Helpful Score: 6
I read this book in four nights, right before bed. I tore through it like no other memoir before. This book, for me, was like reading my own parents' memoir. My father suffered a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) when I was four/five years old. Of course, so much of what was available to the author's husband was simply not around 45 years ago. I understand so much more why my father acted the way he did for the remaining 16 years of his life. This book is powerful. It is honest, raw, intense, lighthearted at times, funny, sad, well written and easy to read (though the subject matter is quite painful at times)⦠an all around excellent book. I am so glad that I read it, and plan to keep this one.
Helpful Score: 2
Well written account of author's life as a caregiver to brain-damaged husband. Shows caregiver side of life. Tells a lot about traumatic brain injury.
Helpful Score: 1
I read this book in four nights, right before bed. I tore through it like no other memoir before. This book, for me, was like reading my own parents' memoir. My father suffered a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) when I was four/five years old. Of course, so much of what was available to the author's husband was simply not around 45 years ago. I understand so much more why my father acted the way he did for the remaining 16 years of his life. This book is powerful. It is honest, raw, intense, lighthearted at times, funny, sad, well written and easy to read (though the subject matter is quite painful at times)⦠an all around excellent book. I am so glad that I read it, and plan to keep this one.
Very well-written account of the author's first year as caregiver to her brain-damaged husband. However, perhaps it's my background working in the civil court system, but I had a hard time accepting Crimmins' implication that there wasn't money for medical treatment aside from what their HMO would authorize. Granted she wasn't present at the accident, but beyond stating that "a woman driving a boat hit him", there's no further mention of the circumstances thereafter by her ... with one exception: she finds the claims adjuster for the woman's insurance company in Alan's hospital room shortly after the accident, and throws him out immediately. That said to me that there was a settlement, if not litigation (she does mention threatening to sue the HMO at one point), involved which she cannot discuss; presumably, there's treatment money forthcoming which she downplays here. The way she handles that aspect I found clumsily disingenuous; she's explicit - to the point of TMI for me at times - with the rest of the details.
That aside, I recommend the book for the caregiver aspect.
That aside, I recommend the book for the caregiver aspect.
