Kate Wolfe-Jenson

I bought this book several years ago, and it's been sitting in my Kindle cloud all that time. For some reason, I was going through that cloud looking for a book I hadn't read about chronic illness. Since I bought it, I've been diagnosed with kidney cancer, had surgery to remove part of that kidney, had a cervical laminectomy, a new hydrocephalus shunt implanted after forty-some years, and had another surgery to correct a lifelong foot deformity to make it "brace-able." I've lived with the effects of spina bifida since birth. I don't know anything other than disability, but I related to Kate's realities and efforts to make meaning from something that made no sense--her diagnosis at the age of twenty with multiple sclerosis and the progressive nature of its effects.

She used this book to tell her story and provided exercises to help others make their own meaning from whatever chronic illness they are living with. I didn't work through the exercises yet, because I wanted to soak up her story uninterrupted. I do plan to do those exercises, but to work through them much more slowly for learning and healing. I believe they will be helpful when I get to them, though.
… (mehr)

I bought this book several years ago, and it's been sitting in my Kindle cloud all that time. For some reason, I was going through that cloud looking for a book I hadn't read about chronic illness. Since I bought it, I've been diagnosed with kidney cancer, had surgery to remove part of that kidney, had a cervical laminectomy, a new hydrocephalus shunt implanted after forty-some years, and had another surgery to correct a lifelong foot deformity to make it "brace-able." I've lived with the effects of spina bifida since birth. I don't know anything other than disability, but I related to Kate's realities and efforts to make meaning from something that made no sense--her diagnosis at the age of twenty with multiple sclerosis and the progressive nature of its effects.

She used this book to tell her story and provided exercises to help others make their own meaning from whatever chronic illness they are living with. I didn't work through the exercises yet, because I wanted to soak up her story uninterrupted. I do plan to do those exercises, but to work through them much more slowly for learning and healing. I believe they will be helpful when I get to them, though.
… (mehr)