Ordinary Life: A Memoir of Illness
Dec 1996 · Macmillan + ORM
Ebook
280
Pages
family_home
Eligible
info
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
About this ebook
This book is a striking departure from the literature of illness as well as a remarkable literary work in its own right. The stories we typically hear about people coping with serious illness are set up as heroic tales that emphasize the victim's triumph over adversity or even portray the experience of illness as a transformative event that makes the survivor "a better person."
In this compelling account written from within an illness, Kathlyn Conway gives us a deeply honest description of her own struggle with breast cancer and its many reverberations through her everyday life, bringing us to the heart of the experience of illness without preachiness or sentimentality.
Conway did not experience breast cancer as a means for reevaluating her life, but rather as a terrible threat to her future and that of her family. Making difficult choices among treatment possibilities, dealing with nurses, doctors, and lab technichians, undergoing a mastectomy, and enduring chemotherapy, Conway discovered that although she wanted to play the part of the brave, long-suffering patient, she could not. Angry and upset much of the time, overwhelmed by her situation, she found it difficult to cope even with the support her family and friends provided.
In her willingness to share this story of herself as a frightened, sometimes selfish, often despairing human being, Kathlyn Conway gives us not only an unsettling portrait of our everyday mortality but a renewed appreciation of life itself.
In this compelling account written from within an illness, Kathlyn Conway gives us a deeply honest description of her own struggle with breast cancer and its many reverberations through her everyday life, bringing us to the heart of the experience of illness without preachiness or sentimentality.
Conway did not experience breast cancer as a means for reevaluating her life, but rather as a terrible threat to her future and that of her family. Making difficult choices among treatment possibilities, dealing with nurses, doctors, and lab technichians, undergoing a mastectomy, and enduring chemotherapy, Conway discovered that although she wanted to play the part of the brave, long-suffering patient, she could not. Angry and upset much of the time, overwhelmed by her situation, she found it difficult to cope even with the support her family and friends provided.
In her willingness to share this story of herself as a frightened, sometimes selfish, often despairing human being, Kathlyn Conway gives us not only an unsettling portrait of our everyday mortality but a renewed appreciation of life itself.
About the author
Kathlyn Conway is a practicing psychotherapist who lives in New York City with her husband and two children. Ordinary Life is her first book.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
