If you read nothing else in this story, at least take note of this: Dina suffered from ME/CFS (colloquially known as chronic fatigue syndrome, or CFS)—a debilitating chronic illness—for eight years before she received an official diagnosis. Eight years. Dina was eventually tipped off from an article in the news she read, which eventually led her to one of the handful of specialists in the U.S. on ME/CFS. That is why I am telling her story.

On June 1, 1999, Chad and Erin Romanoff packed up all of their belongings into a yellow truck and moved from New York City (population 7.4 million at the time) to Scottsdale, Arizona (population 200,000). They didn’t know a single person in Arizona, but knew they wanted to live somewhere that had warm weather and sunshine.