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| View Larger Image | Rediscovering My Inner Bitch: One Woman’s Journey through Being Diced, Spliced, and Transplanted | Paperbackby Arlene C. Swirsky (Author)
| List Price: | $16.95 | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | iUniverse, Inc. | | Page Count: | 188 Pages | | Publication Date: | September 05, 2007 | | Sales Rank: | 2,357,564nd |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
Ninety-two thousand people wait for transplants every day, and Arlene C. Swirsky was one of them from November 2001 until September 2003, a decade after she was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease. With a not-all-there elderly mother and a family simply trying to make life work, Swirsky finds herself engulfed by a confusing mixture of anxiety and guilt as she waits for a transplant organ. It isn’t easy, and it certainly isn’t pretty. As months become years, the waiting turns Swirsky into a new breed of modern woman, one prepared for all eventualities and all possible outcomes. Her inner bitch crawls out of hibernation to guide her—with questionable results, screaming failures, and, on the best of days, mighty miracles. With an unparalleled degree of honesty, humor, and vulnerability, Swirsky explores the gamut of thoughts and feelings that transplant patients cope with every day. Set against the lovely hills of central Massachusetts and the beaches of southern Maine, Rediscovering My Inner Bitch provides an unflinching glimpse into the soul of a woman waiting for someone to die so that she may live. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 2 reviews)
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Light at the end of a long tunnel by James M. Gleason (Beverly, NJ USA)  4 Stars
October 01, 2008
Don't say you weren't forewarned. The author delivers on her book title in spades, with strong language and weekly diary like descriptions of more pain and medical frustration than hopefully any reader will ever face in their own lives. With strong language and amazing humor, Arlene takes us on a journey that goes far beyond just a kidney transplant. She is challenged both before and after the transplant with an endless array of extremely painful and potentially life-threatening complications. Supported by family and medical teams which are often the butt of her humor, together they climb one mountain of challenge after another, often to find an even higher summit lies ahead. Sharing the daily trivia and more serious life events, the reader is drawn into feeling her pain and frustration time and time again. For four long years she endures depression and painful treatments of one ailment after another. While there are rays of sunshine amid the darkness, they seem too few and far between. Hers is not what I would consider a typical transplant experience, but then there wouldn't be a book to write if this was the norm.
While all's well that ends well, this is not a book for the lighthearted. If you have your own life and medical challenges, you may walk away from this reading feeling far better off for not having lived her experiences. At the same time you might feel inspired with how she uses her wit and "bitchiness" to get through an endless series of very painful and trying times, memories spiced with the usual family characters, idiosyncrasies and even household pets' medical complications to convey the daily reality of living a life through long term illness. Arlene allows the reader deep insight into her heart and mind, sharing the full range of human emotions which touch even more deeply when it comes to reflections about her deceased donor.
Everyone must find their own way in facing the challenges of daily life. In Arlene's case we find a unique inner strength that expresses itself in her self-proclaimed unconventional "bitchiness" that makes it possible for her to endure and eventually thrive beyond the days, months and four years of pain. For the medical professional reading her story, there is insight into the mind of what must have been a very challenging patient, but in that forcefulness those medical teams had a partner that refused to give up, a true survivor, and isn't that what it's all about? Given the character that comes across in this reading I find myself interested in going back and reading the author's first book, One Brief Shining Moment, to see how she wrote before all this physical pain. But as they say, that's another story for another time.
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Swirsky's Medical Oddessy by Winifred Bell (Palm Harbor, FL)  5 Stars
October 21, 2007
This book is for a select audience:those interested in medical details.
If you're one of those people who prefers not to know - not to read.
Swirsky writes a day-to-day diary of an incredibly complex medical situation and a grueling experience which has a relatively happy ending.
Her style is breezy and down to earth. The reader gets to know the author and admire her persistance. Ultimately she saves her own life.
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