vulnerable and self-revealing. She reflects on her own experiences with and shares her feelings about the current medical model in her book, "SEIZED - Searching for Health In the United States". It is quite eye-opening for someone who has never had those kinds of experiences. Her passion for life is unmistakable, whether one encounters her in the flesh or in print. She is a very gifted lady.