Tracie White & Ronald W. Davis, PhD- Conversation with the Authors- VIRTUAL EVENT

featuring

Tracie White, Ronald W. Davis, PhD, and Janet Dafoe, PhD

discussing

The Puzzle Solver:  A Scientist’s Desperate Quest to Cure the Illness that Stole His Son

facilitated by Rivka Solomon & hosted by Kathy Detwiler

Friday, February 12, 2021, 4pm Eastern

Live via ZOOM

Presented in partnership with the Massachusetts ME/CFS and FM Association

This free event will take place virtually via Zoom, and registration is required. Click the link that follows to gain access and to complete the registration process:

Join us for a tender and timely discussion of The Puzzle Solver, a "moving story about how the power of love -- and science -- can shine light in even the darkest, most hidden, corners of the world."

Panelists:

• Tracie White is an award-winning journalist and a science writer for Stanford University. Her work, which has garnered 23 writing awards, has also appeared in Salon, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and more. She graduated from UC Berkley and has a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University. 
• Ronald W. Davis, PhD, has been called one of the world's greatest living inventors by the Atlantic. He is a professor of Biochemistry and Genetics at Stanford University and director of the Stanford Genome Technology Center. He has won numerous awards for his research, including the Gruber Prize in genetics for his groundbreaking contributions to the field of genomics. He now is devoted to finding a cure for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). 
• Janet Dafoe, PhD, received her degree from Stanford University and then became a licensed clinical psychologist, specializing in ADHD, Asperger's, anxiety, and depression, while raising two children with her husband Ronald Davis. When her son Whitney Dafoe became ill with ME/CFS, she began to care for him at home and today is an advocate and fundraiser for the ME/CFS community. 

Facilitator:

• Rivka Solomon is the event coordinator for the Massachusetts ME/CFS & FM Association, and a nationally active patient advocate. 

Host:

• Kathy Detwiler is the owner of Buttonwood Books and Toys and is the mother and caretaker of a son who has lived with ME/CFS for 19 years.

"The Puzzle Solver is a love-letter not only to the Dafoe and Davis family but to everyone with crushing chronic illness who nevertheless continue to find meaning and joy in life - and to those who stand behind them. It's both a gripping read and a heart-wrenching story, but far more, it's inspiring, showing how we, and those we love, can band together to withstand challenges, even those beyond your worst nightmares."—Julie Rehmeyer, author of Through the Shadowlands

“A renowned geneticist races against time to diagnose a malady that landed at his door… A complex, well-related story of medical detective work.”—Kirkus

The Coronavirus, Long Covid, and ME/CFS

Given the current pandemic, the topic of this book could not be more timely. Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome, or Long COVID, is the lingering post-viral illness many are left with after getting the coronavirus. The National Institute of Health’s Dr. Anthony Fauci says that the symptoms COVID “Long Haulers” experience are similar to those of ME/CFS, the debilitating chronic disease which is also often the result of a post-viral illness; many stay sick after getting mononucleosis (from the Epstein Barr Virus) or another infection. They get sick, never fully recover, and are diagnosed with ME/CFS. Now, leading ME/CFS doctors and researchers, such as one of the co-authors of The Puzzle Solver, are concerned this could lead to tragedy: Millions of Long COVID patients who will not get better and who may soon face a ME/CFS diagnosis, just like Whitney.

Support your local independent bookstore and buy The Puzzle Solver from Buttonwood Books and Toys! You can pick it up in the store, via curbside pickup, or we'll ship it straight to your home.

Buttonwood Books and Toys is pleased to donate 20% of sales from each book sale to the Open Medicine Foundation, the largest, concerted worldwide nonprofit effort to diagnose, treat, and prevent ME/CFS and related chronic, complex diseases.

Click here to purchase the digital audiobook version of The Puzzle Solver from our audiobook partner, Libro.fm.