[humanser] Blind Women - A Review of 2 Books

Fri Oct 24 20:01:11 UTC 2014

JD,

I found Ms. Alexender's book on Amazon for a little over $10, I plan to get
it on my tablet

Sharri

On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 2:39 PM, Gerardo Corripio via humanser <
humanser at nfbnet.org> wrote:

>  Are they on either Bookshare or Bard? They sound very interesting!
>
> El 24/10/2014 01:14 p.m., JD Townsend via humanser escribió:
>
>> BOOKS.  Young, Stricken and Determined to Fight.  By KATHERINE
>> BOUTON.  Katherine Bouton is the author of 'Shouting Won't Help,'
>> a memoir of adult-onset hearing loss.
>>
>> When they were given
>> diagnoses of progressive degenerative diseases -- coincidentally,
>> each of them at age 19 -- the authors of these two books reacted
>> as almost any young person would, with denial.
>>
>> But denial can't be sustained in the face of deterioration, and
>> soon enough they both took practical steps to deal with their
>> ailments -- in Rebecca Alexander's case, Type 3 Usher syndrome,
>> which robs the patient of eyesight and hearing; in Nicole C.
>> Kear's, retinitis pigmentosa, which inexorably leads to
>> blindness.  Fortunately, those steps included writing a memoir..
>>
>> Ms.  Kear is a writer by profession, and 'Now I See You' is a
>> funny, sassy, yet poignant story.  Ms.  Alexander is a
>> psychotherapist; 'Not Fade Away' benefits from the insights
>> gained in her training and practice, though sometimes she seems
>> to willfully ignore certain things about herself.
>>
>> Her story can be biblical in its tribulations.  By the age of 12,
>> she is already going blind.  At 19, her deafness is confirmed.
>> Her parents get a divorce, which devastates her.  She develops a
>> severe eating disorder.  Her twin brother, Daniel, has bipolar
>> disorder and doesn't respond to treatment.  Her boyfriend gets
>> cancer.  She has tinnitus that takes the form of auditory
>> hallucinations: a woman screaming at night, a jackhammer.
>>
>> In spite of all this -- or maybe because of it -- she is driven
>> to succeed in everything.  She pushes herself to grueling
>> physical feats: As a teenager at summer camp, she sets off at 3
>> a.m.  for a five-mile swim across a lake.  In her early 20s, she
>> trains for a weeklong AIDS-benefit bike ride from San Francisco
>> to Los Angeles.
>>
>> She runs marathons and teaches spin classes.  She goes to Machu
>> Picchu with her mother and climbs the treacherous Inca Trail: 'My
>> lack of peripheral vision made it easy to block out the deadly
>> fall that you could take on either side.
>>
>> She pushes herself professionally as well.  She gets a double
>> M.A.  from Columbia in psychology and public health.  She trains
>> as a psychoanalyst and sets up a successful private practice.  As
>> her former boyfriend Alan Pinto (now recovered from cancer and
>> still her best friend), tells New York magazine, 'I think she
>> keeps going 100 miles an hour to not have to process it all.
>>
>> Or as Ms.  Alexander, 35, writes in her memoir: 'If there's one
>> thing you absolutely need with a disability like mine, it's
>> resilience.  I'm not talking about strong will and zest for life,
>> either -- but pure physical resilience.  When you are going blind
>> and deaf you are basically an accident waiting to happen.
>>
>> And happen they did.  Just before she left for college, she fell
>> out of her second-story bedroom window, mistaking it in the dark
>> -- and a drunken stupor -- for the door to the bathroom.  She
>> broke virtually every bone in her body in the 27-foot fall onto a
>> flagstone terrace, except for her neck and her head.  The
>> accident -- and her recovery, which left her with a limp --
>> taught her 'something integral to who I am today,' she writes,
>> 'the perseverance I would need every day of my life.
>>
>> Family and friends are essential.  Both her mother and her
>> stepmother, Polly, are unfailingly supportive, as is a younger
>> brother, Peter.  Polly gives her a wall calendar to help her keep
>> track of medical appointments.  'Even that small gesture from
>> her, having me be the keeper and organizer of my own schedule,
>> was important to me,' Ms.  Alexander writes.  'So little was in
>> my power.
>>
>> A cochlear implant ensures that she will never be deaf.  But even
>> after countless hours of listening therapy, the sound is 'a bit
>> distorted and will never sound like natural hearing to me.
>> Still, she continues, 'it is much more crisp and clear than the
>> hearing I get with the help of a hearing aid.  As someone who has
>> also struggled with a cochlear implant, I think Ms.  Alexander
>> may someday find that it sounds like natural hearing.  The brain
>> is endlessly adaptable.
>>
>> Toward the end of the book, she talks about her hesitation to
>> have children -- her worry that she couldn't take care of them or
>> that they might feel the need to take care of her.  She might
>> want to read Nicole Kear's book.  Ms.  Kear, 37, has raised three
>> children as she's gone progressively blind, making accommodations
>> -- cleaning out clutter, using a cane -- but never, as far as I
>> can tell, being a burden.
>>
>> These two authors are remarkable women, overcoming almost
>> inconceivable difficulty at a very young age.  Their stories are
>> inspiring.  But as Ms.  Alexander says, what choice is there?
>> 'People often tell me I'm an inspiration,' she writes.  'I'm
>> never sure what to say.
>>
>> The same thought recurs during one of the obtuse encounters that
>> are a wearying part of daily life.  When she explains to a
>> station agent that her dog is a service dog, he replies, 'You
>> don't look like a disabled person.
>>
>> 'At this point, I'm never sure what to say,' she writes.  'Um,
>> thanks?
>>
>> Not Fade Away:  A Memoir of Senses Lost and  Found.  By Rebecca
>> Alexander  with Sascha Alper.  Gotham  Books, 308 pages.  $27.;
>> Now I See You:  A Memoir..  By Nicole C.  Kear.  St.  Martin's
>> Press.  275 pages .  $25.99.
>>
>> JD Townsend, LCSW
>> Helping the light dependent to see.
>>
>>
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>
> --
> Enviado desde mi lap
> Gerardo J Corripio Flores Psicólogo, Terapéuta Reiki
> Saludos desde Tampico, Tamaulipas México
> RompiendoBarreras espacio de psicología/Superación Personal Sábados 10PM
> México http://radiogeneral.com ¡los esperamos!
>
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