Maria is an ethnobotanist, working with National Geographic from Africa to the Amazon, doing research with people and their relationship to plants. She had felt she could sleep anywhere and survive anything. When her muscles started seizing, her skin began burning, and extreme fatigue engulfed her, she was overwhelmed, and had to face her limitations. Her identity, her sense of herself as "invincible" began to crumble. Diagnosed with a debilitating autoimmune disorder, she had to tear her home and life apart to survive and do the thing she had always avoided: Ask for help.