Review by Booklist Review
My daughter took her first steps on the day I was diagnosed. Thirtysomething Donlan recounts his concurrent journeys through two realms parenthood and patienthood and unexpected synchronicities. He finds both roles unpredictable, identity altering, and transformative. Constant worry is barely counterbalanced by heightened hope for a safe, healthy future. His diagnosis is relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (the most common type of MS). The initial symptoms include difficulty using door handles, a pins-and-needles feeling in his fingers, and dropping things. Over time, speech becomes clumsy, fatigue grows, and double vision occurs. He is informed that 10 different treatment options exist for his MS but none are curative. Donlan chooses the safest medication but eventually receives the riskiest drug, which must be administered intravenously in the hospital. Mentions and accounts of Phillip K. Dick, Iceland's patron saint, Thorlak Thorhallsson, Oliver Sacks, Phineas Gage (who survived impalement by by an iron rod through his brain), Imhotep, and physician Jean-Martin Charcot pop up in Donlan's illness memoir. An emotional and unlikely fusion of new fatherhood and life as a neurological patient.--Miksanek, Tony Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this earnest memoir, journalist and first-time author Donlan chronicles his efforts to ¿navigate the world¿ as his life changes in his 30s after two almost simultaneous events: the birth of his daughter and his diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. He combines careful and unsparing accounts of the ¿Inward Empire¿ of experiencing MS¿¿a place that I am transported to when the truly weird stuff starts to happen¿¿with short descriptions of MS, how it was first discovered in the 1860s as a ¿disease of cities and factories,¿ and how it is currently treated. As he recounts trying to reconcile the ¿opposing sensations¿ that his MS onset has on his mental and emotional condition¿¿the fog of complete bewilderment, the toxic Zen of total comprehension¿¿he also carefully notes his daughter¿s development over the first few years of her life, as a ¿different person was emerging, outlined by her new abilities.¿ But Donlan never forces the parallels between his life and his daughter¿s; the way his family, friends, and doctors deal with his neurological decline leads him to a greater understanding of his role as a person and a father: ¿to face death and acknowledge its power, and to acknowledge the equal power of life.¿ This is a moving, gracefully written story. (June)
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Review by Library Journal Review
A candid search for identity leads journalist Donlan to ask: Where do I stop, and where does the illness begin? Shortly after the birth of his daughter, Donlan felt like a tourist in his own skin as he experienced fatigue, brain fog, and tingling sensations, among other symptoms. He describes multiple sclerosis as two diagnoses at once: a condition, and an incurable one. To better understand a condition that can be difficult to describe, he interviews neuroscientists and researches the work of pioneering French neurologist Jean--Martin Charcot. With his concept of self in flux, Donlan struggles with self--discovery, becoming his own inner explorer while trying not to become an amateur neurologist. The author shines when portraying his family, siblings, and parents, and his efforts to keep them away out of self-preservation. His hospital diaries display the conflicting emotional and physical responses to pain: Am I overreacting or underreacting? For Donlan, both parenthood and multiple sclerosis are an adventure, and he often wonders about limitations and failure. VERDICT As one of the few books that touches upon the intersections of parenthood and chronic illness, it would be easy to recommend this affecting memoir to both communities; it should also find a home among readers of medical memoirs.-Stephanie Sendaula, Library Journal © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A journalist debuts with an intimate account of his multiple sclerosis diagnosis and his growing awareness of his roles as a young husband and a new father.During the period covered here, Donlan, an American who lives in England, was writing about video games, and he escorts us around that world before his first symptoms appear. Then we travel with him on other journeys, medical and psychological. His chapters are mostly chronological, and following each is a more general section dealing with the history of the disease, descriptions of key patients, and evolving treatments. Donlan alternates between the changes in his own body and mind and those occurring in his young daughter, Leon. As his symptoms intensifyand as he moves from treatment to treatment (there are not a lot of options for him, we learn)he also shows us the growth of Leon: standing, speaking, imagining, playing, and discovering the wonders of eyeglasses. In these clear, honest pages, the author displays an active curiosity about his illness and flexes some literary muscle, too. He memorized Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" (the actual one is nearby) to entertain his mother, and he quotes from T.S. Eliot and Robert Louis Stevenson, whose Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde he finds especially relevant to his situation. (He mentions a Hyde-like flare at his daughter that brings both of them to tears.) Donlan's wife emerges in these pages as little shy of a saint. She seems to know what to say (and what not to) and what to do (and not do). The author shows her as a wise, loving, compassionate companion. We also meet some of his medical teamand fellow patientsespecially in a section near the end about his weeklong hospitalization for a series of infusions.In this poignant book, Donlan finds in curiosity, writing, and family the surest salves for the terror of chronic illness and mortality. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
