Breathing for a Living

by Laura Rothenberg  Wikipedia

Twenty-one-year-old Laura Rothenberg had always tried to live a normal life--even with lungs that betrayed her and a constant awareness that she might not live to see her next birthday. Like most people born with cystic fibrosis, the chronic disease that affects primarily the lungs, Laura struggled to come to grips with a life that had already been compromised in many ways. Sometimes healthy and able to attend school, other times hospitalized for weeks, Laura found solace in keeping a diary. In her writing, she could be open, honest, and irreverent, like the young person she was. Yet behind this voice is a penetrating maturity about her mortality, revealing a will and temperament that is fierce and insightful.

Also see: The Amazing Life of Laura by Andrew Solomon

Graphic Novels and Memoirs

Graphic novels are powerful educational instruments for patients, 
their families, medical professionals and students.  A list of these 
was compiled in 201? by . These books are in the broad genre of 
pathography. 

See: Graphic Novels and Memoirs. 

The Long Road Home

One Step at a Time by G.B. Trudeau

This is an amazing graphic novel.

Story synopsis: Former football star and coach Lieutenant DB, a military reservist,  gets his left leg blown off by an RPG whilst on patrol in a Humvee outside Fallujah. As he drifts in an out of consciousness he is Medevac’d to a field hospital for resuscitation.  From the field hospital ward he makes the call home to tell his wife he has lost a leg, quipping that the good news is that he is down to his ideal weight. So begins his journey home, via Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, where he is joined by his wife Boopsie, to Walter Reed Army Medical Center,  then to Fisher House and then home, where one gets the feeling that his journey is only just beginning. His stuggle to readjust to life as an ‘amp’ is counterpointed by excellent black humoured gags. He’s an ‘AK’ (above knee) so he gets the ‘cool’ hardware- a C-Leg that costs as much as a Lexus.

It has a sequel, that I haven't read ye called The War Within that is available online!

Graphic novels have the potential to tell a story really well. "The Long Road Home" is a valuable resource.

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Sick (2018)

by Porochista Khakpour

“Sick, A Memoir” appears to be an illness narrative of the chaos variety.  There are three types of illness narratives and they have been extensively dissected and discussed by Arthur Frank in “The Wounded Storyteller.”  Often, there are overlaps between the chaos, quest and restitution stories.  Chaos is the most disturbing and difficult story, because it can not be well articulated and leaves the witness uneasy.  We all prefer hearing about someone who overcame adversity and triumphed.  Hamlet asks. “Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer/The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?”  The chaos actor is adrift on the “sea of troubles” and can not make sense of what is happening.

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I have not read the book yet.  It will come out on Audible on 7/10/2018.

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