Side Effects May Include Everything: A Guide to Living and Thriving with Chronic Illness

When life hands you a diagnosis that upends everything, there’s no pamphlet that tells you how to keep living—and laughing—through the chaos.

In Side Effects May Include Everything, award-winning journalist, TEDx speaker, and lupus warrior Marisa Zeppieri offers the brutally honest, laugh-out-loud, and deeply compassionate guide she wishes she’d had twenty years ago. Drawing from two decades of hard-earned experience navigating autoimmune disease, she tackles every corner of life chronic illness touches—love, work, sex, friendship, self-worth, and the constant battle to be believed.

With empathy and wit, Zeppieri replaces medical jargon with real talk: how to deal with dismissive doctors, set boundaries that protect your energy, and find joy in a body that’s still learning to cooperate. Whether you’re newly diagnosed, still searching for answers, or supporting someone who’s sick, this book is a lifeline—a reminder that even when it feels like your body is betraying you, laughter, love, and purpose are still possible.

Raw, funny, and fiercely hopeful, Side Effects May Include Everything is part survival guide, part sisterhood, and 100% proof that you can rebuild a beautiful life—no matter what your diagnosis says.

Marisa Zeppieri is an award-winning journalist, author, and health advocate whose writing has appeared in U.S. News & World Report, Healthline, Al Jazeera, and BBC. A TEDx speaker and founder of the global nonprofit LupusChick, she leads a community of over 100,000 followers and reaches more than eight million people monthly across platforms. Her first book, Chronically Fabulous, established her as a leading voice for women living with chronic illness. She lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains with her family.