A Whole New Life: An Illness and a Healing

This book provides excellent insight into the challenges of life that paraplegics and other mobility-challenged persons must deal with. The narrative gives a chronology of the ordeal of the author, Reynolds Price, after near-fatal spinal cancer left him as a paraplegic who lived the last 25+ years of his life as a successful writer and esteemed professor of English at Duke University. I read the book in order to gain a better understanding for the reality of life for those who must use wheel chairs or are otherwise of limited mobility. This information is valuable for those of us who are approaching our 80th year of life and might reasonably expect to ultimately lack the mobility we currently have. Some of the problems that Price describes include physical modifications of his home and workplace for wheelchair access, elimination of bodily waste and other hygienic issues, as well as travel in planes and cars. Examples of other details that he points out are that the flagstone sidewalks of the Duke campus were especially unfriendly for wheelchairs and that table and desk heights also needed to be modified for him to use while seated in his wheelchair.Prof. Price fully documents his long battle with severe chronic pain and how he was able to manage the pain while being an even more productive author and academician than he was prior to his disability. The coping strategies that he used and the reality of his physical limitations are quite informative. As the potential for health issues of the magnitude to disable us are universal, this book provides valuable context for understanding and appreciation of a reality that many may face and others already experience.The tone of the book ranges from deadly serious and analytical to humorous and quite personal. I recommend the book for everyone who wants to learn what life is like as an upper-middle class paraplegic. Descriptions of care provided by the wide spectrum of members of health care profession are especially informative and useful.

One test of a good book is this: does it change the way you live your life or how you look at people. Reynolds Price, professor of English at Duke University, explores in this work a theme that hits everyone but that we don't often consider, or wish to consider, that is, the effect of major trauma on one's life and the life of one's friends, and perhaps everyone else around you.RP tells the story of his own experience with spinal cancer in a bold, unflinching, but intensely personal way. One of the themes of the work is how profoundly a patient is affected by the attitudes and communication habits of medical care professionals. While he has tremendous praise for those who showed loving concern for him in his difficult times, he also wonders why some were so callous. For instance, he was informed of his tumor by two doctors while lying on a gurney in a crowded hallway. "What would those tow splendidly trained men have lost if they'd waited to play their trump til I was back in the private room for which Blue Cross was paying our mutual employer, Duke [University], a sizable mint in my behalf?"Also wonderful in this book are his lessons/recommendation for those who have undergone similar tragedies such as this: "Generous people - true practical saints, some of them boring as root canals - are waiting to give you everything on Earth but your main want, which is simply THE PERSON YOU USED TO BE."For me at least, this book helped change how I look at people, and I hope, will give me strength to deal with the traumas that will undoubtedly come someday to me and those I love.

The reader is left to ponder this, as Mr. Price takes us on a long tour of his encounter with cancer. The centerpiece of this tour is an encounter with Jesus along the shores of Lake Galilee, where his sins are forgiven. “But what about my cancer? Is that cured”, he asks. “And that, too” responds Jesus. But the cure, like life, may not be what is expected.

Price's experience will resonate with others who are, to use his word, among the "damaged." He is blunt in describing the everyday difficulties in areas not usually discussed in "polite company" in a way that provides insights to those non-sufferers who may be only aware of the obvious hardships (i.e. inability to walk) but not of everyday challenges and frustrations in mundane areas such as attempting to maintain personal hygiene; and fellow sufferers will nod in recognition and perhaps feel relief at the mention of miseries they might generally keep to themselves.While Price's occasional expressions of religiosity may be off-putting to many, he does not push his faith as the solution. Instead he provides no easy answers, no facile self-help advice. Yet overall, despite never minimizing the misery of his situation, Price ultimately manages to offer a positive outlook. It is also noteworthy that the writing itself is extremely eloquent.

As I deal with a potentially disabling illness myself, my therapist recommended this book to me. It is Price's memoir about his own disabling condition. The details are not the same, but it is a powerful and beautifully-written (Price is a major novelist) telling of the process of grieving, but also the process of coping, and lessons he learned in the processes. The lessons are not, of course, universally applicable -- coping differs between people, as well as does circumstance -- but the supertitle, "A Whole New Life," conveys the key message.The life after a catastrophic event such as becoming disabled is not the same life one had before. But it is still a life. His key admonition is to grieve appropriately for the old life, but then to move on to build the new one.This was the right book at the right time for me, and created by a far more skilled writer than one would normally find on self-help shelves.

As a mother of a child with the same condition this was very interesting and enlightening